Baby Steps

John is 19 1/2 months old now and has been going to physical therapy for about 7 months.  He's been making good progress.  Scott and I work with him walking between us and he usually won't take more than a step or a half step between us without holding on to someone.  He's been getting a lot more stable and a lot more confident.  Today when Scott got home he was able to take five or so steps in between us on his own.  He is getting better at correcting and stabilizing himself when he starts to get off balance.  So we were very excited for his progress today!  I tried to take some video, and got some of his steps - not as many as he was going off camera of course.  :)  It still might be a while til he initiates taking steps on his own, but I think this is helping him feel more confident.  I love his victory dance on this video!!  Way to go John!!
As a sidenote, Scott is wearing a boot thing on his foot because he broke his foot.  He broke it back in February but didn't find out it was broken til sometime in March.  They can't cast it or anything so he just wears the boot to take some pressure off the break and he isn't supposed to run or walk too much on it for a while.  Fun times!

A Nasty Bump

If you ask Matthew what happened to his cheek (notice the crescent shaped bruise on his cheek), he'll tell you he fell and hit his cheek on a bar of the treadmill.  Ouch!

What he won't tell you is that he was walking around the room with a large red blanket on his head (after I asked him to take that off) pretending to be a ghost.  And that he fell down, on purpose, in what he thought was the middle of the room.  But since he had a blanket on his head, he didn't realize he was right next to the treadmill when he purposely fell down.

But in any case, he got a really nasty bonk to his face.  It swelled up a lot and got very black and blue.  This happened on Monday, and of course, picture day was on Wednesday.  So his cheek was at maximum black-and-blueness by Wednesday.  Those will be some memorable pictures.  Poor Matthew.  He's also been a little sick this week, so its been a tough week for him.  Hope he feels better soon!

Hannibal

On our way home from Nauvoo we stopped in Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's childhood hometown and setting for some of his books.  I'm a fan of Mark Twain and have wanted to visit Hannibal for a long, long time.  So I was excited when we found out we were moving near St. Louis and would be able to visit.  Our first stop: the cave!  The cave is featured prominently in Tom Sawyer and had taken on a larger than life quality in my mind.  Walt Disney was also a fan of Mark Twain and to this day there is a Mark Twain Steamboat ride at Disneyland, along with Tom Sawyer's island which also has caves on it, in honor of the cave in Tom Sawyer.

This cave was discovered about 200 years ago and people have been going in it for about that long.

One famous visitor was Jesse James, who came here to hideout.  There is a signature of his on the wall that has been authenticated as actually his.  It was hard to get good pictures in the cave, but here are a few.

Our tour guide told us part of the story from Tom Sawyer of Tom and Becky getting lost in the cave and having a frightening encounter with Injun Joe (the villain of Tom Sawyer).  Sadly, this story scared Matthew and Anna a lot.  I didn't realize til after and I tried to tell them it was a fictional story.  A week or so later Anna still won't go into a room in our house by herself 'cause she says she is scared and thinking about the scary cave.  So I guess I underestimated how frightening that would be.  Hopefully she will feel better soon.  I made a copy of the Frozen soundtrack for her to listen to at night and that helped yesterday.

The cross on the ceiling below which Injun Joe buried his money.

After the tour.  See how my kids look scarred for life?

Then we went to the Mark Twain museum and homes

I liked this picture of Mark Twain

Old copies of Life in the Mississippi and Prince and the Pauper

One interesting thing I learned at the museum, that I should have guessed at, was that the character of Tom Sawyer was based on Mark Twain himself.  I always assumed he was based on some kid Mark Twain knew as a kid.  That blew my mind.

In Huck Finn's house (or the boy who inspired Huck Finn)

And in Samuel Clemens boyhood home (Mark Twain's real name)

Tom Sawyer/Mark Twain climbing out the window

Becky Thatcher's house (the girl who inspired Becky Thatcher).  She lived across the street from the Clemenses.  Next door to Becky's house was the office of Mark Twain's father who was a judge in the town.  So Mark Twain's father actually inspired Judge Thatcher.

In Becky's house

Posing as Tom and Becky

Mark Twain has so many great quotes. I like this one a lot.

Grant had his own store

I told Scott before we left I had to paint the fence.  :)

We all painted the fence

 By the Tom and Huck statue

We climbed up this little hill to a lighthouse overlooking the Mississippi River.  Scott didn't hike up 'cause he recently broke his foot and has been having knee problems.  And he watched John in the car while the rest of us walked up.  There were 216 steps (according to Matthew who counted) and Grant (almost three) walked up all of them on his own.  He asked to be carried on the way down.

At the top.  Anna was disappointed when we got to the top.  She said, "We walked up all those stairs and all that was there was one locked lighthouse!"  She didn't care much for the view, I guess.

Here we are at another part of the museum that highlighted some of his books.

