Maryland and Philadelphia Temple Trip

This Summer, Becca and Preston moved to Maryland after Preston graduated from dental school.  He's now specializing in Pediatric dentisty and they will be there for 2 years.  The temple closest to them is the Washington D.C. temple, but with the Philadelphia temple just built, their stake was assigned that temple.  Becca invited us to come stay with them over Labor Day weekend and said that they would be going to the temple open house that weekend.  Ben and I agreed that we had no idea the next time we would be able to take all of our kids in the temple (they've never been in one before) and so we knew this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Becca and Preston live in the middle of the country near the coast of Maryland.  Ben and I basically want to move there.  It's beautiful.  In their tiny town they have a small free zoo.  It was the perfect size and was so fun for the kids.

When we arrived, Becca told me that they lived 25 minutes away from the town where Runaway Bride was filmed.  In the movie it's called Hale, Maryland, but in real life it's set in Berlin, Maryland.  Walking through the streets was like being in the movie.  We got a pretty good idea of which store was "Curl Up and Dye."  While we were touring, I saw so many scenes from the movie and it was just bizarre.  Like this band performing on the corner and a kid skateboarding down the sidewalk.  It was so fun!

The kids, on the other hand, were very confused as to why we were even there.

"We're here to.... walk around?"

Ha!  Yes, yes we are.

The hotel from the movie.  It is the cutest hotel when you walk around it!

We spent a lot of time playing with their dog, Lacy.  Ella was scared of her the whole time and finally came to love her (from a distance) by the time we left.  The kids loved learning how to make her do tricks.

I had to take this picture for my own pride.  Becca's legs are on the left and mine are on the right.  Now that we live in a neighborhood with a pool and go swimming frequently, I actually get a little tiny bit of color during the summer.  (And by "little color" I mean that during the summer I can wear the second lightest shade of foundation and not just the lightest shade, ha!)  But this is the first time EVER that I have been more tan than Becca.  It had to be recorded.

We went to church with Becca and Preston.  They both have Sunday callings and so I offered to take Colby during the last 2 hours.  Within a couple of minutes of gospel doctrine starting, Ben took Colby from me, said he would try to help him take a nap (since it was his nap time), and used his baby magic to put him to sleep.  They said Colby hasn't fallen asleep on them in months.  Ben loved every minute of it.  It's been a while since we've had sleeping baby snuggles.

On Saturday we drove 2.5 hours to Philadelphia and toured the temple.  There were SO MANY people there.  We waited in the stake center for about an hour before they said that they were going to have to change the tour to accommodate all the visitors.  So instead of having someone explain each room to us, they just had a steady stream of people touring through the temple in a single file line.  

This is one of my favorite memories that we have made as a family.  I'm so glad we made the drive up.  Lily told me that she always knew temples were so beautiful on the outside but she had no idea how beautiful they were on the inside.  I had a special moment when we walked through the brides' room and I told Lily and Ella that when they get married in the temple they get to get ready in a room just like that one.  They looked around at the chandeliers and the beautiful decor and were in awe.  

When we walked through the Celestial Room we stood there for a few minutes so that the kids could soak up the beauty.

The whole experience was a very meaningful one for me personally.  The temple is obviously decorated in a very colonial fashion and walking through it feels like walking through something that could have been built and kept up since the 1700's.  It was a wonderful feeling to have the spirit go hand in hand with patriotism.  

This was the perfect experience for our family, especially right before my surgery when we knew we'd be losing our twins.  How grateful we are to be an eternal family.  I'm so grateful for temples and for the priesthood.  I look forward to the day when all of us can be in the temple together again.