Arizona. 2013

Here is the reason that we went to Arizona this weekend:

Jessica Shulke married Lynn Shawcroft in the Mesa Arizona Temple on Saturday the 23rd.  I was able to attend their sealing.  It was lovely.  They are such a sweet couple and seem so happy!  Cute kids, and many loving and supporting family members and friends were in attendance.

 The grounds of the Mesa, Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just gorgeous.  This is the perfect time of year, too.  Not too hot, not too cold.  The fountains and reflecting ponds and flowers were stunning.  Green, lush grass everywhere and the fragrance of all kinds of flowers were in the air. When we left  Cedar City, things were still pretty brown (although my tulip bulbs are peeking up out of the ground!)

 Oh, dear.  I forgot to turn this photo before posting it.  Sorry.  Jessica is marrying into a ranching/farming family.  So, she wore cowboy boots!  I understand they took a little spin around the temple block on a tractor after the picture-taking, too.  I missed that part. I'll bet it was cute.

 Kirk and Suzanne came from California with their family, too.

Aunt Tuny and Uncle Gary--we missed seeing you there!!

 This bottle brush tree was huge!  It's behind Suz in the photo just two above.  Really pretty.  The daffodils were pretty, too.  And the citrus tree blossoms smelled the best!  Mmmmm.

 The exterior of the Mesa temple has friezes around the four exterior corners that are representative of the pioneers of the area who originally settled.

Besides having spring-y flowers in abundance, there was also a really cool cactus garden on the grounds.

We had nice visits with Mike's grand nieces and grand nephew who live in Gilbert--and THEIR kids!  Wow. We have Great Grand nieces and nephews.  Yeah, we're old.  We stayed with Massiel and Andre and had had our dinner with Logan and Lindy on Saturday night.  We ended up with TWO dinners on Saturday.  Well, I suppose you could consider one a late lunch.  Jessica and Lynn had their reception at 2 pm on Saturday and served lots of really yummy Mexican food--tacos, enchiladas, chips and salsa.  Good stuff. Then we went to Logan and Lindy's and had MORE food.  It IS vacation after all. [and we'd been so good with our eating habits before!!!]

We also decided to attend the Easter Pageant on the grounds of the Mesa Temple that evening.  It was a bit nippy, but we borrowed some blankies from Logan and Lindy, and we were comfortable.  It happened to be one of the nights that the pageant was presented in Spanish.  We figured we could still enjoy the music and pageantry of the thing since we are very familiar with the story of Jesus's life.  But a nice missionary person offered us translation headpieces, so Mike and I listened in English.  Berenice tried, but gave up.  All she could hear was the Spanish that was broadcast over the large speakers.  But it was a very nice pageant, as all of the Church Pageants are.  Lovely music and great costumes, sound and lighting.  I saw Jesus get bucked off his "Colt" that he was riding into Jerusalem during his triumphal entry, though!  That was kind of scarey.  All was well, and the show went on.  All the waving palm fronds spooked his mount.  I didn't have my camera with me at the pageant, but there are lots of pictures if you search "Mesa Temple Easter Pageant" and select "images" from the top menu bar, Mom. :-)

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1179&bih=708&q=mesa+temple+easter+pageant&oq=mesa+temple+easter+pageant&gs_l=img.3..0i24.2384.8046.0.8238.26.12.0.14.14.0.70.757.12.12.0...0.0...1ac.1.7.img.1Wm45oA_XUM

(That will take you to Google Images)

We had a nice, uneventful trip home to Utah on Sunday.  We attended church with Massiel's family and left after Sacrament meeting.  They have an 8:00 a.m. Sacrament meeting. EIGHT O'CLOCK A.M. !!   With kids?  Mike and I were kind of sleepy and had to trade off driving a couple of times.  Even listening to recorded books, it was hard to stay awake.  And because I was navigator and wasn't always paying attention (because my eyes were closed), we actually missed a few turns and had to back track or "Re-calculate" as the GPS would say [if we had one].  That was a little awkward.  I suppose you could call that an event, but we were still home by 7 pm or so.  Long drive.  Still takes 8 hours of driving to get home.

I need a massage.

Photo from Amazon.com

The audio book we listened to most of the time was "John Ransom's Diary." He was a prisoner of war in Andersonville during the Civil War.  Since Mike and I have been there (Andersonville -- it is in Georgia), I thought it would be particularly interesting.  Sad, but educational and interesting.  And it was!  Mike wasn't sure he really wanted to hear about all the atrocities that occurred (and neither did I), but the man was so optimistic and upbeat, it was a pleasure to listen to his adventures.  Not all of it was at Andersonville, but a lot was.  He was a prisoner for over a year, barely survived Andersonville, stayed at another POW camp, escaped.  Was transferred, escaped...good narrative and glad we chose to listen to it.