Five Temples in Four Days
On our trip to and from Idaho for Laren's Class Reunion, we stopped at all the temples along the way that are North of Salt Lake, since we are a short distance from the temples South of Salt Lake. It was a fun little excursion, and hopefully memorable (in a good way!) for our children.
Our family in front of the Logan Temple.
The temple where Laren took out his endowments. Right before Laren's mission he lived in Nibley, UT - just outside of Logan, with his Mom. He got a job there working for a farmer. And so he took us around to where he lived and worked at that time in his life. It was interesting to see where he'd been. And I had only been to Logan once before, but wow! what a beautiful place and surrounding area that is!!
Our family in front of the Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple (acrossed the river from it, actually). We took this picture on Saturday Morning, just after the evening part of his Reunion. We stayed the night at the Red Lion Inn since that is where the Reunion was the night before and it is just right next to the river and the temple in Idaho Falls. So when we checked out of the hotel, we got a photo op, with all of the ducks, in front of the temple.
Laren and the kids in front of the Rexburg, Idaho Temple.
What a special place this is for me because when I was a student at Ricks College (back when it was called that), I would go up to a church building not far from the temple and sit in my car overlooking all of Rexburg and pray. It was my "secret" place of prayer. And this temple is just acrossed the street and up the hill a little from the apartments (Hillcrest) that I lived in at Ricks College/BYU Idaho.
The kids and I in front of the Ogden, Utah Temple.
There is a picture somewhere of my Mom and Dad in front of this temple, close to the time I was born (early 1970's). So I had an interest in seeing this temple. My parents were never sealed in the Temple, they had just stopped to visit the grounds and pose for a picture. I was quite surprised by this temple, as it is in the middle of downtown Ogden (or so it seemed) and the area around it was deteriorating with some newer buildings there. The temple has a fence that goes all the way around it and busy streets on every side except for one, where a church building stands. Because of that, we took this picture in the parking lot of a vacant building across the street.
U
s in front of the Bountiful Utah TempleThe last temple on our way home (before we got to the Salt Lake Temple) was the Bountiful, Utah Temple. I see it from the freeway as I go and visit my sister in Kaysville. It has the same outside architecture as the Mount Timpanogos Temple (our temple, now). But the Bountiful Temple sits high on the hillside/mountainside in Bountiful. And you will notice, it even sits pretty high above this sidewalk that runs in front of it. As we pulled up to get this picture, a man dressed in a suit approached us and told us they were doing a fireside for the primary children but that we were more than welcome to stay. I think it was his kind way of letting us know they wanted us to park elsewhere or something like that. :) Our kids kind of wanted to stay, after they heard they were serving refreshments, but we got our picture and headed for home.
Our new little Shih Tzu pooch.
My second oldest daughter Alyssa and I were going to the store to get a few essentials for our Fourth of July festivities the next day and took the opportunity to peer at the pooches for sale. We shouldn't have because we fell instantly in love. Alyssa called Laren pleading. He asked me what I thought, of course my opinion was biased toward the dog. (Which is unusual because I am not a huge animal person.) Then we decided no. We hung up and started to do the shopping. Alyssa was in tears. Laren called back, back peddaling. Even he was thinking twice and he had not seen her. That was all it took. We went in the store and bought a can of pet food, got some cash back and went to see about getting us a new puppy!
