I have a slight addiction. I love to go to temple open houses. I love to take my kids to said open houses. It's pretty rare to have one open up close enough to us to make a quick trip of it. We are starting to get a bit spoiled because we just attended our 2nd one in a year.
The only real problem we ran into was finding time to go. We've been pretty busy. The 1 and only weekend we could make the trip happened to also be Halloween -and the very last day the temple would be open for tours. After discussing with the kids, we decided to forgo Halloween this year so that we could do something even better. Luckily they were onboard....after learning that we would just buy them a bunch of candy.
Thursday night Nate came home with excellent news for us. His surgery for the following day had cancelled so we would be able to leave first thing in the morning -after seminary. This was great because now the kids could go trick-or-treating AND go to the open house. Win, win.
We hadn't planned out any costumes, so Emma brought her make-up and did up Ethan's face again and was going to make Jordyn look like a crazy bunny, but ran out of time. Jordyn's costume was bought Friday morning before we left town. There was nothing but piles of reject costumes left over to scrounge thru. Jared and I were sent to find a cat costume because she wanted the tail to go with the ears she had. There was no point trying to talk her out of the tail that no one would see. We needed some snacks for the car anyway so we went in search. No cat costume except for "pretty kitty" which was an entire costume complete with a dress that says "I sell my body for money." I mean really! The costume was made for a 5 year old. Luckily I found some sequin bunny ears, with a tail and a bow tie. I guess "playboy bunny" is your only option. Jared and I discussed the ramifications of bringing home the bunny ears instead of cat ones and decided that it was worth the risk to come home with something instead of nothing. I'm not sure if you can see it in any of the pictures but Jordyn decided to use the bow tie as a hair bow instead -thus making it a cute bunny costume instead of a....well, you know. It was perfect -and she loved it. Phew!
There was only 1 little snafu in the system. We decided to bring our dog. It proved to be quite the dramatic affair. Jo's kids loved that we brought Watson. They were so proud of their abilities to look after the dog. I was always hearing about what each of the kids did to take care of him. They are so stinkin cute. The problem occurred when they wanted to take him out while they begged for candy in the streets. Luckily I convinced the little ones to let me start off holding the leash so that they could focus on collecting the candy. Good thing. We no sooner had walked out the front door when the neighbor across the street had their large dog escape. There is a custom in AZ. If you are handing out candy, you sit on your front porch or in the driveway and have a little party there while handing out candy. I learned a few things. There aren't as many members of the church as you would think because there was a lot of alcohol being consumed in the driveways (or perhaps they were and they have just got onboard the "social drinking" is ok train that I hear is making the rounds). It was pretty interesting -well, that and the fire pits a-blazing. It's like 80 degrees outside and lots of people had a fire pit going. I guess for the ambiance. Too funny.
Back to the snafu. The neighbors were in their driveway hanging out candy. Their children were in the house. One of those children opened the front door and....their dog comes charging out the door and heading straight for me and my little dog. Now. My little dog has little dog syndrome -for sure. No denial on my part. Problem is. Watson didn't even see this other dog coming so he didn't start taunting it. As the other dog gets closer and closer the owner finally realizes that we have a problem. She starts yelling at the dog to stop. The dog is not phased by this and has now started attacking my dog. I'm in the middle trying to figure out how to make it stop. I end up just about hanging my dog because I'm trying to lift him up and out of the way but he is thrashing about so much that I can't catch him. All I end up doing is getting my left hand ripped up from the leash. I am waiting for any sort of help and hoping that the little ones are not being traumatized at this point. The owner finally gets command of her dog and I am able to pick my dog up -who is in a frazzled state - and walk back toward the safety of the house where I can check for damage. I was in shock. I was out of breath. The owner of the other dog didn't apologize or anything. I made the comment that her dog was psyco. All she said was "my dog's not psyco." To which I replied "apparently it is considering recent events." I was mad. Had her initial reaction been of remorse and horrification I wouldn't have gotten mad. They did come over later beside themselves with worry. They felt really horrible that their dog behaved that way. Sometimes in the heat of the moment it is hard to remember to be kind. I spent the rest of the night with ice on my hand and holding it above my heart so the throbbing wasn't so intense. How's that for drama?
