Moses Lake Temple

The Moses Lake Temple was having their open house, and since the girls often ask to look at photos and videos of temples on my phone, it was a great opportunity to let them see inside one first-hand. Not knowing how the ticket reservations worked for open houses, we thought we legit had to be there at a specific time and date. What we could find available was for Friday. The plan was then for me to go through with the youth from our ward on Saturday. So, we decided to make a weekend out of it.

We left for Moses Lake as soon as I got off work on Friday. We got there just in time for our time slot. Gpa Dale was there to greet us, and we found our way into the chapel to wait our turn. It became pretty apparent that we were duped and the exact time we scheduled really didn't matter, they just used the scheduling as a way to spread things out.

The girls enjoyed going through the temple. I know it's a small temple, but it felt a lot smaller than I was expecting. It was pretty cool how they included blossoms into the designs and décor.

It was starting to get a little hot during the tour, so stopping off at the water station was a must. It was in the mid to upper 90's that weekend.

Gpa was there to see us afterwards, as well.

I asked Hadley to take smile for a picture, and she immediately broke out into this pose. That's her go-to right now, and we have absolutely no idea where it came from. But, that's our girl.

Cambri also has her poses, but you can tell she hasn't quite refined her favorite yet. A picture doesn't show it, but she did a little hand flip thing.

I know it was just an open house, but to be all together in the temple, especially the celestial room, was a great feeling. To look at the girls as they sat quietly admiring the lights, decorated trim, and windows, brought me a good feeling. My hope is to raise these girls in such a way that they will always want and appreciate what we have in the gospel, and what we can do in the temple.

Afterwards, it was DQ. They girls ate their hot dogs and then got to work on their blizzards. We had a wait a little while to order, because 30 people from another ward showed up at the same time and were all on one ticket, and they only had one person taking orders.

We let the girls get in some evening swimming before calling it a night. 

On Saturday morning we headed out for a little shopping. We needed some stuff from Walmart, but also needed to go to Joann's to pick out some fabric for the quilt Gma Rae is making for Harlow.

Joann's was right next to one of those Spirit Halloween stores, and Cambri wanted to go inside after we picked out some fabric. Hadley wanted nothing to do with it, as she is very afraid of most Halloween decorations, especially the animatronic ones. Cambri ended up chickening out as well, but at least go to the entrance before decided not to go in.

In the early afternoon, I headed out to meet the youth at the temple. Meanwhile, the girls hungout in the room and watched their kindles. Harlow making sure to get in their space.

I arrived at the temple the same time as Rissa and Javier. I also saw some families from my ward, and some of the youth with their families. But no group of youth like I was led to believe would be there, like we had talked about. Nobody. It became apparent after waiting around that I either missed them, or it wasn't a trip with the youth as I was expecting. So, I just headed back to the hotel.

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Emily was in a rare mood for Mexican food, and I wasn't going to lose out on the opportunity, so we headed over to Casa Herradura for dinner. 

It was a big dining room with tall ceilings, and Harlow really enjoyed hearing her little screams echo.

She also punched a hole through her water cup, making a little mess.

After dinner, the girls took advantage of their last opportunity to swim and hangout in the hot tub. It seems like everytime we stay somewhere, they spend less time in the pool and more time in the hot tub. 

This was the view from our hotel room.

It was a good trip, and after the heat wave we'd experienced for a couple of weeks, it was nice staying somewhere that had more legit AC than we have at home. It was a longer trip than it needed to be, but it's always kind of nice to hangout somewhere other than home for a few days.