Ohio Trip

The real reason we'd gone to Ohio was to give Craig and I a chance to visit the temple together.  Something weird happened around here, where they closed the DC temple for 2+ years for cleaning and renovations (the HVAC unit dated back from the 70s, so it was time) and at the same time, there was a mold problem discovered in the Raleigh, North Carolina temple, so it had to be closed, too. 

So suddenly our closest temple is Philadelphia, which is about five hours away, and requires you to drive through DC, Baltimore, and Philly, meaning you're pretty much guaranteed to hit traffic as you go.  If you try going south instead, you've got the Columbia, South Carolina temple, 6 hours away.  All of this is nearly impossible to handle, and with five kids it's been out of the question for us.

But Craig is good at figuring out the impossible, and it was his idea to visit my sister Rachael, thus getting us within two hours of a functioning temple (in Columbus, Ohio)!  From there, we could do a simple babysitting swap, leaving Rachael with all our kids while we attended on Friday, and then watching her kids so she and Ian could go Saturday.  It made for a LOT of driving (14 hours, total), but it was nice to get to be in the temple with Craig.  And Rachael and Ian were excited for the plan, too, so we made it happen!

The weather went from in the 70s on Tuesday to in the 20s on Friday, and it was windy, too.  One of those fun days where you've been sitting in the car with the heat blasting and when you get out, you assume you can hurry across the parking lot without a coat, and then you get a blast of arctic wind and you quickly wiggle into that coat after all!

So sunny and SO COLD!!!

I'm glad Craig is so good at making things like this happen!  Where would I be without him?


And now, for your entertainment:

Colton found a picturesque spot!

Camille needed to copy him then, except she posed as a fighter, of course...

Ryder continues to be weird...