We arrived very late on Friday night after some direction issues...Ben says it was my fault but I say he was driving and didn't have to listen to me ;) Saturday we were up bright and not so early. The first thing we did was hit up the Mesa Swap Meet. It is this huge shopping complex with lots of little booths where everyone is selling a bunch of junk (normally). It is really fun to see all of the funny things that people sell (and other people buy!), but we always come out with some good things. We got new stick pads for our car (Ben is obsessed with them :) and I finally found a great teacher bag that I love! Thanks to my mom for the early birthday present :) After shopping, Ben and I picked up Alberta (our car) from the detailer. The car we have used to be Penny and Dick's and Dick took very good care of it. He always checks on the car whenever we got to see him to make sure we're taking good care of it...let's just say our car maintenance is not quite up to Dick's standards. He so graciously offered to have our car detailed and it looked BEAUTIFUL! So after we picked up our car, we met my mom and the kids at In-and-Out for lunch. (That was definitely not on our diet but it was soooo yummy!)
After lunch, we went back to our hotel and changed into our church clothes and get ready to go to the Gilbert Temple Open House. That is the main reason we all went down to Arizona for the long weekend. The temple is so gorgeous and has an agave theme with beautiful greens and desert scene paintings all throughout the temple. The stained glass was also beautiful. It was such a wonderful experience to go through with all of my family who I love so much. It was fun to go with Hannah because she is only 10 (almost 11!) and hasn't ever been in a temple before. It was fun to explain to her what happens in each room and what it looks like. My grandparents really liked it too. Dick wanted to know how they did each room and what each room was for. He and Ben had a really nice conversation after we were done and walking back to the cars. My grandma Penny really liked it too. I liked showing Hannah, Penny and Dick the sealing room and explaining to them that this is what it looked like when Ben and I got married because they were not able to attend the sealing ceremony.
After going to the temple, my grandma took me and Hannah to a cute store called Charming Charlie's. It is a cute boutique like store with TONS of accessories that are all pretty much under $25. While we were there she bought me and Hannah each a birthday present. I got a cute pair of rose gold earrings that looked like the agave leaves from the temple and a chunky blue necklace. We then went out to dinner at Tia Rosa's and had a yummy Mexican meal.
On Sunday we went to church in the morning and then went over to Penny and Dick's condo and just hung out all day. We picked grapefruits and oranges, played pickle ball and hung out in the pool. It was nice to just relax for a day and enjoy the warm sunshine.
Monday morning we went to Butterfly Wonderland (or "Rainforest Experience" as Ben likes to call it because it sounds more manly). It was a really neat place where we got to be in this huge room with butterflies flying all around. We had to be careful where we stepped because the butterflies liked to warm their wings on the cement. It was a really neat experience and was one last fun thing we did before heading home.
We made it home without incident and were (not quite) ready for a new week.
We had a wonderful trip and were so glad to be able to get out of Provo for a weekend to go somewhere warm.
Beautiful pictures, Meagan!
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