Our Family Vacation – How many temples can you see?

We had the most fabulous family vacation this last week!  For all of you who remember Allison selling the Lehi Roller Mills stuff, she did earn enough to go dance in Disneyland and we finally went last week!

We decided that since we were traveling so far, it would be nice to see the temples that the girls wouldn’t have an opportunity to see otherwise.  It kind of became a mission of ours to see as many temples as possible while we were gone, and we did great!  We visited 7 temples!!

MANTI UTAH TEMPLE

We started with the Manti Utah Temple.  It is so beautiful, and it is right at the entrance to Manti, set on a hill.  Wow! You can definitely imagine Moroni standing on this hill dedicating it someday to be a temple site!

(Manti Utah Temple)  (the girls on the steps of the temple)

ST. GEORGE UTAH TEMPLE

The next temple we stopped at was the St. George Utah Temple.  It was a beautiful day, and it was also Easter.  We were able to go inside the visitor’s center and a sister missionary gave the girls an Easter lesson in front of the Christus statue. 

What a way to spend Easter!

(The girls in front of the Christus Statue)

(The girls listening to the Christus message)

(St. George Utah Temple) (Girls on the steps of the St. George Temple)(The whole family at the St. George Temple)

LAS VEGAS NEVADA TEMPLE

After eating dinner on the strip in Las Vegas, we decided that we definitely needed something better to end our day with than what we saw there.  We were able to find the temple and it was BEAUTIFUL at night with all of the lights on.

(The Las Vegas Nevada Temple) (The whole family) (The girls at the Las Vegas Temple)

LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

The L.A. Temple is Brian’s favorite temple of all.  So, we couldn’t be this close and not go see it!  It was enormous!! I found out that it is the 2nd largest temple in the world.  You can totally tell when you are there.  We were able to take some great pictures – but I can’t seem to find the ones of the whole family! :( If I find them, I will post them later.

(The L.A. Temple from across the street – that was the only place I could get the whole temple in one shot!)

(The girls outside the L.A. Temple)(More beautiful pictures outside the L.A. Temple)

NEWPORT BEACH CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

This was a pretty cool experience finding this temple.  We didn’t even know there was a temple in Newport Beach!  We were driving to San Diego from L.A. and using Google maps for directions.  Instead of taking the way that we have always taken, we decided to follow the map and take a toll road, thinking that it would get us there faster.  While mom was driving, Brian was looking out the window and in the distance, he saw a building with a lot of lights.  He kind of sat up and leaned out the window and then asked if there was a temple in Orange County.  Neither mom or I knew, but as we got closer we all decided that the beautiful building in the distance looked like a temple.  Pretty soon we could see the spire and Brian said, “That looks like Moroni on top of that spire!” We took the next exit and sure enough, it was a temple!! We would have never seen it if we hadn’t taken that toll road!  We all said a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for leading us to this temple.

(Newport Beach California Temple) (Front view of the temple) (Side view of the temple)

(Tired girls in front of the Newport Beach Temple)

SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

This was a MUST STOP on our vacation!  In fact, we stopped twice, once in the dark and once in the day!  This is my favorite temple of all time, and I think it is becoming one of mom’s favorite too.  It was a gorgeous day and the girls loved being at the temple.  We were able to talk to a sister missionary who brought out a book of pictures of the inside of the temple to show us.  It was really neat.

(San Diego California Temple) (The girls running and laughing at the temple) (The entire family at the San Diego Temple)

REDLANDS CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

As we were getting ready to leave, we decided that if we came all this way, we better see every temple we could.  We looked and found that the Redlands Temple was only a few miles out of our way, so we of course stopped by!  We were surprised how much smaller this temple was than the others that we had seen, but it was no less beautiful!  It was actually in the low 90’s when we visited this temple, and as soon as we got out of the car we were immediately enveloped with the strongest smell!  It was a mixture of honeysuckle and lilacs.  It was so intoxicating (strange word to use when describing the temple, but true!) that we did not want to leave the temple grounds.

(Redlands California Temple)

(The girls outside the temple)

 (Some of the flowers that created the beautiful smell!)

(The whole family finishing our temple tour outside the Redlands Temple)