Nauvoo

So we survived our 3000 plus miles roadtrip to Nauvoo. I gotta say I was expecting the absolute worst considering I don't ever go anywhere with the twins, but it actually turned out to be really amazing. I mean it was still really hard work, but I was so glad that we went. The first day we got up early and made our way to Denver. It ended up taking us about 14 hours to get there. This was the first time we got a feel for how the twins would be in the car. They cried ALOT. I was really nervous that our trip was going to be a lot of crying haha. But we made it. We stayed with Crystal and Andy and it was really fun to see them. We left the twins and Demry one day and took the older boys to meet up with the Earl cousins at Water world. It was so fun and I was so appreciative of Crystal being willing to take the twins. When we got home that evening she told me she didn't know how I did it every day. Twins are hard. I don't know why, but it was kinda nice to hear it from someone else who hadn't experienced it before. It seems like people are always saying how hard it must be (or not be) but they don't really know if they don't have twins. It was like I needed some validation or something haha.
After a couple days we headed to Independence. This day was by far the best drive. I sat in the back with the twins and we didn't even stop until 3pm. They did really good. The drive ended up taking us like 9 or 10 hours I think. We stayed at a hotel with all the cousin and the kids all got to sleep in rooms with each other. They loved it. We visited the LDS visitors center, Liberty jail, some of the community of Christ church stuff, the grave sties, farwest, and Adam ondi ahman. All of it was amazing. Then we headed to Nauvoo and spent a couple days doing all of that including Carthage Jail. I think the highlight was being able to go and do sealings in the temple. Everyone else did an endowment session and Jared and I just couldn't work it out to get there and then at the last minute Nena took all the kids and we went and did sealings so that we could finish the same time as the rest of the group. I am so glad we did it. I kept getting the strongest impression that we needed to go and when we went the spirit was so strong. The two witnesses in the room were talking with us and one of the men had a family just like ours...3 boys, a girl, and then identical twin girls. His twins are in their 30's now. He was telling us stories and giving us great advice. The other witness had identical twins sisters. It was so fun and special to talk with them. Then the man doing the sealings kept talking about the great sacrifice we were making by going to the temple, and how we would receive such great blessings by being such good examples to our children. Then He came and found us after and shared a scripture with us and it was exactly what I needed to hear. I knew we had been prompted to go and be there in the temple that day. After carthage jail we ended the day with a pie eating contest for all the kids. It was hilarious.
 We started to make our way back home and decided to stop in Utah for a couple days to break up the drive. I am so glad we did. We stayed with Corbin and Kelsie and it was really nice to catch up with them. And then the majority of the Frogley group were staying at Nathan and Hailey's just down the street. The kids had so much fun seeing all those cousins and it was nice to relax and have some down time. Overall I felt like the trip was a success. The twins were even teething the whole trip and got two teeth each! They were troopers. They really didn't like the stoller, but it was ok because we had tons of people that wanted to hold them so when we were out exploring all the sites they were for the most part happy because they were being held. They finally realized that the only way they were going to get to sleep was if they gave in and just fell asleep in your arms so it worked! I walked away feeling like If I can do a trip like this with the twins then I can do anything haha!