temple square

 

The first part of December, we decided to try a night at Temple Square to see the lights.  Every year I want to do it and almost every year Courtney doesn't really want to all that bad.  (We went all the time when I was growing up, he never did.  Guess I'm a traditionalist.)  Well, when December came around and it was still sixty plus degrees outside, I thought "perfect"!  So, I hatched a plan.  We could ride the frontrunner down to Salt Lake (fun idea number one), head to see the lights (fun idea number two), oooooh and ahhhh over the beautiful-ness of it all (fun idea number three).  For his part, Courtney hatched fun idea number four.  Since we were soooo close to Tucano's, we should definitely take the girls there to eat.  It was a deal.

 

Well, it turns out that everyone else in the western United States had the same idea.  We had a fun ride down, and the girls thought it was awesome for the first five minutes or so.  After that, they were professionals.   We wrangled Sam for the rest of the way and squished onto a Trax train, which didn't turn out to be so awesome for the girls because they could hardly breath.  Awfully crowded, it was.  And Temple Square?  Oh my.  It was so crowded that we couldn't actually even see the lights.  Unless we looked straight up.  Except then Ryenne complained that all the lights made her eyes hurt.  Meanwhile, Emmy and Kate complained that they were too hot, Claire and Sam wanted out of the stroller whilst Emmy begged to ride, and a certain older sister looked at us with a "I'm a little too cool for this whole gig" sort of attitude.  Ah, the magical age of almost thirteen. 

 

The whole time I just kept on repeating to myself, "We're making memories.  We're making memories" and wondering how many times I made my parents wonder what they'd gone to all the effort for when I was a kid. 

 

 

 

Thank goodness for Dad, who comes up with the really fun ideas, because Tucano's was a hit.  I am raising a gaggle of meat lovin' girls (they get that from the Wood side-I could take it or leave it).  They were in heaven.  Kate even took a sample of chicken heart, although she chickened out (no pun intended) and never did take a bite.  We all loved the pineapple, of course, and the next day when were trying to decide what to eat for dinner, one of the girls piped up with "I know!  Let's go to Tucano's!"

 

 

 

 

After dinner, we hopped on another crowded Trax train (but were excited to see a handful of cute kids from our ward, imagine that!), and found a seat on the train for the ride home.  Unfortunately, we erased the suprisingly cute pictures we have of us at Temple Square (smiling, even!), and so all we are left with is these blurry phone pictures and our happy memories.

 

(Of the food, that is.)