Vacation 2013: Day 9 and 10 - Temples

The day after Christmas started out with a little get together with my high school friends at my parent's house.  Before I moved we'd been trying to get together about every 6 months or so.  Since I was in town it was a good time to meet up.  I asked everyone to come to my parents so I could easily put Veronica down for a nap if she needed one.  It turned out to be good for all my other kids too because I'm pretty certain they would have mutinied if I'd tried to take them to one more house.

Brandon, Billy, and my parents made themselves scarce so us girls could be ourselves.  I think it's interesting that even though high school was 10 years ago we all act pretty much the same.  Sure we've grown up a lot and taken on lots of responsibilities, but we are still the same people.  

After the get together, Brandon and I somehow managed to talk the kids back into the car and drive to downtown Salt Lake City to Temple Square.  My parents came with us and we met up with Brandon's parents so they could spend more time with their grandchildren.

Our first stop was the North Visitors Center to see the giant Christis Statue.  The statue is in a room with lots of clouds, stars, and planets painted on the wall.  Charlotte said, "I'm in space!" when she walked in.  

Derrick was in a silly mood and would fall on the floor and pose for the camera.  He never did this before we came to Utah.  He'd started doing it for my Dad who loves to take pictures.

Then we went outside and looked at the life size manger scene.  It's more impressive at night when it is all lit up, but I wanted to avoid the crowds and the cold.  My memories of visiting Temple Square as a child are of freezing and not being able to see anything because there were too many people.  I didn't want my kids to have those same memories.

The Salt Lake Temple looked beautiful in the afternoon sunlight.

We walked by the tabernacle and Billy wanted the kids to go inside.  This is where he usually preforms as a member of the Orchestra at Temple Square.  I hadn't been inside the tabernacle since I sang in the Young Women's General Broadcast when I was 12.  A sister missionary stood up at the pulpit and demonstrated the acoustic qualities of the building.  She tore a piece of paper and dropped a pin and we head the sounds all the way in the back.  I've always wanted to be there for one of those demonstrations.

Then we headed over to the Deseret Book Store window.  On the way Derrick had to jump over every crack in the sidewalk.

Deseret Book has a different display every year.  This year it was a candy cane maker that also shot parachutes.  I'm not sure how those two things are related, but it was cleverly titled "The Candy Bomber."  The kids had lots of fun shooting parachutes with Bestemor.

Then we walked over to the temple.  I took the girls up the stairs so they could see the ornate door knobs.

They wanted to go into the little alcove where brides and grooms take pictures.  They called it a "hiding spot."

All this time Veronica was warm, happy, and awake inside her carseat mounted to the umbrella stroller.

The temple was very pretty.  One of the reasons I wanted to come to Temple Square was so the girls would know they have been there when they see pictures of it.

The lights came on at 5:00 while we were on the plaza.  As always they were really pretty.

Jacque took Lydia around to look at all the nativity scenes from different countries.  Steve stayed with Charlotte who was lagging behind to look at the water.

I started getting extra cold so we all joined back up for a photo.

We would have gone inside, but Brandon and I wanted the girls to see "the red tree."  This was my favorite tree to look at when I would come see the lights as a little girl.

I would have liked to take the kid to see "the pink trees" by the assembly hall, but it was too cold to walk all the way over there.  We'll have to do that again when they can walk faster.  We went inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and looked at Temple Square from the 10th floor windows.

We also stopped to look at the giant Christmas Tree in the lobby.

Then we went to the Mezzanine Level so everyone could sit down.  I brought candy canes as a treat for everyone to eat while we hung out up there.

There were some risers set up for the different choral groups that preform during the day during December.  The kids played on those.  Charlotte and Lydia surprised me by pretending to conduct music with the music stand that was there.  I joined then and we pretended to be in a choir together.

Then we went home and put the kids to bed.  Billy, Brandon, and I went to see Catching Fire.  It was a belated birthday date for Brandon, but we let Billy tag along.  The movie was awesome.  I didn't really care for the first Hunger Games movie so I was blown away by how good this one was.  It just goes to show what a good director can do.

Friday was the 10th day of our vacation.  Normally by this point we would be back home.  But we were barely halfway through the trip.  We planned it as a down day for everyone.  I knew the kids were pretty sick of going places.  So we let them stay home while Billy, Brandon and I went to a session at that Bountiful Temple.

 Originally we'd planned to attend the temple with some of our friends from the branch.  11 of our friends went through the temple after Brandon went to basic training.  I was able to be there for some of those sessions, but I missed out on others.  Brandon missed them all.  We thought it would be cool to go as friends to the temple.

Well instead we ended up running behind (we were progressively later and later to everything as our vacation went on) and missed the 1:00 endowment session that we had planned on.  We made it to the temple in time for the 2:00 session, but it was full of family members attending with people receiving their endowments for the first time.  So we didn't get in until 2:30.  I was pretty annoyed that we had to wait for so long.  But as soon as our session (finally) started I was filled with the peace of the temple.

The closest temple to us in Texas is in San Antonio which is about 2 1/2 hours away.  We haven't been able find time/babysitters to be able to make a trip down there to attend the temple.  So this was the first time we were able to go to the temple in over a year.  I'm glad we made the time to go while we were in Utah.  I'm especially glad we went to the Bountiful Temple.  This was the temple we were married in 6 1/2 years ago.  I think it's safe to say that it is my favorite.

If you want to know more about LDS temples click here.

The kids had fun with my parents.  They made popcorn and watched the 1960's live action version of Cinderella.

My mom vacuumed for Derrick.

After we came home from the temple Billy and Brandon made dinner.  My aunt Vera come over to see us and to show off her electric car - a Nissan Leaf.  She took us for a ride in it.  That little thing has some get up and go!  Brandon and I thought it was so cool!  We would love to get an electric car if they made ones that seat 6 people (right now the Leaf is the biggest one and it seats 5).

Vera played with all my kids.  They were pretty tired to begin with, but she wore them out the rest of the way.  They went to sleep so easily.