Girls' Trip

Last Monday was SO MUCH FUN!!!! My Lincoln Home friends Crystal, Melissa, and I took a girls' trip to Nauvoo! Crystal and Melissa are so nice, and we have all become really great friends. They are two of about four nice people left working at the Lincoln Home--so we nice people have to stick together. One day Melissa told me that she has become obsessed with Mormons because she watches the show "Big Love." My first thought was, "Oh no." But luckily she realized that "Big Love" is not about how Mormons really are, and she's been reading books to try to find out the truth about Mormons. She said, "Would you take me to Nauvoo sometime?" You don't have to ask me twice to go to Nauvoo!

We began our day at Baxter's Winery--because Crystal and Melissa like wine :-) And, besides Mormons, Nauvoo is famous for wine. They offered a "winery tour" there which we were pretty excited about, but the tour ended up just being two rooms that you walk through on your own. It was funny. Crystal and Melissa were happy that they could buy some wine there.

Then we went into town and saw all of the Nauvoo highlights. We started at Brigham Young's house. The tour was really good, but Crystal and Melissa felt a little weird when the sister missionary asked them if they wanted to fill out a piece of paper and have a Book of Mormon brought to them. Luckily I was wearing my BYU jacket, so most people just assumed that all three of us were Mormons :-) We then went to the Visitor Center and saw my favorite movie ever: "Remembering Nauvoo." I think that movie really captures the spirit of Nauvoo, and Crystal and Melissa loved it.

I was hoping that we could go on the wagon tour of Nauvoo, but all of the tickets for that were sold out. So, we ended up on the carriage tour to Inspiration Point. The carriage tour takes you back through the woods, and the missionaries leading the tour talk about some of the people who lived on the outskirts of town. At one point when we stopped out in the middle of the woods and the missionaries started singing "I am a Child of God," Melissa leaned over to me and said, "Have we been kidnapped?" :-) I had to explain a few things to them, but I think all-in-all it went really well. After the carriage tour we went and saw the Joseph Smith Homestead, the Mansion House, and the Red Brick Store.

We even saw Elder Holland walking down the street! When I saw him, I did a double-take and said, "Oh! There's Elder Holland." They said, "Who is Elder Holland?" I explained the Quorum of the Twelve to them, and they wanted to get a picture taken with him, but he looked like he was in a hurry. He kind of almost hit us with his car when we were crossing the street :-)

It was a beautiful day in Nauvoo, and it was fun to have friends with me who had a lot of questions. We all had a great time, and we ended our day with a delicious catfish buffet at Grandpa John's Cafe. On our way home we had to make a detour over to Keokuk, Iowa, because Melissa had never been to Iowa before. It was a great day! Last night Greg and I had our friends David and Teal over for dinner. Chef Greg whipped up some delicious pesto chicken Parmesan, three cheese tortellini, and glazed carrots. We're lucky to have really nice friends here!

Luck o' the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I haven't had any problems with getting pinched today--since my entire uniform is various shades of green. I did, however, take a great risk by wearing my green "Luck of the Irish" socks (not NPS standard wear) today. But, that luck must have been with me, as I did not get in trouble. I recently got in trouble for using the word "yes" too much at work. I was told that the only time I can say "yes" is when answering a question. Would they rather that I say "no" to everything? I guess so. 'Tis a strange, strange place, this Lincoln Home. The Lincolns had two Irish girls who worked at their home as "hired girls," so that's kind of St. Patrick's Day-ish, and the Irish Brigade played an important role in the Civil War. I am feeling very Irish today. Soon I will post pictures from the fun trip that my ranger friends Crystal, Melissa, and I took to Nauvoo on Monday--it was awesome!

Twilight Zone

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my gallbladder surgery. Greg said, "That's been a year already?" I said, "It's only been a year?" :-) Life without a gallbladder is good, except sometimes I don't digest fatty foods very well--but I guess that's a good reason to not eat a lot of fatty foods!

Last night and this morning turned into a "twilight zone" experience for me. I was getting ready for bed last night, and then I noticed that Tiger Lily's kitty bed (which looks like a kitty--it has a head and tail) was not in its usual spot in front of our closet. I figured that Greg had put it somewhere, so I asked him where it was. He said he didn't know, but I thought he was kidding. He said that he really didn't know where it was. So we started looking all over the house for it, and at one point I wondered if it had sprouted legs (to go along with its head and tail) and walked off! Finally Greg found it way under out bed--and the tail was wet. We figured out that Big Spike had dragged Lily's bed under our bed and had been chewing on the tail. Silly Spike! One mystery solved, but there was more to come. This morning the alarm went off at 6:30. Greg got up and took the dogs outside, but then realized that it was still dark. He also realized that all of the other clocks in the house said 5:30. Switching on and off daylight savings time is weird enough anyway, but when your clock does it automatically A DAY EARLY, that really messes with your brain! At least we're not switching to daylight savings--because then the clock would have gone back an hour and made me late for work. So that was weird, but then when I went downstairs for breakfast, Lily was sitting by the back door, looking outside, and CLUCKING! She seriously sounded like a chicken. I thought, "What is going on here?!" She was watching a bird outside, and Greg and I think that maybe clucking is her way of hunting prey. She also twitches her tail when she clucks--it's really quite funny. She could become the Cadbury Cat, like the Cadbury Bunny!

Cabin Fever

For some reason this Travelocity commercial CRACKS ME UP! I love it. I think it is because winter gives me cabin fever. I often find myself singing the gnome's song to myself when I'm at the Lincoln Home.

More Progress

Here is our living room with fireplace and dining room area (notice you can see the pink wall in the kitchen!) when we first bought the condo. It felt pretty dark and enclosed with the brown walls, and when we added the lighter paint, it really opened up the rooms. The "after" pictures below give you a better idea of how the living/dining room area is laid out.

In the first picture you can't really see the tile work Greg did around the base of the fireplace, but it is awesome (I'll take a close-up when it's finished)! The clutter on the fireplace includes the materials we will use to finish the fireplace tile (we just need to do edges and grout) and the main floor bathroom tile, so that will all be cleaned up soon. You can also see our wonderful new couch--thank you for the great Christmas present, Mom and Dad Taylor! It is so comfy, and it makes the condo feel a lot more like home.

Then we have our nice dining area. The red walls in the kitchen are much more pleasant to look at than the pink ones. (Pictures of the kitchen will be coming soon). The animal children (especially Lily) also love our new couch, and we've had fun watching TV and movies in our new living room. We had boxes piled high on the dining room table for a while, but now we can actually eat there, which is good. Things are really coming together. Now we just need to get some doors for the laundry area, finish the downstairs bathroom, clean up a little more, and we'll be done!