Almost

We almost saw the statue of Angel Moroni being placed atop the temple today.  It took a lot of planning to get us there. We walked 3-4 blocks in the rain and stood around for an hour waiting for the big event, but had to leave before it happened. The rain stopped, but the wind kept blowing and that's what kept them from putting it on.  I was really disappointed we didn't get to see it.  For me it's really fun being there when important things like that happen.  Aaron always teases me because I never want to miss out on anything.

Here's a picture of our view of the spire. There are men in the 

basket getting things ready.

 Here's the kids standing around waiting. Emma was not happy she had to miss the last half hour of soccer camp to come with us.

 Christian's umbrella kept turning inside out.

This experience reminds me so much of when we went to President Hinckley's viewing in Salt Lake

 3 1/2 years ago. I wanted so much to be there and somehow I convinced Aaron that we needed to take the girls down to the viewing.  I don't know how long we waited in line in freezing 30 degree weather before we bailed. We were almost to the doors, but we couldn't tell how much more of a wait it would be.  Christian was home with a neighbor and we didn't feel like she should have to wait up until

 1:00 a.m. for us. We were so close, but just couldn't do it.  Emma was really upset and was hard to console. Lindsey was just glad to be warm again. That was a hard one to walk away from.

Today's experience was so dramatic at times. It was finding out how to make it all work, packing lunches, discovering when we got there that Christian only brought one flip flop with him and who knows how far we were going to have to walk, walking through rain,  discovering on the walk that the battery on my video camera was dead, walking back to the car later on to get the lunches because the kids were starving and turning around and running back three blocks to the tabernacle because I suddenly realized I had left my kids there without a mother and what if they got scared or confused and didn't know what to do..... Then there was the complaining that's always part of everything.  I felt anxious too because the baby was at my neighbor's and what if she was screaming and wanting to eat? Not knowing it would take that long I hadn't left a bottle.  In the end we left because it was feeding time and no one could tell us when the statue would be going up.   By the way it ended up happening an hour after we left when I was feeding the baby. From our house we could see the gold, but couldn't make out any other details.

It was a physically and emotionally exhausting afternoon.

This all sounds so negative so I'll say that it was really neat to be there with everyone.  There were people everywhere, but it didn't seem too crowded. There was a good feeling, an exciting feeling.  It was quite the adventure.