Lots of pictures.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Roughing It

Dressing up western style

Innocents Abroad (I think)

Huckleberry Finn

 Tom Sawyer

If you pressed a button on each brush it showed something that a kid gave to Tom for the privilege of painting the fence.  Also at the Tom Sawyer display was a little cave to walk through, which Anna wouldn't go in 'cause she was remembering the real cave.   Sorry Anna!

The kids loved looking at the Steamboat display

It talked about the meaning of Mark Twain, which I'd heard before.  It's a Mississippi River term. "Mark twain" means "mark number two." It meant the second mark on the line that measured depth - each mark was one fathom or six feet - so two was twelve feet - a safe depth of the river for a steamboat.  Mark Twain was a steamboat pilot for a little while.

And some other pictures.

The museum had some real Norman Rockwell paintings of Tom Sawyer.  I like this one especially.  So it was fun to visit Hannibal, and I hope my kids will recover soon from the scarring trip to the cave.  I enjoyed it a lot.  We got a recommendation from a local for a restaurant called Labinnah (Hannibal backwards), but we didn't get a chance to go.  So maybe if we go again.

Nauvoo

 

The kids have spring break this week so we decided to go to Nauvoo, Illinois for a few days.  Nauvoo is only about three hours from where we live.  Scott took a couple days off work.  Nauvoo was the headquarters of the LDS church from 1839 to 1846 just before they went west to Utah, and now there is a temple there and a lot of historic buildings.  We had a rough ride up there - lots of traffic, one bout of vomiting, and the GPS sending us off on some unpaved roads - but we made it.  We drove by the temple in the evening when we got there.

 Then we went to dinner - we got to see an impromptu St. Patrick's Day parade at dinner.

 We went to our hotel (in Iowa - my 41st state visited!!) and went swimming!

The kids were so excited to swim.

 The next day we checked out the visitor center in Nauvoo.  

The kids loved the big 3D map of Nauvoo.  I like maps!  

We also watched a movie about Nauvoo in the visitor center.

We went on a carriage ride...a very cold carriage ride.  It was probably about 40 degrees with a brisk wind off the river.  It made the trials of the early church members seem that much more real to me.  We bundled up in lots of blankets for our carriage ride around a lot of the historical buildings.

 Grant and I trying to keep warm

 The river.  Some shallow parts of the river were still frozen!!

 And a view of the temple while on the carriage

 Saying hi to the horses after our ride

 We learned about making rope and the kids got to make one of their own.

 More rope making

 We learned about pottery

 Weaving rugs.  The kids thought this machine was fascinating!  We also learned about making bread (and got to try some fresh made bread) and visited the bakery and got gingerbread cookies.

 Matthew learning about how to be "running water"

 And Anna

This was in the post office

 At the school house

The kids liked writing on their slates

 And Anna got to ring the school bell

And brickyard.  We learned about making bricks and got our own souvenir Nauvoo brick.  Grant and John were very unruly during the brick presentation.  And Grant was disappointed he didn't get a brick of his own.  I'm afraid of what he would do with it though.

 By the brick oven

We also visited the wainwright (making wagon wheels) and the blacksmith.  We had to cut our blacksmith visit a little short 'cause we had another wagon ride to go on (a different one).  But the kids each got a "prairie diamond" ring, which I think is a horseshoe tack or nail made into a ring.  They all loved their "treasures."

On another carriage ride.  The first one took us around the historical buildings and this second one took us more out in the country to the north.  It was slightly warmer this time but still cold.

 Grant and John both fell asleep on the ride

 Visiting with our horses afterward

 The Nauvoo Temple

They built a temple here in the 1800s but it was destroyed and has only recently been rebuilt by the LDS church.  They tried to make it close to the original.

 It was windy

We also made the short drive to Carthage, Illinois to see the Carthage Jail - a place made famous in mormon history because Joseph Smith, and his brother Hyrum, were shot and killed there.  A statue of the two brothers.

 Inside the jail

 The room they were in when they were shot

The bullet holes are still in the door

 And the window Joseph Smith fell out after being shot

It's a very well known story in LDS history so it was very special to see it in person.  

There was definitely a somber spirit to the room.

 The window (upper) from the outside.

 And after all our siteseeing we had burgers and ice cream.

 And all was well

We also went swimming again later.

John was kind of frustrated during some of our adventures today.  He SO wanted to get down and walk around with the other kids.  Maybe that will fuel him to get walking here soon.  Go John!

So Nauvoo was very cool.  I would recommend it to non LDS friends too 'cause the historical village and rides and things are all really fun for kids.  And its all free.  I liked being there in the off season too 'cause it wasn't crowded, even though there is more open during the summer...we just had to brave the chilly wagon rides.  But I might actually prefer that to the hot, humid Illinois summer.  I speak from experience here.  :)