July was busy.

Not so much the entire month I guess...mostly the first week and a half or so.
My little brother got married on July 1st in Nauvoo, so my entire family came to town for that, it was so fun having so many of us together! My brother Silas and his family stayed at our house, it was fun. Our kids combined were actually not as crazy as I was anticipating, and I love that our house is big enough that we could easily have them stay with us.

We headed up to Nauvoo the day before the wedding and shared a rental condo with my other brother, Josiah, and his family. The boys love (love, love!) being surrounded by cousins! We got to hang out the night before and then do some touristy Nauvoo things before the wedding. We took the boys to the Brick Yard, which was sadly un-manned so we didn't get to do the tour. But we took pictures and told the boys a little about brick making ourselves. (You know, because we've totally done that...ha)

We also went through the Family Living Center, where they have several different stations set up that you get like a 10-15 minute tour of each thing. We learned how the pioneers made yarn and their own clothes, bread (and other baked goods), candles and we even got to help make rope. Avery was especially excited because we got to bring home the rope that we made.

 We met a group of our family down at the Mississippi river and let the kids run around for a bit. There were so many bugs by the river that between that and the rocks that were being thrown in the river (Jack's never quite made it the right direction so I was nervous for everyone standing near!) we didn't stay long. So we all headed over to the Pioneer Past-times area. The kids all loved dressing up as pioneers and playing games the pioneer children played.