Utah: Temple Square

We had Sam with us for a few of our outings.  He likes to spend the night at grandma's house when we are there.  There are obvious differences between our family and the Fosters.  And while we love each other, the older our kids get the less time they want to spend together.  Except Sam.  Sam seems to genuinely like us.  Since Sam was a baby I have liked having him hang with us.  I always imagined 3 boys, so it is nice looking in my rear view mirror and see 3 boys.    

One evening we went to temple square: which these days means the church history museum and the conference center.

I hung with the babies in the temple display while the teens wandered the museum.  

Then we headed to the conference center:  again, I was with these cuties while the other wandered.  It DOES make my mother heart sad to not all be together, but my mother heart knows that almost ALL of the important experiences my teens will have in their teen years will be when they are not with me.  Had they wandered with us they are almost guaranteed NOT to have an "experience", so while I would rather we all stay together I tell myself "you did your mothering part by bringing them here, now continue being a good mom by letting them go make their own choices".  So I let them go.

But these two are still pretty fun to hang with!

 Look at that, I don't have a single picture of the teenagers.  2 days later I was driving Sam home and we were talking and he mentioned (within the context of another story) that he did not want to come with us to temple square and was pretty mad about going, he thought it would be boring.  But he ended up really liking it and was glad he went.  Win!