Temple Square X 2

This December there were 2 trips to Temple Square.

First we wanted to go up as a family at the beginning of the month so it wouldn't be so crowded.

We decided to ask if anyone in Jim's family wanted to join us and after a few scheduling snags we made it.

 It was very nice and really no crowds.  

Unless you consider that we ate at The Pie on a Friday night - NOT smart!  

That is a very, very busy night there.  Let's just say that my line/order anxiety was pretty high.

 It was pretty cold and my poor Liam only had his hoodie I really did get him a coat shortly after this was taken.  And then it got really warm for December, of course.

 Liam and I went on the next Temple Square trip with my dad, Andrea, Jackie, and Stephen.

We were able to get seats for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. 

We had pretty good seats too, just a couple rows behind President Packer.

 Thank goodness for electronic devises because we got there REALLY early so that we could get good seats.  We had at least 1 1/2 hours to kill before it started.  Do you see Liam not looking at the camera in the shot below because he's in the middle of a game?

Liam and Grandma P and Pie

I have been very close to my grandma my entire life.  My son, Liam, has also had the chance to spend a lot of time with her and I'm VERY grateful for that.  He used to walk to her house every single day after school for during all of elementary school.  He would wait there for me until I got there after teaching, and later just until I got there.

This year we had a little trouble with a jr high foods class.  The class before Liam's didn't have time to clean so they all just left.  When Liam's class came in there was a giant mess to clean before they could start.  Somehow, Liam and 2 other boys ended up doing pretty much all of the work and having no time to cook.  There was a misunderstanding - the teacher thought they wanted to clean and make their pies at home and the boys thought they had to clean.  Not sure how that dialogue actually went in class but whatever.

It turned out to be a great opportunity for Liam.  I took him over to my grandma's house and she taught him how to make a pie crust.  I stood there and watched so that I could learn too.  I just love that he was able to spend that time with her and to learn how to do it from his great grandma.  Not many people get to know their great grandparents very well.  We ended up being cheaters and buying an apple pie filling at the store because I didn't know how to make the filling and my grandma doesn't make apple pies from scratch either. Oh well, the assignment was done.  I told him next time to talk to the teacher a little more clearly.