My parents made reservations at Palisades Lake during the Manti Pageant and invited us to come along. Last year G and I tried to reserve a campsite and missed the window. So this year when my parents invited, we decided we would do all we could to make it work, except that was the weekend G would be with the priests at their high adventure camp...so just the kids and I went. Whitney and Russ and the boys also came and so my boys were in heaven.
I drove the truck so we could have our bikes for riding around the campground and back and forth to the beach...it was a great weekend. We rented little paddle boats, swam a lot, played at the beach, went geo-caching and went to the Manti Pageant. I also did a session with my parents at the Manti temple. I had never been inside the Manti temple before and so we woke Friday morning and made it work. I had forgotten to bring a dress to wear into the temple so I wore Kenna's striped swim dress as a skirt and wore her white sandals, too. I felt a little out of place, but it did the job! McKenna now wants to be married in the Manti temple...I hope she always remembers how she felt when we drove up to the temple and she made that declaration. Seeing the temple up on the hill was truly breathtaking. It is one of the most beautiful temples in the world.
Saturday night we went to the Manti Pageant and got there around 7:30...the pageant began around 9:00, but by 8:00 four little boys were already asleep and two big boys, grandpa and Russ, were more than happy to miss the pageant and get the boys back to the camper...I think they bribed the boys to fall asleep so they could go back. Just us girls stayed and it was amazing. The one memory I have from my youth and being at the Manti pageant is when Angel Moroni appears on top of the temple and I was curious as to how my girls would react when they saw that...the moment came and Angel Moroni appeared. Kenna's expression was priceless...she gasped and her jaw literally dropped. It was priceless. She couldn't get over how impressive that was. Ash loved it too but she was sitting on the other side of Whitney so I couldn't see her as well. I'm so glad we were able to stay and watch that together...maybe next year the boys won't fall asleep!
