The Nauvoo Pageant! Part 1

In the middle of July, we took our family to Nauvoo, Illinois, to participate in the Nauvoo pageant.
On our way to the pageant, we spent some time in Omaha, Nebraska.  I wanted to visit the Winter Quarters LDS temple which we had never been to before.  We also visited Pioneer Courage Park in downtown Omaha.

We arrived in Nauvoo on Sunday afternoon so we could go to our orientation that evening.  The pageant is performed for 4 weeks every summer and we were to be the performing cast for the 3rd week.  The core cast of about 22 people is there the whole time and 4 rotating family casts make up the rest of the cast.  There were about 135 people in the family cast during our week.

We learned the pageant the first week which meant about 6 hours of rehearsal per day (4 hours in the morning usually on stage, 2 hours in the afternoon in the air-conditioned Pageant Building).

After the afternoon rehearsal, we got dressed in our costumes, ate dinner, then went to a company meeting at 6pm for a devotional.  The meeting ended at 6:30pm and we went to the country fair to run our assignments.  This year we were assigned to the stilts.  I really love the country fair but I have to admit the stilts got a little overwhelming at times with all the teenagers who wanted to try them out.  Plus I was pretty tired from the hours of rehearsal earlier in the day.

Meeting the Blue Cast on the first Monday we were there

District meeting happened about halfway through our morning rehearsal.  It was held in the Grove right next to the stage and was a welcome relief from the heat.  We got frozen Otter Pops plus other snacks that people brought.  We were in the Partridge district with Kristy and Nate Stephens' family.  Our district leaders were Daniel Wallentine and David Muncie.

One thing that Camille enjoyed was the break from the more boring adult meetings where she had activities as part of Family Support:

 A very memorable part of the pageant was this huge wind and rainstorm that came through one afternoon in the middle of our first week.  Fortunately we were in the pageant building for a rehearsal and they had us go to the middle of that building in case it became a tornado.  Here are a few pictures of the damage done to the pageant grounds.  They were able to clean up the mess and the pageant went on that night as scheduled.

Here we are crowded into the Family Support room during the storm.

We were staying at Camp Nauvoo in a "tiny house" and we lost our electricity that night as a result of the storm.  Many branches broke off of trees and one large branch toppled an electical pole.