Our four month blogging hiatus is finally over!

Well, it has been entirely too long, so we have finally decided to update you on the last four months of our lives. Over spring break, we headed down to Nauvoo for a few days. Some friends of ours offered to let us stay in their summer home for the three days we were there. The house was located just three blocks from the temple and it was cool to feel like a local for a few days.
This is a relatively new sculpture of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in front of the temple overlooking the Mississippi River. This was actually right at the end of our trip when the sun finally came out. The rest of the trip was extremely cold and windy. Now we know what those early settlers went through and especially the pioneers who had to travel during the winter.
The temple is extremely beautiful and impressive. We were able to attend a session on Saturday night and the inside of the temple was very unique. What a huge sacrfice it must have been to build the original one and then to leave it right after it was finished.
As I said it was extremely cold while we were there. We went on a carriage ride around town while senior missionaries told us stories about some of the church members who lived in Nauvoo. It was a fun ride and we were thankful to have the blankets.
This is the spot at the end of the Trail of Hope where early Church members crossed the Mississippi River. The Trail of Hope is the path down Parley Street where all of the wagons traveled en route to the west. This is the trail which President Hinckley encouraged every church member to walk down if they have a chance.

Contrary to popular belief, most of the early saints traveled on barges across the river starting on February 4, 1845. It was only on one bitter cold day of -33 degrees that they were able to cross on the ice.
Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma are all buried next to each other. Other family members are also buried at this site, known as the Homestead, where Joseph and Emma first lived in Nauvoo. This area is owned by the Community of Christ church.
The old downtown section of Nauvoo is really cool. The Church has restored many of the original homes and has also restored many of the shops including the location where the wagons were constructed. The senior missionaries were always excited to see us and explained a lot about how the early saints built wagons, made shoes, and made guns.
This picture was taken in the John Taylor home. We were told a cool story about how John Taylor crossed the river back to Nauvoo to retrieve this toy horse for his son who had been crying for several days over it.
This picture was taken in front of the Wilford Woodruff home. No, I (Ryan) am not pregnant, I just have some gloves in my pockets. Below is a picture of Candice standing on Robinson Street. We are not entirely sure which Robinson it is named after, but we believe it is Ebenezer Robinson, Candice's great, great, great, great, great, great uncle who ran the first printing office in Nauvoo and helped in the printing of the third edition of the Book of Mormon.
Those of you who know me well will know of my great love for the movie, "Rudy." Candice was kind enough to let me stop at the University of Notre Dame on our way back from Nauvoo to pay homage at the mecca of inspirational sports movies. Josh, I hope you see this one.
On our way down to Nauvoo, we thought we'd stop at one of the beaches on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. It was spring break after all. It was windy and there were ice chunks floating in the lake, not exactly an escape from the cold Michigan winter.
Candice: Yay, this is my fun new hair cut. I decided to go short.
Ryan: She looks hot!
Speaking of the cold, bitter, miserable Michigan winter... here is the inside of our sliding glass door. It got so cold that we had ice all the way around the inside of the door.
Here's the whole crew with Chris on the day he entered the MTC. It was great to see how excited and ready he was and I think both of us had a great experience reminiscing about our own experiences in the Sao Paulo MTC. Speaking of which, we are going to Brasil in May!

May 10 through May 27 will be pure bliss in paradise.
We had a really great time hanging out with the family. We had the whole place to ourselves that night and we got to see Pam and Curtis dance and I even let out a pig squeal or two.


Ice skating with the family and Alan and Katie. Chase skated like a champ for his first time trying it.
It was great spending Christmas with family again this year.
Coronado Island is beautiful.
We went to Balboa Park. It was a beautiful day. Here we are with our friend Snouty the elephant.
Ryan surprised me with tickets to wicked for our anniversary....doesn't Ryan look so classy in his zip up ski jacket?
This was our spectacular anniversary dinner that I slaved over all day! Literally! I spent about 4 hours preparing chicken cordon blue, candied yams, rissoto rice, and corn on the cob. And to top it off, martinellis to drink:)
This picture is kinda old, but this was back on halloween. We took our class downtown and they went trick-or-treating from shop to shop. Isn't my class adorable?!