I Love To See The Temple

Yesterday, we went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. It was absolutely beautiful! We were lucky to choose a day when not many other people were there, so we were through the whole thing in a little over an hour. A big contrast to our Draper Temple Open House experience of 4 hours! We'll never go on a school holiday again, that's for sure.

We are lucky enough to have Jeremiah's parents and brother visit us this week and decided it would be fun to go all together to the open house. Our kids are usually very active and loud, but they must understand a little bit about the importance of the temple, because they were very good, reverent, and quiet during both this and the last open house we went to. We were very proud of them and gave them a cookie at the end for being so good (ok, they would have gotten a cookie at the reception afterwards anyway, but they don't need to know that).

It was a beautiful day yesterday and the sun was shining. After watching the video, touring the temple, and enjoying a cookie and some water, we headed to the front of the temple to take some pictures. I had seen some beautiful family pictures from our friends' blogs right in front of this fountain and really wanted one of our family there too (thanks for the great idea everyone!).

How beautiful is this temple?


Here's our whole group


I also got a quick picture of just our little family


I don't know what it was about this fountain, but I absolutely loved it.


This is Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Troy


And they wanted one with them and the kids too


The flowers were beautiful and as we were waiting for another group to get done taking pictures, I grabbed this quick one of the kids, it's one of my favorites from yesterday


This is the side of the temple, it looks so majestic standing there


I love the cornerstones of the temple, I guess it has to do with the fact that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our religion, the symbolism is just so strong to me


Hailey and I sat in the back of the car and I snapped this quick picture of her with her little legs crossed - too cute!


Then she caught me and smiled big for the camera


Not to be left out, Zach wanted one of him taken too. He was in the middle seats between Grandma and Troy, so it was hard to get the focus just right



We had a great time and the kids were so good. We're so blessed to have so many temples so near us. What a spiritually uplifting day it was for all of us!

Lehi Round-up Parade

I have bad luck with my camera. Most of the time I forget to grab it when we're heading off to fun places where I'd like to have pictures. Other times I remember it and either forget to use it or the batteries die on me. Never can tell, but this post will be one of much words and few photos since although I did remember my camera, the batteries died on me after two pictures. Just my luck.

Anyway, last week was Lehi's big celebration - The Round Up. It all revolves around the rodeo Thursday-Saturday, but has grown bigger every year. It now includes kids activities, fun at the park, and even a movie one night of the week. We usually don't do a whole ton since the kids are still little, but we do try and do a few things we think they would enjoy.

Jeremiah took them to a Magic Show and Dinosaur Puppet Show on Monday and Tuesday while I was working (long story). I forgot to send the camera with him, but he said they had a wonderful time! Hailey didn't quite understand what was going on at the Magic Show and apparently kept asking "what's taking so long here?" the whole time. But Zach loved it. They both loved the Dinosaur Puppet Show as well since they had all sorts of characters the kids know and love.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the parade. They had a blast watching the floats and grabbing candy that was thrown to them - and there was A LOT of candy thrown to them.





These were actually taken before the parade started. We were there a good half hour early and the kids loved just watching everyone around them while we waited. I fully intended to take some pictures of them grabbing candy, watching the parades, and even some of the beautiful floats, but my batteries lasted through these two pictures then died.

In the absense of pictures, I'll just say that Hailey's favorite part of the parade were the princesses - or city, rodeo, and such royalties that came by on different floats. She also like the dance, gymnastics, and cheerleader groups that came by at different times. She's so funny, she would always point to something and say "Mom look!" Almost as if she'd never seen anything like that before, even though something very similar had just passed us by. Zach's favorite part of the parade was the UVU mascot and the bands that played music. He loved the UVU mascot because he was zip up and down the street on a little motorized scooter and he thought that was the coolest thing ever! He also like all the other things that got thrown out - frisbees, shirts, squishy balls, and even toothbrushes. We came home with a few things, but mostly just candy.

In all, it was a fun week. We had plans to make it to the rodeo too, but with rain and other things that came up, we didn't quite get there. We'll have to make sure that do it next year though. We've all decided that Lehi is a pretty fun place to live.