We got a lot of entertainment out of Jared's costume. A big 'ole mustache. I must-ache you, how do I look? wah wah. The older kids hung out on the front porch handing out candy while we took the littles thru the neighborhood.
Look at how super cute they are and their haul of candy. Good times.
Saturday morning we went and met up with some other friends that live there in AZ. It was so great to hang out on their "practice" farm. People think that we are crazy dooms day preppers. We got nothing on this family -which makes them our heroes. Emma and Ethan were the only ones with us and they had so much fun playing with the chickens. I think I may have talked Emma into joining the local FFA here. For Emma's birthday in May she got to hang out with C at Front Site learning how to shoot-they had so much fun.
Now onto the best treat of all. The Phoenix temple open house. A word of advice. Never. Ever. Go to an open house on the last day. Reservations mean nothing. Luckily we had nowhere else to be. The only problem was keeping all the littles happy for 2+ hours. From arriving at the parking lot to walking outside the temple was over 2 hours and then we had an hour drive each way. We had some hangry people.
Parking for the tour was at the water park nearby and then we stood in a long line waiting for a bus to take us over. They were holding us back and sending over empty buses because they didn't have the space over at the temple for waiting. After the bus ride and then going into the stake center across the parking lot to watch a 12 min video we finally got to stand in line for our tour. It was a 30-40 min wait in-line. The kids did so well. It had the potential to be a horrible experience, but they were so good. We entertained ourselves by snapping a bunch of photos and then playing with the water cups they had there. Apparently water tastes better when drunk from a snow cone cup.
It was finally time to slip on the protective shoe covers and head in. There were so many people there and they all wanted to talk- despite the council that this was a "no talking" tour. It was so loud and irreverent. It was nothing like the experience we had at the Gilbert open house. I was having a really hard time with the level of noise. It was hurting my heart. What is so super sweet is that Jared turned to me and said "don't worry Mom, it's just a pretty building right now. It's not the Lord's house because it hasn't been dedicated yet." I'm not sure if he fully realized the truth to which he was speaking and what an important distinction that is. He was testifying of a priesthood ordinance. I was hoping for a spiritual experience for my kids and I was sad that it was too loud and obnoxious to feel the spirit - but maybe something even better happened instead.
There can be little room for doubt in my children's minds how important the temple is to their mother. How important she thinks having spiritual experiences is. I asked the kids if they wanted to go to CA to maybe see some friends there.......and to go to the temple. If they want to go I want them to do some family history so they can take some names and then they can go inside one of the prettiest temples in the US and perform baptisms for those ancestors they find. I just feel like there is nothing more important or exciting that we could be doing. I can never be too far from a temple :0)
I finished my fun book that had nothing to do with scriptures or spirituality in any way while we were in AZ. On the way home I started reading the below book that I had purchased quite awhile ago and never got around to reading. It's one of my favorite topics and just by reading the intro I feel a kinship with the author. I get him and I think he gets me. We've been through a very similar process. He wrote a fantastic book about it - I just write stuff down here. BTW, I am still reading my missionary copy of the BOM - I'm in Helaman. One day I will finish this process of marking up that copy with everything that has to do with pride. Doctrine and Covenants is my life right now because that is the book we are teaching this year. I have something from Helaman that I am going to write next because when I read it, it got me thinking.
Having time for everything I want to do and should be doing is a bit problematic.....and then writing about all of it -makes for a very dull girl :0) My list of hobbies is not something you can rattle off in front of people and have them understand. When asked about my hobbies the person is met with a shrug and a "not much really, what about you?" Maybe I should just start saying "building armor."
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