Much thanks to Melanie Hill for blogging about her experience at the Draper Temple Open House with her two adorable little boys. Prior to reading her entry I had it in my head that children had to be at least eight years old to attend the open house. Actually, I was confusing the open house and the dedication ceremony and was delighted to be corrected. Chad and I picked a date to attend, which ended up being a Friday since all the January weekend and evening times had been snapped up. The weather was perfect and we were all excited to attend. Merritt thought it was really neat because I busted him out of school 1 hour and 25 minutes early so that we would easily make our 1:20 time slot. (There is such a special, superior feeling that accompanies leaving before school is officially out. I loved being excused from class, waving goodbye to my friends and walking out into empty halls, even if it meant I was on my way to the dentist.)I worked super hard that morning to make sure that I had everything we needed ready (church clothes for Merritt, a white shirt and tie for Chad, fully stocked baby bag, etc.) and that I had as many of my chores finished as humanly possible. The last thing I did, before packing up the car and driving to pick up Merritt, was to make Son 1 a lunch in his Spiderman lunchbox so that he could eat on our way to Chad's work. With 10 minutes before our arrival in Salt Lake, Merritt asked me to open his Go-Gurt. Instead of asking him to wait until we got off the freeway, insanity prevailed and I attempted to tear it open with one hand and my teeth. I succeeded in only tearing away bits of the edges. Finally, I broke through the plastic and made a small hole, which to my frustrated mind was GOOD ENOUGH! Merritt, however, didn't realize how I had opened the yogurt tube (since it still looked closed) and I didn't explain it to him (Duh!) thinking that he would just put the tube in his mouth and squeeze. Well, he did squeeze it, but not in his mouth, and all I saw out of the corner of my eye was a fountain of pink yogurt shooting into the air and landing all over Grant's clean, khaki pants. Ugh! I did my best to clean him up but we arrived at the temple with one not-so-clean baby wearing pink stained pants that smelled vaugely of tropical fruit.
The bus ride was very exciting for the kids, mainly because they weren't seat-belted in and were thus free to mash their faces against the window. I had another insanity moment and allowed Grace to bring two small toys ("Sweeping Booty" (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) and a plastic lion) and the lion got lost on the bus. It is somewhere inside, on the floor most likely, making endless circles between the stake center and the temple. Poor lion. At least Sweeping Booty made it through the day okay.
The temple was beautiful and the children were very impressed. Merritt wanted to go down and see the carved oxen as we passed through the baptistry, he loved the paintings in the ordinance rooms (especially the cougar which he called a "little meat-eater"), he wants a giant chandelier like the one in the celestial room to hang in his bedroom ("Only, mom, I'll need a really, really tall ceiling."), and he loved looking into the mirrors in the sealing rooms. Grace went through the whole tour with wide eyes and the words, "Look, pretty!" exclaimed at regular intervals. Grant pulled my hair (it's a comfort thing) and cried everytime he saw a water fountain because he wanted a drink.
After the tour we went in for cookies and a drink at the stake center which adjoins the temple. There were no chairs set up, so we found a bit of carpet in an out-of-the-way spot so that the kids could sit down and munch away. We gave Grant a small water bottle and after several successful sips h
e dumped the water onto the carpet. Grace was tipping the water into her mouth and then backwashing it into the bottle again...the water in the bottle was soon brown due to the chocolate cookie she was eating...SO NASTY! Merritt ate four cookies before we even knew what happened. We then figured it was time to go, but I just HAD to have us all pose for a picture, so this nice lady snapped one for us next to a beautiful portrait of the Savior. It would have been a nice picture, but in vain I pled for Merritt not to pose as a dinosaur, all to no avail. Grace had her mouth full of water which she refused to swallow. Grant wouldn't look at our photographer. Ah, memories! (We went outside for take 2 and it turned out much better...that is the photo posted at the top.)After a 30 minute wait (the red buses came, the blue buses came, but where were all the green?) we finally caught our bus back to the stake center where we'd parked our car. Grant was, by this time, close to a nuclear melt-down from sheer tiredness. In self defense and to save what was left of my sanity, I gave him (you are going to die when you read this) the water bottle he kept reaching for...the only one left...the one with BROWN WATER!! I refused to watch as he happily drank some and spilled the rest down his shirt. I was feeling my peaceful buzz from the temple tour draining away a bit until I was completely diverted by the little boy in the seat in front of me who was sucking his thumb and picking his nose at the same time with the same hand! What a feat! I was duly impressed and hilariously entertained.
The tour was wonderful and the kids have talked about it regularly since we got home. It made quite an impression on them! You should go. www.lds.org is the place to reserve free tickets.
