Draper Opens Up

Over the weekend we went to the Draper Temple open house. It was the night our ward had tickets, so we thought we would make a night of it. Little did we know we would make a night of it. Draper is a small temple, so I didn't think it would take very long to tour the building. It didn't, it's getting to the building that takes forever.

First of all Draper is out there. From our house it took over 30 minutes to get to the parking area. And no, the parking area isn't at the temple. To accommodate all the visitors, you're asked to park at churches throughout Draper. We were ushered into the church at 6:45 and didn't leave until nearly 7:30. Part of the slow down was the enormous crowd, the other part was a volunteer workforce that functioned like, well like a volunteer workforce.

The kids really liked the trip from the church up to the temple. Everyone is ushered from the churches onto buses and then shuttled up the hill. Alex hasn't ridden the bus much and this may have been his highlight for the night. He hasn't stopped talking about the bus since we got home. My bus highlight was driving through the neighborhood where the temple is situated. It isn't often that the buildings surrounding the temple catch your attention as much as the temple itself. Wow!

The Draper Temple is really beautiful. Murals on the walls, very cool earth tones throughout the building, the most amazing chandeliers in the rooms. It really takes your breath away. Kennedy kept saying how pretty is was and I have to agree.

It was a neat experience to take the kids inside the temple again. Even though they've been lucky enough to go through the Manti Temple, it's been a while and this building is so much different. When we first talked about the open house I thought Tara and I might go alone. I thought the kids might get bored. After going through the temple I think I underestimated our children's ability to comprehend the magnitude of the temple. They know it's the Lord's house and I'm glad they had the chance to see it, even if we didn't get home til after 9!