Ohio Visit

 We traveled to Ohio at the end of July to visit friends and tour the Indianapolis Temple Open House.  Each new temple built by our church hosts a public open house for three weeks before it is officially dedicated and closed to the public.  It is a rare opportunity to tour a temple before it is dedicated, so we were very excited for the chance to take a tour together!  It is as beautiful on the inside as it is in the inside!  Plastic booties are placed over everyone's shoes at the open house to prevent dirt from soiling the white carpets of the temple, which really seemed to bother Dallin.  He did not like them on his feet and wanted to know when he could take them off.  The second we exited the temple he sat on the ground in the middle of the sidewalk directly in front of the door so that he could promptly remove his booties.  Luckily, everyone in our tour group patiently waited for him to do so instead of trampling him :)

The Indiana state tree is the Tulip Popular and its blossom (as pictured here) can be found throughout the interior and exterior of the temple.  It was so fun to see how many times we could find it in the temple.

There was a small visitor center set up outside the temple with more information about the construction of the temple.  Many of its materials were imported from around the world.

After spending a night in Indianapolis, we continued our journey to Ohio to see some of our favorite friends.  Owen was so happy to be reunited with his best friend, Jason.  We spent one of days together at Kings Island, which was fun for everyone.  Each of my kids match up with one of our old friend's kids, so everyone had a buddy for the rides.  Owen and Jason hit the roller coasters together.

Logan and Dallin had fun in Snoopy Town designed for just their size.

We missed our buddies!

Ashleigh's best friend, Evan, also joined us for the day at Kings Island.  Ashleigh preferred the water rides and slides.

Another dear friend joined us at the park too.  Owen was happy to see his friend Evan who loves to ride roller coasters too!

We stayed at the park longer than I expected so we had to re-fuel with some of our friend's snacks.  We stayed at the park for almost the entire day!

We went to gymnastics with our friends the next day before leaving to head back home.  It was sad to say goodbye, but we are hoping to see each other over spring break.

We had a great week traveling to Ohio stopping to see family along the way.  The 11 1/2 hour drive isn't nearly that bad when you break it up into chunks!