Washington, D.C. Temple and the coolest Walmart ever!

We finally went and saw the Washington, D.C. Temple grounds!  It is a beautiful temple!   

This was actually the closest temple to me when I served my mission in the NYNY South mission back in 1996-1998 because the Manhattan Temple wasn’t yet built.  So we weren’t allowed to go as missionaries because of the distance.  But I was able to return a year or so after I was home, to see a beautiful family of five I had taught the gospel to, get sealed.  The Caballeros.  It was nice to return after 15 years or so and reflect on that day.  I had forgotten how beautiful the grounds were! The temple seemed massive, as well as the forested areas around the temple. Wonderfully peaceful.  Briant felt right at home.  It reminded him of the Portland temple grounds.  It didn't hurt that we had cloudy skies and rain to follow.  :)

        Beautiful temple doors on the backside.

Bri pointing to Angola. :)

And they have a visitors center with interactive activities for kids, and videos to watch, as well as the Christus.  We had a pleasant visit.  It’s always nice to feel the spirit at the temple.  There’s such a feeling of comfort I feel when I’m there, even if I’m just outside.  We unfortunately picked the wrong time to leave, getting caught right in the middle of the typical downpour of the humid Virginia skies, where there’s not a chance of remaining dry.  We have learned that if it starts to sprinkle, we need to get shelter soon because it turns torrential quickly.  Anyway, we made it to our car that we parked in the farthest parking stall possible, after laughing practically the whole way.  A memory that I think will stick for a while.

From the temple, we headed directly to Walmart to get groceries and school supplies for the kids.  They start school next week!  It seems like all of the Walmarts are at least 25 mins away from our house, in areas where we’re not going to for any other purpose.  So I don’t shop at them like I did in Utah when it was only 5 mins away.  We decided to take advantage of the one that was closest to the temple on our way home.  To our surprise, it was not your typical Walmart.  There was a parking garage and escalators to get down into the store.  On our way out, we put our shopping cart in a special escalator of it’s own in order to get the grocery cart up to the parking garage.  Amazing and so easy.  Something we have never seen before!  What are they going to come up with next?!

Going down to shop.

Leaving with a full cart.