Chicago with the Frerichs

After a few false starts and a day's delay, Janyse, Jackson and Taryn met up with us in Chicago, where Dennis had a conference to attend. Janyse and Taryn pose for us.

Gwen, Taryn, Jackson and Jeff, along with the critters from the Rainforest Cafe that the children now treasure!

We had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, complete with animals that moved, snorted, and generally kept Jackson and Taryn entertained.

The Rainforest mascot is a frog named Cha Cha. A large Cha Cha came around to visit folks at their tables.
Our visit with the kids was much too short. Let's do it again another time!

Salsa, Beans & Pickles

I suppose when canning season is over, I'll use the same hours to do my Math 110 course--and I'll be able to finish it in less than a month! That is to say, I am spending many hours a day picking, washing and processing the produce from our garden.

I've made about 30 or 35 batches of fresh salsa, and there for a while I was bringing in a huge Tupperware bowl (That's-A-Bowl!) of tomatoes each day, and had a previous one completing the ripening process. We had a couple of days of rain and cooler weather, so it has slowed for the moment.

Each day we pick a couple of jars worth of green beans, and I wait until I have a complete batch to put them through the pressure canner.

And finally, a friend gave me lots of pickling cucumbers that were allowed to grow to a HUGE size. So for this year, I'm trying them already cut. We'll see how that works.

Good healthy food--but exhausting!

Nauvoo Pageant

Here are some Not So Good pictures, rather grainy, taken in the dark, from too great a distance. But I wanted to give some kind of idea what the Nauvoo Pageant is all about. The shots are rather random, since I kept seeing more I wanted to share.

The pageant begins with the Bagpipers escorting the colors onto the stage. Then the audience joins the Nauvoo Brass Band in singing the National Anthem.
Deep into the storyline, there is a time of peace and quiet, in which Brother Joseph invites Sister Emma to dance (just the beginning of a really fun dance sequence, but my camera is JUST TOO SLOW to capture the Scottish Highland as performed by Robert & Becky Laird!)

Of course, Nauvoo started as a swampland. Here King Follett and Charles Makepeace have been working on the drainage ditches--and I managed to capture a stage hand about to close the canal so that folks in the next scene won't fall into the hole.

When Joseph is in peril, Robert Laird and King Follett offer to take turns guarding the Prophet's home. But when they overhear the prayer of young George Fordham, son of Elijah Fordham, Joseph sends the pair home, telling them that "God has heard the prayer of this boy."

After telling Hyrum that Nauvoo is the loveliest place and the best people under the heaven, Joseph and his brother walk from the stage, in the direction of Carthage.

Really out of Sequence, Robert Laird asks Parley P. Pratt for just ONE MOMENT of his time. Parley offers him, TWO, and Robert confesses that he is a "wee bit interested" in what his wife believes, but doesn't want to tell her--that would open the "floodgates" that could never be closed again.

This is the Temple after the Saints finish it--at least as the prop department constructs it. It is wonderful to watch the fabric panels rise, and the cupola lifts from behind it. However, we all know, it will be only a short time before it is demolished and the site plowed under and made into a pasture.

Oh, how many more things I'd love to share. But perhaps this is enough to make you want to come and see the Pageant yourself.

One of Marci's roommates, Jenny, is serving as a YPM (Young Performing Missionary) for the summer. She plays instruments in the Nauvoo Brass Band. Yea Jenny! And what tremendous music they play as the crowd waits for the Pageant to start.

Finally, after the performance is over, the cast mingles with the audience. I was able to catch Robert Laird and Joseph Smith together and get a closeup of them. Both the actors who play these parts are single young men--and they are surrounded by young ladies everywhere they go!