Temple Trip and Toys

Jordan and I had a very fun and exciting weekend.

It was the Youth Temple trip, and I had planned a couple of weeks ago to attend. We had to go alllllll the way to the Columbia, South Carolina temple (about 5 hours away) and stay overnight because the Atlanta temple is being completely redone right now. Jordan was going to stay here with Lexi...until we found a car to buy in Columbia.

I should probably back up a bit.

Did I mention that I totalled the Camry (it was NOT my fault) at the end of October? Well,I did, and we've been a one car family ever since. We figured we could survive for a few months since we would be in Texas together and only needed one car there, but ever since we've been back we've been looking for a car. Anyway, the car we ended up buying just happened to be close to the temple. What a blessing!

But back to the temple trip...we left on Friday when everyone got out of school. Our car left 45 minutes late because we were waiting for our digital piano to arrive (more about that later). The delivery people said that it would get here Wednesday night...then Thursday...then Friday morning...and it finally got here at 4:30 pm. Kind of frustrating, but whatever.

So, due to an insane rainstorm and driving in pitch blackness the whole way, the 5 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive and we arrived in South Carolina at 11:30 pm. The girls all slept at a very nice couple's house and the boys stayed at the temple home. They made Jordan and I split up :( sad.

We had to wake up the next morning realllllly early because we were supposed to be at the temple at 6:45 am. Ha! It's really hard getting girls up and ready on 5 hours of sleep. But we were only 10 minutes late.

We arrived at the beautiful, small temple and had a lovely time. I've never gotten to help in the temple and it was a fun experience. I got to pass out towels :) It was fun seeing my girls get baptized. They are sweeties.

Here are me and our YW president and our girls (we are in regular clothes because it was pouring when we got out of the temple, so we came back an hour later to take pictures):

I was so glad that Jordan got to come with us.

So after that, one of the moms who had volunteered to come was nice enough to take us to the dealership where we picked up our new car!

Yes, it's new. 10 miles on it when we drove it off the lot.

It's going to be Jordan's car for the next 10 years, so he better take good care of it. It's a 2011 Ford Fusion. I really, really can't believe we bought a Ford. It hurts my soul a bit, but it sure is shiny.

It's pretty. I'm jealous.

When we were driving home I was terrified that we were going to crash it. And now I'm turning into my dad. "We need to park far, far away from any other cars!" He would always say, and then we would have to hike into the store from miles away. "You'll understand when you spend ***** dollars on a car, Jamie," he would say. "No, Dad, it's just a car!"

He was right. Dads always are...

Anyway, when we got home (and had loaded 300 miles on our car, bummer) and picked up Lexi from this kid that was baby sitting her, Jordan set up our digital piano. It's like a super glorified keyboard. It's keys are weighted and had great sound and looks like a piano, too. We used all our Christmas money from our parents and the cash back from our Discover card to pay for it. Yay! Thanks parents! And Discover!

We had to put it in our second bedroom because there wasn't a good place to put it in our living room on a wall that wasn't shared.

Lexi isn't quite sure what to think of our loud new box.

We love having a piano soooo much. Jordan was a piano hog last night so I didn't really get to play, but I was sooooo tired from the trip I went to bed at 9:15 anyway. I played today though. It's going to be so nice to have a digital piano because then when we have kids we can put headphones into it and play when they take naps. Yay!

We feel very blessed and a bit guiltyto have these things now, but we are going to enjoy them anyway. :)