Salt Lake City, UT

So we headed up to Salt Lake City. It is funny because I've been Mormon pretty much my entire life (since I was 2) and I've only been to Utah once. Chris has only been to report to the MTC for his mission. We have NO family there and NO real reason to go there other than we wanted to see the church history stuff and some snow. Everyone was very friendly and we were asked over and over again, "Now who are you guys visiting?" We always answered, "Umm..no one." One guy said, "How can you have NO family in the Mother Land?" Hmm....not sure. I guess we're the step children:) But any how, we were there and we were going to see and do everything we could!!! Here we are at Temple Square:

It was a beautiful manger scene and I'm sure it was even more beautiful at night but us Arizonians couldn't muster up the courage to go out after dark--TOO STINKIN' COLD!!!

The Tabernacle:


AMAZING organ and I hope I NEVER have to play it!!! TOO much pressure for this self-taught organist:)

Ethan trying to be like Noah:)


The Conference Center all decked out for Christmas:


I just LOVED this Christmas tree in the Conference Center!

I REALLY enjoyed our tour of the Conference Center. I walked away from there having a greater appreciation for Pres. Hinckley. What an AMAZING man!!! I never knew that he was involved in literally EVERY detail of this magnificent building--right down to very ample leg room between the rows of chairs. Our tour guide told us that when Pres. Hinckley was drawing up all of the plans for this conference center he was told that it would take 7 years to complete. He said, "No, it will only take 3." When the builders disagreed with him he said, "You do your job, and I'll do mine." And the center was done miraculously in 3 years. I just LOVE knowing that we are lead by inspired men.

Here we are on the roof of the conference center:


The Salt Lake Temple!!!


The Beehive House: My one trip to Utah was when I was 16. I went with my Laurel class to watch a session of conference (in the old Tabernacle) I remember the Beehive House most vividly. It was my most favorite part of the trip. On this trip, WAY back in 1993, my classmates and I were waiting for our tour of the Beehive House when we were all asked to stand up because the Queen of Tonga had just finished her tour of the house and would exiting before we started our tour. It was SUPER cool to see the Queen and all of her bodyguards. She was soo kind and said "Hello" to each one of us. We were awestruck:)


I LOVE the stair banisters:



And SNOW!!! OF COURSE!!!







This is my idea of a winter wonderland. Just beautiful!!!


We like to get the MOST out of each of our vacation days. After the snow, we hit the "This is the Place" Monument. Really neat and inspiring place.



DAY TWO in Salt Lake:
Well, we woke up Wednesday morning and checked out the weather forecast--SNOW!!! And LOTS of it coming. We were really wanting to stay another day because we were having soo much fun. We LOVED Salt Lake but we wanted to keep loving it--being snowed in for a few days may have changed our minds:) So we quickly ate breakfast, packed up, and headed out for a few more hours in SLC. We went right back to Temple Square, visited the Assembly Hall:


Then we hit the South Visitor's Center and finally my new most favorite place: The Church History Museum--A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I could not believe all of the cool stuff they had in there like the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum, the original printing press that printed the Book of Mormon, original journal entries of Joseph Smith and other prophets....I could have easily spent a few hours in there. BUT we had 4 kids and we were also trying to beat a serious storm so we ran through in about 1 1/2 hours. I just know that I gotta go back there someday.

All in all we had a FANTASTIC time and really loved Utah. We were sad to cut our trip a day short but we were sure glad we did when we watched the news the next day! We made it all the way back to Las Vegas, stayed the night there once again, and then headed home the next day. I was really glad to be home even a day early. I had to get Christmas put away:)