Settle in... this is a long story, but important to document. If you have been reading my blog since the beginning (2007) you should know that my favorite place in the whole world is Temple Square. My heart lives at temple square. Being there with my family is the closest thing to heaven I have experienced. Having it closed and demolished has been hard. Every time the church puts out pictures or videos of the construction it feels like they are ripping out my heart, literally, it hurts. This all sounds very dramatic, but I am not exaggerating, it is visceral for me. I didn't want to go see it. I didn't know if I could take it. Then in April 2020 conference Elder Stevenson talked about renovating the Salt Lake Temple and how we need to sure up our foundation (more info in a future post). The point is I had a change of heart and I desperately wanted a picture of my family in front of the under-construction-Salt Lake Temple. It felt symbolic for our growing family. I had a whole vision for a wall with the picture, a quote, and ideas about how we could "renovate" our family. When we went to Utah in October of 2020 I told everyone about my plan and they all said "great idea mom - we will help make that happen!" With out going into detail... we didn't go in October and I was heartbroken. Well... having no one share my vision has never stopped me before... we were going to make it happen this time!!! It was the first thing I planned. We got to Salt Lake County on Monday and we were going to temple square on Tuesday.
I will stop that part of the story there and say that before we went to Utah I had them all write down 3 things they wanted to do in Utah. 3 of the 4 of them said they wanted to take the babies to Discovery Gateway. They remembered loving it as toddlers/young kids and wanted to play there with their younger brother and sister and their dad. Despite the fact that it costs an arm and a leg, it seemed like and admirable desire, so we decided to make it a priority. So, we planned a big adventure. As soon as the babies woke up from their naps we would go to discovery gateway, then go eat dinner, then go to temple square for my picture and be home in time to put the babies to bed. Like all good covid mothers I checked on all of the openings and rules for each of our outings. We didn't need reservations for DG anymore... great, temple square was mostly closed, except for the conference center, they were opened and doing tours. That was perfect because I wanted the picture on top of the conference center anyway so we would have the whole view of the temple and looking down on the big hole. Off we went.
We got to discovery gateway, found parking, got all 6 kids into the building and... it was closed. Completely locked up. Even the sign on the door said it was supposed to be open. To this day we never found out why it was closed. sigh. Well... what do we do now? It was TOO HOT to go to temple square now, it was like 102. Remember from a previous post my kids love going to new libraries? Well. .. I sold them on a trip to the Salt Lake City Library. It was indoors and air conditioned, it was open, and it was free. They actually were not too excited (they wanted DG) but then I mentioned that it had a garden on the roof with a water fall falling down the side, they were in! We drove over there and when we got in there was a sign that said, "roof and water fall closed". sigh. We still went in, walked around, and read some books.
I wasn't really impressed. I thought for sure they would have a great kid and toddler zone. But nothing. It was a bust. Oh well. We waisted 2 hours. Now dinner. We go back out to the car and find.... a parking ticket!! But I paid the meter! It is one of those new fangled technology smart phone ones where you enter the number of your parking spot. Apparently I put in the wrong number. I am just winning all over the place! Luckily we got off with a warning. But the anger against mom is building. THEN we head to the restaurant. Now, before we sound to fancy for going to a restaurant we were actually going to Little Caesars to pick up a pizza and eat it on the grass in the back of the conference center where we park. We had already eaten out 3 or 4 times since coming to Utah and our food budget was shot. We did not want to drop another 50 - 100 dollars on dinner. We get to Little Caesars and... you guessed it... closed! I guess it is only open when there are Jazz games. We are STARVING, especially the babies. I had a few snacks, but not much. There isn't any fast food restaurants within a few blocks of temple square. Everyone just wants to call it. They want to go back to grandma's, eat dinner, and just forget about this terrible outing. But we are. so. close. "Lets just go to temple square, we won't walk around, we will just go up to the conference center roof, take the picture and go home, I promise". They all reluctantly agree. At this point Jason is my cheerleader and rowing this disaster of a boat, like he always does. (although I know he is questioning my sanity). We park in our usual place (a block away cuz it is free and in the shade) and we walk down the hill to the conference center. And... yep... closed. It closed early. We missed it by 6 minutes. This time it is funny. Kind of, but not really. We glance across the street and it looks completely boarded up. Everyone looks at me, with those puppy dog eyes, begging to just go back to the car. But I look at Jason and say, "please, please can we cross the street, just to see what we can see? Maybe there is a place we can get the picture". He, of course, gets us all across the street.
There wasn't much to see. Everything is closed and blockaded. They have this one viewing window. We look, Jason teaches and explains. We try to make the babies happy - they are not happy.
And then... We get my picture.
Remember a
previous post (click here) where I traipse my children all around Utah County to go to temple grounds just to have all of them closed? Well... I am not sure the lesson God was trying to teach me. Maybe just plan better? But it has to be deeper than that. Maybe it was just to show my kids that I love the temples, even when they are closed, and they are worth sacrificing for, even when it isn't what you expected. I love my picture and it means even more to me now because I wanted it taken for a symbolic memento of tearing down, building, re-doing, re-thinking, trying again, strong foundations, and there is purpose in construction and imperfections. And this picture, coming at the heels of a horrible day, that had the best of intention, shows us that we are a family that is definitely "under construction", but we have a sure foundation, a plan, a great architect, and we refuse to call it quits (even when it looks messy)
The end.
