Fun Things to Do in Nauvoo

This is the brickyard in Nauvoo. There were actually quite a few brickyards in Nauvoo during its heyday. The tour guides here show you the process the people went through to make bricks and they gave us an imprinted brick for a keepsake. It's just amazing how long it takes to make bricks and yet most of the houses were made from them, so you can imagine the time it took to build their houses!
This is Main Street in Nauvoo. The building closest is the Printing Office. Next door is John Taylor's house - he was the editor of the paper. Across the street is the Browing Gunsmith shop. We visited these places on our last trip to Nauvoo in 1999, so we didn't go inside again. There's just so much to see!
This is the Red Brick Store, owned by Joseph Smith. All of the Smith properties, including the Nauvoo House, are closed to the public except by guided tour from the Community of Christ Visitor's Center. Since we didn't have time to go through their Visitor's Center, we just took outside photos. If we ever go back, this is the one thing I'd still like to do - go through those places.
Here's a picture of the Nauvoo House.This is the Smith Homestead. The original cabin is the small one attached at the rear of the bigger frame house (on the right). Joseph Smith Sr, Lucy Mack Smith, their unmarried children, Joseph and Emma (and their children) all lived here until other residences could be built. After Joseph and Emma moved into the Mansion House, his mother and father continued to live here. Behind the house to the right are the monuments to Joseph, Emma and Hyrum. There are also new headstones for Joseph's mother and father, although I don't know if they're actually buried there. This is the Mansion House where Joseph and Emma Smith lived.

After dinner, we went back to the temple grounds to get some more pictures with Grant, since he was in a lot better mood after having something to eat. He picked some of the flowers.
And had to show them to everyone and make sure we all smelled them. The statue in the background is of Joseph and Hyrum on their way to Carthage, where they passed the temple site and looked back over the city of Nauvoo for the last time. It's a really neat statue.
Here's my boy posing!! I had him help me count when I was ready to take the picture so he would stay still long enough to get a good shot.
Here's a really nice shot of the front of the temple. At the LDS Visitors Center, there is a memorial garden that's a tribute to women. There are a whole bunch of statues there that show the different stages of womenhood. Grant had some fun with the statues. He got right up on this one and had to hold hands with the little girl. Then he went right up to the dad and held his hands, and then stood even closer and looked up at his face for a minute, very cute!! Then he had to give a hug to the little girl. She was just the right height.
He played ring around the rosie with this group of kids...
Oh, and there's a baby for him to give another hug to...
Finally, he wanted to sit up on this Grandma's lap. So funny!!! I still wonder if he thought they were real people that just hold really still. There are tons of statues of Joseph Smith all around Nauvoo and Grant got to where he recognized him and said 'Saseph' (or something like that) when he'd see one. After a full day of sightseeing, this is how Grant unwound with Grandma.