WARNING: Super long post ahead!
Please note, I take no offense to those who just look at the pics and move on.
A temple trip for the youth in our ward has been in the works for some time now. As plans were being made and chaperons were needed I never really considered going despite my great desire to. With Jeff's crazy hours and the kids I just figured it wouldn't even be a possibility. But once I realized my In-Laws were going and my husband was going to be out of town that week I had no reason not to go! So I asked the in-laws if me and the kids could tag along and they completely supported the idea.
We were so excited to go! The kids love going to the temple and I thought it would be such a fun opportunity for them even though they are still so young. I knew I wouldn't really get to go inside any of the temples since I would be out with the kids, but just being able to actually go to every temple in CA was such an awesome opportunity I didn't want to pass it up.
The trip started bright and early Thursday morning. I wanted to make sure all the girls were able to get to the church bright and early and on time so I offered to let them spend the night. As I was preparing for their arrival, I was doing one last chore, vacuuming. As I was finishing up the vacuuming died, i figured i had just tugged on the cord a little to hard and it had fallen out of the socket. I went over to analyze and found that the socket was kinda black, smoking a little, and stinking a lot. Jeff being out of town, I immediately called my dad to see what he thought. He came over to take a look and decided to replace the plug for me. Last thing I needed was an electrical fire while we were out of town. So he did it, but then something went wrong and we had no power to the back half of the house. I told him not to stress about it now since we were headed out of town anyway, and with that part of the power off I knew no fire would start so I was fine with it.
So I called up the girls, explained the situation and that they were still more than welcome to spend the night, but that they would have to get read in the morning by candle light. They weren't too fond of that idea, which I don't blame them for and decided to stay home. So, since I wasn't going to have the girls over I decided it would be easier if me and the kids spent the night at my in-laws which would save me a ton of work at 5 am. So I called them up, at this point it is probably 9:30 or 10:00 at night....WAY PAST my kids normal bed time... and we headed over.
The kids were so excited they were happy as clams, but their lack of sleep was making me nervous about our long drive which would be challenging even when they had slept well. So probably around 10:30 maybe 11:00 they finally went to bed. I showered, finished up the last few prep items and then headed to bed myself.
I don't know why, but the kids woke up at 4:00 AM! Despite my best efforts to get them to sleep for one more hour and crushing my dreams of moving them straight to their car-seats without them even waking up... we decided to get up and eat some breakfast. They were seriously WIDE awake. They let out a cheer when I said we could get up. They were so excited to go on a trip in grandma and grandpa's car. They were so excited to see 5 temples which they would tell you anytime we brought it up. It was adorable and I just couldn't be mad that they didn't sleep like I had hoped.
So we headed off! Met all the youth at the church. Ate some amazing cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk and headed on our way!
DAY 1: CONCORD to FRESNO to LOS ANGELES to REDLANDS
First stop, Fresno.
The kids did great in the car. They were awake for a little at the beginning, but then eventually fell asleep. Em woke up as we pulled into the Temple parking lot, but P was out cold. We passed a park that was close by, so after the youth went in I drove the kids over to the park to get out some wiggles and kill some time. I had to wake P up when we got to the park, he had a good nap which was obviously needed!
This park was AWESOME! Seriously one of the coolest parks I have ever been too. It has tons of play structures and a cool splash pad. The kids loved it!
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| He was so proud of himself for making it all the way up! |
FRESNO TEMPLE
After a while at the park we headed back to the temple to look around and wait for the youth. We sat and ate snacks while we looked at the temple and the beautiful grounds and of course sang "I love to see the temple." We walked all the way around the temple admiring flowers, birds, colors, and Angel Moroni. It was a small temple, but still just a beautiful as all the others. My hopes of getting a great picture of both the kids at every temple were crushed at the very first one. lol.. They were just not in the mood for pics. O-well.
We took a few group pictures and then jumped back in the car and headed down to LA. I think first we grabbed a bite to eat at In-N-Out. Parker loved their cheese sandwich and I loved their milkshake. :)
LOS ANGELES TEMPLE
Honestly, I don't really remember the car ride from Fresno to LA. Perhaps that means we all napped. lol. But at least I know it wasn't bad, because that I would remember. :)
The LA Temple is huge!
The grounds are huge!
Their visitor's center is even pretty huge!
This was good news for us, meant we had lots of things to keep us entertained! When we first got there, we all met in the visitor's center. The sisters in there gave us a little presentation and had us watch a film on the family which I LOVED. After the movie was over the youth all headed in for baptisms and we decided to wonder the temple grounds.
The kids had a blast on these grounds. There were such a wide variety of plants to see, flowers to smell, and paths to walk on. And it was a good thing because the youth were in the temple for what seemed like FOREVER! The long duration to explore caused me to take a massive amount of pictures. Here is what I was able to narrow it down to from the 94 pictures that I took (yes, that is 94 pics from just this temple, not the entire trip).
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| The word walk is not in his dictionary |
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| They found water and ran toward it. |
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| Check out those muscles! |
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| What is it with kid's obsession with water? |
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| HUGE temple vs. tiny Em. |
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| Finding flowers |
NOTE: I may or may not have bribed my children with lollipops if they would pose for these next pictures.
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| I think this one is my favorite! |
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| This is Em while she is singing I love to see the temple |
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| P is sad because Em wouldn't hug him. |
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| He asked really nice and then she did. |
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| Dancing on the grounds |
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| Look at all those flowers! |
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| They smell great! |
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| Love these kids more than life! So glad families are FOREVER! |
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| Finally the reward! They were so excited! |
It was a long time that we spent wondering around the LA temple. We spent a long time in the visitor's center as well. They had this awesome digital drawing table. The kids thought it was pretty sweet. They also had fun talking with the sister missionaries. We talked about the temples, looked at pictures of the inside of this temple, and learned lots about the Savior in an awesome display they had. The kids really had a great time and hopefully learned something too.
Then we all went to dinner at a buffet. Em had a massive tantrum which is always fun, but honestly I don't blame her. It was a ridiculously long day, she was away from home, stuck in the car half the day and past bed time for the second night in a row. But grandma kindly took her out and she came back happy as a clam. Thank you grandma!
After dinner we hopped back in the car and drove to our hotel that was near the Redlands Temple. We got there, took a bath, and then we all slept like rocks! And that concludes day 1.
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