Temple Square and the Gateway

I have been busy the last few weeks. I decided to take a trip to Utah with my kids while Rinar went on a business trip to Florida. We spent almost one week with Melanie and her family. We were able to do lots of fun things. On the first day we went to Temple Square.


We first went to the Conference Center for a quick "kid" tour of the building. Melanie had never been in it before, but we didn't want to stay long because of our restless kids. So the tour guide showed us the inside meeting hall, which is massive and the roof. The roof is spectacular!

Halle, Zach and Raef are standing on the roof looking west over the Salt Lake valley. Can you believe that is a roof? The picture with all of us is also on the roof. I don't think there is anything like it in the world.

After this stop, we headed over the the church office building to go to the observation deck. The kids had fun seeing the entire valley. It was a clear day and a perfect time to look at everything. Then we did a quick run through Temple Square. There was a lot of construction going on, so we did not stay long.

We had to stop and fill up on some snacks before we caught the train to the Gateway.

Melanie and I were both amazed by the beautiful flower beds. They were stunning. Eli is sitting in front of one that is on the side of the church museum. I was especially struck by the beautiful color scheme for this one. It was so bright and well-planned.

Thanks to Melanie's eye for coupons, we were able to do 2-1 entrance fee to the children's museum. We got there mid-afternoon and all of the kids were enthralled by it, especially Eli and Ava. They hardly made a sound as they played really hard with all of the fun toys and contraptions. Here is Caleb in his mug shot. He actually was really happy but got all serious for this picture. It really cracked me up.



Eli and Ava got down and dirty with the balls. They must have been at this specific location for an hour all together. They just loved it.



We finished up the day with a nice dinner at Z Tejas and the kids were all surprisingly good. Melanie and I were both very surprised. Plus, we were able to finish up before the dinner rush. Then Melanie kindly bought all of the kids gumballs from a gumball cart. They had a lot of fun picking out the ones they wanted. And then we checked out the play fountains. I didn't want the kids to get wet so we told them they could play as long as they didn't get wet. It was quite a challenge and the kids all rose to the occasion. I think they had more fun running through the fountains dodging all of the streams of water. Plus, they only got a little bit wet.

It was a long, exhausting, but very fun day for us all.