Utah Trip - Provo City Center Temple Open House

A few weeks ago I got to take a trip up to Utah to visit with my cousin Kaytie's family and go and see then new Provo City Center Temple open house. Mom, Doug and I drove up on a Thursday. We knew it was much colder up north so we made sure to pack snow clothes. Around Cedar City and Beaver we hit snow. All the roads were clear but it was pretty cool seeing snow again.

We were making really good time and expected to make it to Kaytie and Jared's around dinner time but as we were passing Payson,UT our car blew a tire....luckily it was right before an exit that happened to have a Big-O tire place. So we limped up the off-ramp and into a parking lot. Big-O sent over a man to help us get the spare on and then had us drive to their shop where we got 4 new tires.

 

Once that was done, we got into Kaytie's about 8:00pm. Her kids were in bed already. We stayed up chatting and catching up. Then went to bed.

On Friday, Mike and Nicole with little Dan came over to Kaytie's in the morning. They were also up in Utah visiting her family. Dan got to play with Kaytie's kiddos and then Kaytie's husband Jared offered to watch the little ones and Dan while the rest of us went to the Temple open house.

 

Downtown Provo was a little crazy but we were lucky to find some parking really close to the Temple. While I was on my mission in Utah the Provo City Tabernacle burned down. I was so sad because I had always thought it was a really cool looking building.

Provo Tabernacle December 2010 - Just after fire

The following spring at General Conference, Pres Monson announced that it would be converted into a Temple. I was sooooooooo excited. So I was thrilled Kaytie was able to get us tickets to the open house. Here are some pictures we got. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but the outside was just as cool.

 

Kaytie and her two older girls

 

After the tour we drove to the Brick Oven Pizza place and got lunch then went up and walked around BYU campus. I got a new sweatshirt. Then we met up with Jared and the little ones at the BYU creamery on campus. Getting ice cream and brownies...yum yum.

Then we headed back to Kaytie's to relax. Mike and Nicole left to go meet up with her family and the rest of us had Thai take-out for dinner.

On Saturday, we had lunch with some of Mom's long lost cousins. Her mother died when she was born so she never got to know her cousin on her mother's side. In the last few years they have been meeting up with my mom it's been kind of neat. My Uncle Dave was in town so they got together to meet him for the first time.

Yeah...I can see a resemblance.

For the rest of the day we just relaxed...that night I took Kaytie and Jared out to the movies as kind of a thank you for getting Open House tickets and mostly for Jared being the baby-sitter all weekend. We saw "The Finest Hours." It was a great movie...I highly recommend it.

Then we headed home on Sunday. Stopping in St. George to see Uncle Dave one more time. It was a wonderful trip. The Provo City Center Temple is very very pretty and I hope to go back and see it again when it is dedicated and open.