Ogden Temple Open House

In the LDS church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), before a new (or newly renovated) temple is dedicated, an open house is held and anyone can  take a tour through the temple.

This is how the Ogden temple used to look: 

source

Since the local temple was closed for renovation at the time, this is where my parents were married.  I wish I had a picture of them on that day to post.  How about it Mom?

And this is how it looks now:

For pictures of the interior of the Ogden temple go here.

                

                        were able to take the kids on the second to last day of the open house.  

Although they not all of them were thrilled when they got home from school on Friday and we told them to hurry into their church clothes so we could go, they were all happy that we went afterward.

When we exited the temple, there was a large fountain right in front of us.

Of course, Ben immediately pulled us in that direction.

He is such a water lover!

We had to forcefully move him away after several minutes of splashing all over both of us.

I love Matt's face :)!

After taking him away from the water he was pretty mad while we walked around the rest of the grounds.  There was no way he would pose for a picture with the rest of us.

We then drove around the corner and made a stop at a childhood memory of mine...Farr's Ice Cream.

When I was young and our family would be driving home from Salt Lake for one reason or another, we would always hope that Dad would take the Ogden exit and treat the family to ice cream.

He did it often enough to make memories :)

This was my kids' first time.

The scoops of ice cream were rather large and had been put atop spindly, little cones.  As the man gave Matt his cone, he hesitated handing it over and watched him for several seconds with concern in his eyes.  Matt took his first lick and crack, the cone snapped right in half and toppled to the floor.  They very kindly gave us a new one.  While we were waiting for it we saw some very familiar faces out the window.  My aunt and uncle and cousins (including the one that got married a few weeks ago) were walking in to get their own yumminess :)  They had just been to the open house as well.  What a coincidence.  It was very fun to visit for a few minutes.  However, we couldn't chat long since our ice cream was starting to melt and Andy and Ben were waiting for us in the car.
We then drove home and had our weekly, Friday pizza and movie night.

It was a lovely way to spend an evening with the family :)