My happy place

So it's been a while since I've blogged, huh?  I've realized that but haven't done much about it, until there was something I was really wanting to share with my friends.

This blog post is geared really towards my friends in Phoenix.  I miss you all dearly and hope you are doing well.  This time of year I sometimes wish I was back in Phoenix during its "winter." :)

So there is something really great about to happen in Gilbert, AZ.  A temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a the Mormon Church a.k.a the church I attend) will be open to the public before it is dedicated! The reason I am telling you this, is because I would love for each and every one of you, who live close or will be visiting the Gilbert area in the next month or so, to please go and visit the temple. I promise you that it would be such a cool experience, and a Mormon temple might just be one of the most beautiful and sacred buildings that you will ever see in your life.  Believe me when I say that I wish I was there to take each and every one of you, because this is how important this is to me. The temple is something so sacred to me; it is my "happy" place and one of the VERY few places where I feel totally at peace, and I want to share this with my friends.

To attend the open house of the temple, you need to get a ticket online.They are free and really the only reason you need a ticket is for crowd control.  Someone will guide you through the temple and tell you about it, and answer any questions you have.

Please, I beg you to go to it, I promise it will not be a waste of your time. There are no strings attached, you can ask as little or as many questions as you want about the temple, and about the church.  If anything, just go to view such a beautiful place.

Will you please tell me if you go?  I would love to know.  Please contact me if you have questions, want someone to go with, etc.  I will be impatiently patiently waiting to hear from you.  :)

The website for more information is found here. But for reservations go here. Please note that reservations for tickets opens tomorrow, so for today, there isn't a lot of information, if you are reading this today, the 29th.

When you get to the "sealing room," just know that this is where Wolfgang and I got married and sealed the deal!  It was in a room exactly like the one you will see.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Again let me know if you have any questions!

This weekend: DC and the temple

This past Saturday we finally made our way back to DC for round two!  We hopped on the metro and off we went, this time our destination was The Capitol, The Library of Congress, and Botanical Gardens.

Started off at the botanical gardens, which was kinda cool. Made us feel like we were in a mini concrete Hawaii, haha. They had some sort of toy train exhibit that had a big line to see; If my dad were there with us I knew he would have loved it, but since he wasn't, we didn't bother doing that part.

Next (and next door)  was The Capitol.  It was beautiful and massive!  Much better than the White House, although I'm sure I would think differently maybe if you could get closer to it (white house). I think we went at the perfect time of day, because the lighting was nice as the sun was going down, and we got to enjoy the big Christmas tree in the front too.  We also enjoyed walking around in the Library of Congress!  That was absolutely beautiful.  I only wish that we could have gone in the actual library part! You could only observe it through a high floor through glass, like a creeper.  I don't believe that it is open to the public, plus it was close to closing time, so we didn't have much time to find out anyway.  Oh well, we can always go back another time.

While in the Library of Congress, we went in the "Ancient America" (or something close to it) exhibit, which was pretty cool.  Sorry no pictures, because it wasn't allowed.  But I have to say that I was in heaven, because there were so many historic MAPS!  In case you don't know, I'm currently obsessed with maps and globes. I told Wolfgang if we were ridiculously rich, I would potentially collect maps and globes as a weird hobby.

I just love how the lighting turned out on this one 

Library of Congress

Then yesterday, we took some missionaries to the "Festival of Lights" at the DC temple, where we enjoyed the newly done hip and tech savvy visitor's center, some Christmas music, nativities from all over the world, etc. It was a pretty night with some fog hanging around the spires of the temple.

So, are you convinced to come visit me yet?