It's always fun...

To have a visit from your sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. They are attending a two day conference in Dallas and decided to ask if we could be hotel Burke for a few days. It's good to see them even if has only been for a few hours so far. I hope that they don't get home too late tonight.

What an ordeal

I decided it was time for a change to the look of my blog. Last time it took a long time to get it right. This time it wasn't as long but still I have a huge learning curve. So...my question for all you saavy bloggers out there...when I go to "layout" and then to "add and arrange page elements" there is no longer the "add a gadget" or "add a new page element" option. That makes it VERY difficult to add new things. Do any of you know how to get that back???

Update. I was using Firefox and it disappeared. Then I opened it up in Internet Explorer and it is there. I guess that I will use IE to add new things to my blog.

Temple Square

In September we went to temple square in Salt Lake City. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. Here are some of the highlight pictures:

First we went to the conference center.

I love the granite floors and the beautiful scenery. Above is a picture looking up.
Below is a fountain (I think).



Caleb and Jennica were fascinated by the waterfall outside the conference center window.

The top photo is the inside of the conference center (like where we hold general conference) from the main level and the bottom photo is from the upper level. It was fun to see how it would look depending on where you were seated at.

Last time I went to temple square my favorite part of the conference center was the roof. This time I tried to appreciate the art inside too but the roof is still my favorite.

It was very hard to sneak in a picture of Michael, Daniel and Shanae...but here they are walking away from me.

Caleb and Jennica on the roof...they were really fascinated by the whole experience.

This is from the roof looking down to the street. I love the levels of different greenery.

We all loved the "red" house...not to mention the capitol building is in the photo below.

This wall is amazing in my opinion. It is granite tiles (as I recall) and this is a photo that was engraved onto the granite. You can actually go up and feel the texture to it.

Now on to temple square...the first place we went to was the Joseph Smith memorial building and saw the movie. All I can say is "AWESOME"...everyone was touched by it.

Above is a sculpture of the first vision. Caleb was crawling around on it...I think he is behind it out of view in this picture. I love the lighting.

Below is the sculpture of Joseph Smith reading "the verse". I righted it in my photos on my computer but it is side ways here...sorry.


Here is the Salt Lake temple in the reflecting pool. I didn't think it was windy until I tried to take a picture of the reflection...it took 3 attempts to get it without waves.

Here are Daniel and Shanae walking back toward us after a visit to the little girls room...well Daniel didn't actually go in...he was just there for moral support...lol.

Here is the fountain that Julie refers to as the "lily pad".

This is the only picture that I got with everyone in it. Julie is sitting on the edge of the lily pad fountain and Caleb is behind her bending over in the navy shirt. Jennica is in the stroller. Daniel, Shanae, and Michael are standing behind them. Josh (a friend that Julie and Daniel work with at Savers who has lived in SLC all his life and had never been to temple square) is sitting on the right.

No trip is complete without the tour. We went on a tour guided by sister missionaries and saw both visitor's centers. I only got a few pictures of the tour but no visit is complete in my opinion without seeing the Christus statue. It is just magnificent.

After our tour it was starting to get late. We decided to eat dinner at the Lion House and it was a buffet. Very good food. When we came out it was dusk which made for some beautiful pictures.

Love the temple lit up...I got several pictures...here are the best ones.

The last thing that we did was listen to the Mormon Tabernacle choir practice in the tabernacle for the upcoming session of General Conference. The kids were pretty bored so we didn't stay that long but I actually recognized the hymn (and it was unfamiliar to me...which is unusual) when they sang it at conference a few weeks later.

HOME

I am back in Texas...yipee. I will post about our trip to temple square in SLC as soon as I get the photos off the laptop and onto my computer.

Heading Out

Today Michael and I are finally starting our trek back home.