Salt Lake City

Last Wednesday Ryan, the girls and I drove to Utah.  It's a good 11 hour drive, and we left at 5:30 am.  The girls all did really well.  It went fine until we arrived in Salt Lake and attempted to find our hotel.  I know some people say the street names there are great and it's impossible to get lost with their street numbering system, but clearly we just don't "get" it.  We got lost.  It's a good thing the Red Lion is tall.  We got a good deal on the room and it was "just" 6 blocks from Temple Square.

Well Thursday morning dawned cloudy and quite warm for a December day.  We put the twins in the double umbrella stroller and away we went.  Incidentally, the city blocks are extraordinarily long and with our detour, we started off our day with a good 2+ mile walk.  Eventually we found Temple Square and we were quite excited to be there.

The last time we were in Utah Emma was 5 months old.  This was the kids' first experience at Temple Square, so we got a tour from the sister missionaries.

We heard the story of the seagulls.

Experienced the echos in the Tabernacle (all decorated for Christmas).

Saw the Christus.

Must... touch.... the.... water....

 Snack time.  It was a "fancy" snack.  You can tell because the pinkies were up.

 After Temple Square, we walked over to the Conference Center.  We got a little surprise when we walked in.  A familiar face greeted us from my parents' ward 10 years ago- now Elder Eddings.

 Afterwards, we walked over to the new food court and had Subway for lunch.  It was Daddy's birthday, so we made our sandwiches fancy- pinkies up again.

Later we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial building and saw the movie there.  They didn't give out tickets this time.  We arrived at the theatre about 5 minutes before the show started.  The movie playing there now is about Joseph Smith.  Watching movies about the pioneers always make me feel like a big wimp.  They endured so many hardships and I complain about inconsequential things like all the messes the twins make and how crazy it makes me.  Not a terrible hardship in the big scheme of things.

 Later we got a picture of the Family History Library. 

This is where my grandparents served their mission.  Then we looked around the Church History Museum until it was dark enough for the lights to come on at Temple Square.  (Those pictures will be in the next post.  This is long enough already.)

Once we completely wore the children out, Ryan decided he would walk the twins (in their stroller) back the mile and a half to our hotel and get the van to pick the rest of us up.  I don't think Emma and Elizabeth would have made it the rest of the way.  It was well past dinner time.  The kids had done amazing, but that was pushing it.  So while Ryan high-tailed it to the car, I took the girls to Deseret Book.

 Elizabeth found a place to rest:

Once we all got back to our hotel room, we ordered Domino's pizza and called it a night.  Sadly, the kids were not as ready to go to sleep as their parents were.  Even after all that walking.