Temples, Friends, and Doughnuts

(June 10th, 2022)

Friday is our hike day. Our plan was to go on a longer hike, but Ivory didn't want us to go without her. Which means we ignored her and planned to go anyway, but then Sharon said she wanted to come visit in the afternoon, and I didn't want to miss seeing her. (This does not mean I love her more than Ivory. It just means I see her less.) So we changed up our hike and decided to take a stroll over to the new Orem Temple, which is currently under construction.

It was going to be just me and Pearl, but then Tyler came along too, which was so nice. It is always great to have him along on our adventures.

We took a route that went across the UVU bridge over the freeway. It is super cool and the kids always want an excuse to cross it. I think we figured out the bridge is just over an 1/8 of a mile long. 

From the bridge, we could see the temple. Pearl liked to say, "Target acquired" whenever it came into view.

The walk was nice and didn't seem too long. We reached the temple in short order. I'd been told that there was a trailer where the missionaries would answer questions about the temple. We walked onto the grounds, but didn't see anything like that. 

We did find some missionaries though. Brother and Sister Hacking came over to talk to us. It turns out that the 'visitor center' trailer that had been up for months was taken down to start work on the landscaping. And they plan to open up a more official visitor's center in the chapel which is also under construction. So for this brief period of a month or so, there is no good spot to talk. (Of course) But the Hacking's stood on the sidewalk and gave us our own little run down on the temple.

The temple will eventually be all granite like the bottom part. It's been a dark gray for a long time, but I'm relieved to hear it will be a lighter color. The spire is already finished and it is a shiny material that looks like different colors depending on the light. You can see the workers diligently constructing the temple. It sounds like the building process has stayed pretty close to the original schedule, but it still won't be done until 2023.

Brother Hacking took a picture of us for his visitor log. He also took a picture on my phone for us.

It was a great hike and I'm so excited for the Orem temple to be completed. It's practically in our backyard. 

Then we hiked back. I stopped to take a rock out of my shoe and Pearl and Tyler played on a fire hydrant. These two are adorable.

And of course, we crossed over the bridge again. Randomly, we saw the same guy walking across that we saw on the way over. That's pretty good timing.

We got back in plenty of time to see Sharon, but then I stupidly left to run some errands. I thought she was coming later. I almost missed her and her cute girls. Here she is with Jasmine and Nemi.

They stayed as long as they could and I just barely caught them in the driveway. After all, they had to drive back to Texas which is not a short road trip.

In the afternoon, we made doughnuts. I tend to avoid anything that needs to be fried, since I'm not very good at it. But doughnuts are worth trying. The dough puffed up nicely. (I can do dough). Then I heated up oil and we fried and flipped those bad boys. Daisy was in charge of rolling them in sugar as they came out. She requested a couple without filling.

The rest went to Pearl, who filled them with raspberry jam. It was a messy process, but the end result was delicious.

They were scrumptious, although some were a little doughy since my oil temperature was not quite right the whole time. (See...I'm still learning.) But overall a success and we ate them all. I would call that day a rousing triumph. A day doesn't get much better than temples, friends, and doughnuts.