I Love to See the Temple

We have had a lot of visitors over the past few weeks. I have a lot of photos to upload, but for some reason blogger doesn't like my high definition SD card. I think it's too much, so I am only able to upload a few at a time. Boo! Anyway, the most recent visit was my Grandma Bean. She stayed up in Idaho with my aunt but came down to stay a couple nights with us before she headed back to Iowa. I asked her if she would like to visit Temple Square while she was here, and so we loaded up the kids, parked at my old branch, and walked the two blocks to Temple Square. My cute kiddos in the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

My grandma couldn't believe we were on the 10th floor. :)

I bet this picture would be amazing if it was taken at night,

but I think it turned out nicely during the day too.

We ate at The Garden restaurant.

I've never been to The Roof, mainly because I don't

think I could ever justify spending $37 a person on food,

but that's just me.

Trying to be more health-food conscious, I had

one of their whole wheat rolls.

Can I say... heavenly?

It must not be very good for you,

because that roll was

oh-so-delicious

and most everything delicious is not so healthy.

At least I "felt" healthy.:)

After lunch, we walked around and snapped some pictures.

Mateo was not in the "posing for pictures" mood, but Sam

was willing to take a few.

Please excuse his "Lloyd Christmas" hairdo.

He just had it cut and I didn't have time to fix it that morning.

Wish I would have though!

Anyway, walking around Temple Square brought a few thoughts to my mind.

It must have done the same to my grandma because we had quite a few

things to discuss and then agree upon.

1. We are pretty sure that Heaven has flowers everywhere. I mean, look at Temple Square. I think the Temple and surrounding area is the closest glimpse we have to Heaven, and it is always beautiful. How could we not have flowers? We talked a lot about my great Grandma Leonard (she's the one that passed away in January) and my Grandma mentioned that she hoped there were tons of flowers near great Grandma. I told her there had to be!

2. We should take advantage of the blessings of the Temple. The nearest Temple to my Grandma is Nauvoo, which is quite a drive. As we were talking about it, I was overcome with guilt. We have 5 Temples within a 30 minute radius and I don't go as often as I should. There's always something- lack of time, problems with scheduling, arranging someone to watch the kids- I know that there's no excuse. I hate feeling so busy all of the time. What would I say when I get to the other side and I have like 10 visits on my Temple attendance roll? "Sorry Heavenly Father, I had to clean my house, do the laundry, go to Stamp Club, find Sam's shoe... you know how it is, right?" Okay, first of all, I have aready have more than 10 visits, and although they claim no one keeps record, I am pretty sure someone is paying attention. I realized when I was down there I need to stop all of the excuses and get things done. I need to make time for things like: personal scripture study, Temple attendance, food storage guru, Family history work, the list goes on and on. If it means I have to schedule it on my calendar for a while until I get the hang of it, maybe that's what will happen, but things have to change. I am filling my days up with good things, but sometimes they aren't the right kind of good things. Make sense?

I was so happy to spend time with Grandma Bean. She even made us a cherry pie while she was here, and talked me through the whole thing. I have never made a homemade pie in my life, but guess what I made last night? Apple Pie Squares. And they were delicious. I also made homemade rolls. One step closer to the "domestic diva" I want to become!