BC Temple open house

On Saturday we woke up early, dressed in our Sunday clothes and headed north to Canada. A new temple was recently built south of Vancouver and we wanted to have our children attend the open house. Our 2 hour trip to the border went smoothly. Happy kids and no traffic. Then we got in the border line. We couldn't see the border gate so we knew we had a bit of a wait. Turns out we waited for 90 minutes. The girls continued to watch movies in the back seat but Nathan was mad. After 30 minutes with him crying and attacking us all in the van I got out in the rain with him and we waited the remaining 60 minutes outside together. We were all very relieved and really needing a bathroom break by the time we reached the border. We headed to a Canadian McDonalds before continueing to the temple.

We parked at a Mormon church near the temple and then got in line to wait for our shuttle. Turns out Saturday was packed at the temple and the shuttles couldn't keep up with the crowds so local members were asked to turn their cars into shuttles. This truck was our shuttle. Scott sat in the front and me and the 5 kids sat in the back. We got in and out of the same door so it looked a bit like a clown car...with so many people getting out. The temple was beautiful even in the rain. First we watched a video about temples in the brand new church building sharing a parking lot with the temple. Lines of people everywhere, you could hardly walk in the church hallways, and boy was it hot.

Luckily we ran into some friends from our home ward and got to stand in line with them both outside and inside the temple.

Our girls had fun playing handgames with their friends.

Here we are after we toured the temple. Melissa slept through half of the temple tour on Scott's shoulder and then wasn't in the mood to get her picture taken. Nathan cried half the time he was in the temple and threw his binky on the temple floor litterally 10 times out of anger. The three older girls loved seeing the inside of the temple. This was their first open house. Holly recently did temple baptisms at the Seattle temple so she enjoyed comparing that temple to this one. Emily thought the mirrors in the sealing room was neat as she could see herself going on forever. We are glad we made the trip but were so happy to get home. The trip took 11 hours.

Today I'm thankful that

*Holly was so excited for 6th grade camp (she'll be gone for the next 4 days)

*I was able to take a walk through my growing up neighborhood with Nathan

*Our new little trees in the backyard are so cute and flowering