It's okay to skip school if it's to go to church, right?

A new temple was just recently built in Draper, UT (just up & over the hill from us). Basically, once the temple is finished it is opened to the public to come & walk through before the LDS Church dedicates it. The tour is free, but you do need a reservation.

I opted to get tickets in the day so that there would be less of a crowd (apparently, the wait has been upwards of 3 hrs in the evening...YIKES!). Anyway, I kept the boys out of school so that we could go as a family to the temple.

We were assigned a church meeting house where we parked our car & then watched a short video before loading up on a bus to go to the temple. Here are some interesting facts about this new temple:

* The Draper Utah Temple was the twelfth temple built in Utah and the third built in the Salt Lake Valley, following the Salt Lake Temple (1893) and the Jordan River Utah Temple (1981).

* All but one of the art-glass windows for the Draper Utah Temple miraculously survived a fire in the warehouse where they were being stored prior to installation. There are 221 exterior windows, 50 interior windows, and 432 door panels for a total of 35,420 hand-cut pieces of glass.

* The Draper Utah Temple is built of the finest materials including granite from China, Makore wood from Africa, and limestone from France.

* The theme carried through the Draper Utah Temple is of the sego lily—Utah's state flower.

* The Draper Utah Temple has the largest sealing room in the state of Utah.

* Ordinance rooms in the Draper Utah Temple feature hand-painted panoramas of mountain scenes, a depiction of Draper's Corner Canyon and its view of the Salt Lake Valley.

* The baptistry of the Draper Utah Temple is located on the downhill western side of the building, which allows for natural light through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Once we got there, the boys were very excited to get inside to see what all the hub-bub was about. They got a little more special attention from all the ushers since they were missing school to come take the tour...not sure Dylan really liked this, but Aidan did:)

When we got near the Baptismal Font, Dylan moved in a little closer & said, "that's a pretty cool hot tub, Mom. I want to go in." Needless to say, that got a smile out of the cute elderly man volunteering to make sure nobody went into the hottub:)

Without a shadow of doubt, the Celestial room was their favorite with the huge chandelier in the center of the room. The idea behind this is to represent when we will return to the presence of our Heavenly Father who is said to be as bright as the noon day. It was very beautiful & the boys loved seeing it. Honestly, this picture does not even do justice to how massive that thing was or how brilliantly the room was lit. If you get an opportunity, I encourage everyone to check it out for yourselves.

The boys also thought the Sealing room with the mirrors was pretty cool too. There are 2 mirrors facing each other & as you look into one the image seems to go on infinitely. The LDS faith believes that we can be with our families not only here on this earth, but for all eternity. Which is good with me since I can't imagine my life without my children or my family for that matter.

We took a few more shots otside together...

After walking up & down stairs & through all the rooms, Dylan was ready to bypass the reception hall with refreshments...as exhibited with his patented scowl...so Dylan!

After we took a bus back to our car, ...then we decided to go have lunch together.

We of course enjoyed our normal Onion Rings which filled us up before we even got our food...so typical ME! :)

All in all, we had a wonderful time together & look forward to the next Open House.