Nauvoo Day 3: Shows to Watch

So... Back from the edge of the earth, here is the next Nauvoo post...

I highly recommend visiting Nauvoo in the summertime because it's a land of no end of educational and spiritual entertainment! Lots of stories to enjoy and music to hear, tours to take and missionaries to admire! To mention a few...

The Wagon Rides: pulled by two horses, a tour of historical Nauvoo and the sites around the town. Here is Xochitl showing off the temple on the hill

The kids all loved getting friendly with the horses before and after the tour. 

 Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo: a great performance featuring the senior missionaries and a quick cameo appearance of the Young Performing Missionaries. Performed in the historic Masonic or Cultural Hall on Main Street.  All who attended loved it!

 After Rendezvous, the matching girls posed on the stage for pictures! So dang cute!

Just Plain Anna-Amanda: A kid-focused show with a puppet show at the beginning and plenty of little-kid fun! This is the one my kids talk about the most! Xochitl got this cute idea to have the star YPM (Young Performing Missionary) autograph her Nauvoo journal. Sis. S. was flattered and obliged like a good little superstar.  :)

 Little Nathan got pulled up on stage for the closing number. He's still beaming from the experience :)

 The Young Performing Elders! Larry and Isaac were very taken by them!

 A new feature in Nauvoo entertainment: The trail of Hope. On two evenings during the week, the YPMs stand at selected placards down Parley St. heading to the Mississippi river.  At each stop, they tell the story of a family or a person who walked down that road and crossed the river to begin the trek to Salt Lake City with the Latter-Day Saints.  It was amazing--though we paid the price the next day keeping the kids up late...

 Sunset by the Mississippi was phenomenally done! This is the children's parade before the show began! I was glad to notice the marching song was exactly the same as the one we played 9 years ago... and part of the history of the song had been lost. I happily filled them in on the details: that the song was originally written for a TV commercial for a children's bouncing toy and it had lyrics about a bouncing kangaroo and everything! The sister missionary here with Xochitl was thrilled and tickled at such a prospect and they all immediately began learning the words as they were marching around. I loved it!