A Night at Temple Square

We made a Family Home Evening goal this year to learn the 13 Articles of Faith. As a reward for practicing them each week (about 1 article/month) we would reward ourselves by going to dinner in Salt Lake and seeing the lights on Temple Square. So on Dec. 4, we got our reward! Oh, and what a reward it turned out to be! On the way down to Salt Lake, we decided where to eat. It was either either Fazoli's or the Macraroni Grill. We had never eaten at the Macaroni Grill and wanted the experience because we had heard from friends how wonderful the food was! So we passed Fazoli's by... oh, how silly we were... because we had the critter with us (Lia, of course, who is only safe when at home or when strapped in a stroller or car seat). Of course, we thought that Macaroni Grill was a lot like Fazoli's, we weren't expecting to be seated at a table with 6 glass wine goblets and glass bread plates. We would have been fine with the glass idea had it just been the mom and dad figures, but with our "little critter" Lia, we were nervous! The hostess graciously allowed to sit at a booth rather than a table, one tactic we used to corral the critter so that she couldn't get away from us so easily! Well, we were glad we got a booth, since Lia spent most of dinner under the table! Andy and I trapped her under there by by locking our legs together! Needless to say we ate and left very quickly! Luckily Kallie and Emma were very well behaved! Dinner was delicious (I had chicken cannelloni) but next time we will go there without little people! Our next adventure was Temple Square. We decided to walk from Macaroni Grill (4-6 blocks) since we had free parking and didn't want to pay for parking. By the time we actually made it to Temple Square we were frozen through, so we quickly walked by one sidewalk of lovely lights and went into the visitor's center. By this time Lia was finished sitting in a stroller and was getting into trouble erywhere she went. So we went up to the Christos as quickly as possible, which we all really enjoyed. The Spirit is very wonderful there! Then we watched the 7-minute Nativity movie, which we also loved! By this time we though our free parking was going to run out so we quickly walked back to the car and then decided it is too cold to go back, so we drive home (we were home at 830 p.m.)! Wow, what a night! That wasn't quite the reward we thought we were going to get... oh, well! We did learn a few things... (1) leave the little critter home with a babysitter, (2) if we can't do that, at least go to Fazoli's, it has a more casual atmosphere, which we need with our little critter, and it will save us lots of money (3) park as close to Temple Square as possible, even if it is not free so we can stay as long as we want! Oh, well, it was a fun, anyway! We will always have it to laugh about!