December 28, 2017

Today was such a good day! The main thing to celebrate is Nikki and Josh got married in the Salt Lake Temple. I had never been to the Salt Lake Temple until today. I didn't realize how big it is and how you don't enter the temple through the temple doors. We go through these side buildings and tunnels and pop up into the temple. Nikki looked gorgeous and Josh looked so happy. Congratulations you two! You deserve the best!

Emma and I also had some other stops we decided to make. While we were on Temple Square we decided to go to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and check out the church's Light The World campaign. Unfortunately it wasn't running anymore but it was fun to see. Then we ate at the Nauvoo Cafe before heading over to City Creek Mall. We did a lot of window shopping and we even went into the American Girl Store. I was reliving my childhood. Although now, they have a many dolls I don't know anymore.

After shopping we decided to walk through the temple square lights on the way back to my car. Oh how I love the lights, especially the ones by the temple. It took us awhile to find my car (it helped when we finally took the right elevator to get to the side of parking we wanted). Then we went to a record shop that Emma's brother had told her about. I received a record player for Christmas this year. I didn't find any records I wanted, but if Emma had a record player, she could have had lots of fun buying records.

Something Emma and I had wanted to do all December was go see the Tree of Life in Draper. We never had the chance to go between classes and then finals. We made time to go see it on the way to the reception. It was amazing! It really did look like the Tree of Life from the Book of Mormon and all the paintings you see of it. You could even see the Draper Temple from the park. Way cool and I recommend it for everyone to go see it!

We finally made it to the reception. It was in the Traverse Mountain Lodge. I have never been there before. It was really nice. They had lights strung across the ceilings. Music playing in the background. They served sandwiches and salads. For desert they had donuts and a hot chocolate bar. The traditional cutting of the cake, a first dance, a daddy-daughter, mother-son dance (that turned into a family dance), and the bouquet toss. Although Emma and didn't stay for the toss. We took that as our cue to go. So I took Emma back to Provo before heading home to Altamont. Overall it was a fantastic day!