Oquirrh Mountain Temple

I must say that we Utahns have been a bit spoiled this year, as we have had two new temples in the last year, along with their accompanying open houses and dedications. It's so fun to watch the temples being built, and then especially fun to be able to take our children to the open house before they are dedicated. After years of singing, "I love to see the temple, I'll go inside someday", they finally get to, even if it is just a look around. :)

Ellie and I missed our tour of the Draper Temple, since she was sick that day. So the older kids went with daddy. But today we were all able to go together as a family to tour the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. (A little trivia: this temple is located in South Jordan, Utah, as well as the Jordan River Temple, making South Jordan the 1st city in the world to have 2 temples.)



I thought it was a beautiful temple. I was pleasantly surprised as to how well my children behaved there. As I walked in, I was holding Jared and Ellie's hands, and Jared pulled his away so he could fold his arms. :) Of course, later, Ellie went running to an overstuffed bench and bounced her tummy off it while loudly proclaiming, "Bouncy!" Oh well....she's 3, what can I say?

As we left, all the kids were very excited to go get their cookie and water bottle.....when did the Church start that at temple open houses?! I personally think it's hilarious! I highly recommend taking your families if you are at all able to. The tours are very open, in fact, we were able to park right in the temple parking lot, which really surprised me! It's well worth it for the wonderful experience of visiting the temple and teaching our children about it.




I'm glad Ron had his phone with him, as I didn't feel like lugging the camera with us! :) Do you like Jared's hand?! He wanted it too look like he was holding Jesus' hand.....

I Believe.....

Create

Dropping like flies...

Tonight I had the pleasure of accompanying my husband to Girls Camp. It was the last night, so the Bishopric went up for dinner, the closing devotional, and the infamous fireside testimony meeting. It was nice, and I was just so thankful that I wasn't a YW leader or a camp leader! Oh, I know, though....someday I will eat my words. I did have the privilege of being on the camp committee 3 years ago, and I got put in charge of the food. I was GLAD when that was over! It's stressful being in charge of food for that many, especially because if you mess up, everyone goes hungry! And darn if I wasn't pregnant the next year so I couldn't go to camp again. But dang, I won't ever have that to excuse me from camp again. :(

But tonight was good, plenty of food, and it was tasty. Lots of goofy camp songs, and goofy girls as well. Watching them I remember well acting like a huge spaz, and I was embarrassed for myself! ;)

The testimony meeting went well....and long... I had told my mom, who babysat for us that we'd be home around 10:30-11. Ummm....oops...we got home at midnight. And we didn't even have far to drive as we were only about 20 minutes up the canyon near our home. Every time I go up that canyon I wonder why I don't go up there more often; beautiful scenery, cool temps, and so close to us.

Coming home was interesting though. Riley was sick when she went up, and when we saw her tonight, we knew she needed to forego the last night of camping and come home to her bed....But as the evening wore on, more girls decided they needed to come home. We ended up bringing 3 girls home, and 2 more went with another leader. Eeek! I hope Riley wasn't responsible for getting them all sick! We really do have a great group of girls in our ward though...all of them try to do their best to make good choices, and are all nice to each other.

Happy Monday.

What a great weekend! I love General Conference, even if my kids don't! Jared would cry every time a new session would come on. I still can't figure out why, since it wasn't like we made him sit there and watch it. I'm not doing that to my four year old! We had activities for all of them, options to go play in their rooms or playroom, but he'd still cry, and say, "Not again!" Maybe it was because he knew our attention would be on the speakers, and not on him? But he survived, and now it's over for six months!

I loved many of the talks, but my absolute favorite was Elder Ballard. I came away from that talk feeling like I'm doing okay as a mother, and with a new resolve to continue to do better. Thank you Elder Ballard! He really has become one of my favorites and this last talk really solidified that!

A better feeling than I had last October after another certain (un-named) talk was given and I came away feeling like a failure as a mother, and with a "why even try" attitude. Wrong, I know, but that is what happened. But after yesterday, I feel better about life!

To another subject....it's beginning to look less like Spring today..that tends to happen when two inches of snow falls and covers everything...grrr....good thing it's Spring Break next week and we are heading SOUTH! First to Moab, then further south down to ARIZONA!!!! Hooray! I'm gonna be WARM...HOT even!

Beautiful Tribute

My friend Steph shared this on her blog, and I loved it so much, I wanted to share it here.



Thanks President Hinckley, for inspiring us to "stand a little taller", and be better people. We are all blessed to have been taught and led by your example.

The end of an Era...

For any of you not in Utah, I thought I'd share the news that the beloved President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley, passed away tonight. What a fantastic man of God that taught us much and set a fantastic example. He will be greatly missed.

We will mourn his passing, but are confident that he has returned to our Heavenly Father, with a big pat on the back for a job "well done!" He spent most of his life serving the Church, and is loved by all. I'm just so happy he's back with his sweet wife!

HERE is the official announcement of the Church. Also interesting is the article about the succession of the next president HERE.


It will be interesting to hear how Ron's day is tomorrow at work.