oquirrh mountain temple open house

I've been to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple a few times in the past month. The first time I was there I had volunteered to be an usher (or a "silent sentinel" as the other temple workers called it). It was fun to be an usher and to see people's faces as they were leaving the temple. I was posted right outside the bride's room, which was at the end of the tour. My job was to direct people to the door that led outside to the reception tent. It was tough, I will have to admit, to stand there for 5 hours straight, and by the end my legs and back were killing me. But it was totally worth it and I wish that I would have had another chance to do that again.

I also went through the temple open house the last few days it was available. I had missed out on going to the Draper Temple open house, so I wasn't going to miss this one. The last time I had gone to a temple open house was for the Bountiful Temple. I was really young then and all I can remember about it is getting to wear the plastic booties on my feet (I thought they were silly).

So I made the reservation and went to tour the temple. Although it is one of the smaller temples, it doesn't subtract at all from the beauty. Everything about the temple, inside and out, seemed perfect. I loved the chandeliers, especially the one in the center of the temple, the one in the celestial room, and the one in the sealing room. I would have to say that my favorite part of the tour was going through the celestial room. It was so white and peaceful in there. Just amazing! I also loved the sealing room and the mirrors that reflect eternity. It was a very good experience for me, and I'm glad that I didn't miss out on it.

This is a picture of me standing in front of the temple. I'm the very small figure with the brown skirt (not to be confused with the very cute girl in pink)

Me sitting at the fountain in front of the temple

My favorite picture that I took before I left the temple

hawaii--part 1

I'm finally writing something up (with pics included) about my trip to Hawaii this summer. I was going to send an email to everyone with pics and a little description, but it would take forever to load pictures to an email, and plus I wouldn't be able to put captions under them. I figured the best way to get this out to everyone with the best amount of detail is to put it in a blog. So I signed up, created a blog, now I'm posting about my Hawaii trip. So here it goes.

The Day Before
So the day before going to Hawaii was pretty normal. I went to work and spent most of the day there. Then I came home to pack. I had most of my stuff set out, so I thought it would be pretty easy. My grandpa was reassuring me that it would only take 30 minutes. Yeah right. That 30 minutes quickly translated into a couple of hours. This was my first time packing a suitcase.

Surprisingly, I did really well. I was able to fit everything in one suitcase (a small one at that) and a carry on with room for souvenirs on the trip back. And I didn't forget anything (another shocker). So I did pretty good my first time packing.

Day 1
We left our house around 8:30 Thursday morning to go meet with my aunt (she would be dropping us off at the airport). We arrived at the airport around 9 or 9:30, got our luggage checking and went through security. This was my first airport experience since I was 10, so it was completely new to me. After going through security we got some snacks and waited to board our flight which wouldn't be leaving until 11:30.

So this was my first time flying since I was 10. I was a little worried where the flight was going to be about 6 hours long (ugh). Sadly I got sick for the first 2 hours of the flight, and then I got sick again just before landing. I even took something to help with the motion sickness...a lot of help that did.

We arrived in Maui on time. I couldn't believe the humidity! As soon as I stepped off of the plane I felt my clothes instantly stick to me. Nice. We then picked up our rental car and drove to the condos. Once at the condos we unpacked and then my cousins and I went to go hang out in the pool before dinner came (we ordered pizzas).

Our condos in Wailea. My aunt and her family stayed in the top, we stayed in the bottom

We decided to eat our pizzas on the patio, which was a good idea until the rain came. This wasn't just a little sprinkle, but a complete downpour. It rained like that for about an hour. Then we all went to bed to get ready for the next day.

Day 2
So this day started pretty early. I went upstairs to my aunt and uncle's condo (they rented the one above us) to see what the game-plan was. Before I knew it I was told to hurry and get ready to go do some snorkeling. So I quickly jumped into my swimsuit and me, my uncle, and my cousins Courtney and Dayton got in the car and drove to Kama'ole beach.

That was a horrible snorkeling experience for me. For one, our gear wasn't custom fit (it was stuff we borrowed from the condos), so my mask kept slipping off and kept filling with water. It also kept fogging up and would get tangled in my hair when I was trying to readjust it. Not fun. I also had a really hard time putting my head underwater at first and kept freaking out everytime I tried. I finally sucked up the guts to put my face in the water and breathe normally through the snorkel. The water was pretty churned up from the storm the night before, so it was hard to see anything. We did mangage to find a sea turtle, but it was just laying around. I hoped that future snorkeling expeditions would entail less complications.

We left the beach about an hour later, disappointed and starving. I ate so much that I surprised myself. After breakfast I watched TV for about an hour and then slept for an hour. Later that afternoon we decided to go rent some snorkeling gear (custom fit) for the week. We rented the gear from a place called Snorkeling Bob's and the gal who worked there was so cool.

After that we went back to Kama'ole beach, but not to go snorkeling (thank goodness). I just stayed on the beach, going picture happy with my camera ( I got some pretty good shots, too). Then I was finally convinced to go join my cousins out in the water, who were all body surfing with boogie boards. I had never been body surfing, so this was a new experience for me. I wasn't very successful. I would either fail to catch a good wave coming in or fall off my board when I tried. I was able to catch a couple of good waves, but I did also swallow my fair share of sea water. Yuck!!!

Me and Stephanie at Kama'ole Beach

We were at that beach for about 3 hours and then headed back to the condos for dinner. When I got home and showered I was amazed at how much sand was in my swimsuit! After dinner it was bed for me.

Well, this is getting to be pretty long, so I will end it there and add more about about the trip in another post, or two, or three.

yay! i found a design

Well, after several hours of arduos looking I found a design that reflects my taste. It's history to the other design (no offense to whoever desinged it...it just wasn't me). So here is my design for my blog that I have chosen. Knowing me, I'll probably get bored with it after a year (if I manage to keep this blog up for that long) and change the design again.