Birmingham Weekend

Since the Atlanta Temple has been closed since the end of June, our ward activities committee is going to reserve some seats to the next closest temple which is the Birmingham, Alabama Temple at least one Saturday every quarter. Those who want to attend can sign up at the times they have reserved. Jon and I really wanted to go but didn't know what to do with our kids since it is a little less than 3 hours each way. My sister, Christa also wanted to go. So Jon and Christa signed us up along with my parents for the 8 am endowment session on Saturday, November, 14th.

The plan was on Friday November 13th after all the kids got home from school head out to Birmingham, Alabama. The earliest we could leave was right after Connor got off the bus at 4:30 pm. Leaving at that time suddenly turned our just under 3 hour travel time to a 4 hour travel time due to Atlanta rush hour traffic. Once we got past the traffic, we decided to stop for some dinner. We wanted a sit down restaurant without the wait so Golden Corral it was. The kids love that place and I love the fact that they can eat right when we pick out our table. By the time we got to Alabama and checked into our hotel it was almost bedtime. Would have been bedtime at our house but with the extra hour we lossed they got to stay up a little later. We had 2 conjoining rooms. I knew going in I wouldn't be sleeping much with 3 kids in my room with me and in a different bed and all and I was right.

Dark and early the next morning we were all up at 6:30 am getting ready for our temple session at 8:00 am. 6:30 am wasn't bad since it was more like 7:30 am our time. So we got dressed and headed down to the lobby to eat our free continental breakfast. I thought we were going to be the only ones at breakfast that early in the morning on a Saturday besides Christa and her family, but I was wrong there were temple workers there as well having breakfast. My parents and Taylor stayed at another hotel and met us at our hotel right before we had to leave to the temple. The plan was Taylor and Brenton were going to be in charge of the kids in our 2 conjoining rooms watching movies while we were at the temple for 2 hours.

This is the fifth temple I have been in and went to a session. The other ones were Atlanta (of course), Chicago, Oakland, and Boise. The Birmingham Temple is a small temple and that it is. Everything is on a much smaller scale and very claustrophobic. I guess it isn't too bad when the Atlanta Temple is open because they don't have the big crowds. The session was packed. They even added some extra folding chairs down the isle to fit in more people. My mom and I had to sit on the boys side because there were more girls than boys. That was kind of strange. I got to see the new lights Jon and his partner put in in August.

After the session, we headed back to the hotel and everyone was still in one piece and the place wasn't trashed. We checked out of our hotel and went back to the temple to take some pictures and let the kids walk around the grounds. It was a warm beautiful day.

Talmage and me

Jon and I

One big happy family (well almost!!)

Talmage, Lorin, Eliza, and Connor

After that, we wanted to do something fun with the kids. I only knew of the zoo because we had been there once before, but checked online and found a Science Museum that looked pretty fun. So we thought we would try that out. Christa and her family went with us. We weren't expecting much because I have been to some Science Museums that were overly priced and not much fun. This place was huge. We started out by getting some lunch at the food court there. They even had an IMAX theatre but we didn't do that just the museum part. This was by far the best science museum I have ever been to. It was 3 stories of jam packed fun. We spent 5 hours at this museum and could have spent longer but it was getting dinner time and we had a little under 3 hour drive ahead of us. Here are some pictures of the museum.

Talmage on a bed of nails

Bigger smaller room Kennedy, Talmage, Sonoma, and Hayden

Talmage floating ball

Talmage and Hayden

Hayden trying to get the airplane to fly

Tady's and Trebilcock's under the arch they made

Talmage

Jellyfish (they had a light on them that changed colors)

Jellyfish now in red

Hayden and Talmage

Talmage digging for fossils

Payton and Hayden digging for fossils

Sonoma and Kennedy digging for fossils

Jon and me smooching (remind me to never shave my hair Yikes!!)

Brenton

Hayden trying to hold as much coins as he can. By far his favorite thing at the museum.

Hayden, Talmage, and Eliza watching the talking robot

My parents or Taylor didn't end up coming with us my dad was working on some airline tickets he had to book while mom and Taylor went shopping. Mom and Taylor wanted to come and really wish they would of once we told them how much fun it was but dad was doing his thing that took way longer than he thought. On the way home, we stopped off at Ci Ci's Pizza and got home just in time for bed. It was an awesome trip. I would definitely go back to this museum (The McWane Science Center) next time I am in the area and have time. Definitely worth the money.