Temple #50: Winter Quarters, Nebraska

It was Josh's idea to make Winter Quarters temple #50. We are crazy, I know. I can only say that we didn't really set out to go to so many. It just kind of happened over time. When we got married, we talked about all the temples we wanted to see before we had kids. And then we kept not having kids, so we kept going to more temples. I've probably told this story before.

the temple sign-- to the side of, not in front of, the temple

The Winter Quarters temple is on this big hill and it was built right next to a pioneer cemetery. In fact, if the Celestial Room window had not been made of stained glass, it would look right into the cemetery. Symbolic? Obviously.

from the front of the temple

This is a similar design to the Snowflake, Arizona temple, which means that when you walk through the door there is a stained glass window behind the reception desk, behind which is the baptistry. To get to the ordinance rooms, you take a staircase to the right.

the front doors

This temple has a few stained glass windows, such as this one (I think, though I'm not entirely sure, that the baptistry is on the other side):

The first ordinance room doesn't have landscape murals, but does have two landscape paintings. One was of chimney rock, which fans of the Oregon Trail game can appreciate. Otherwise, it is white walls with gold painted trim (except for one or two features in the upstairs waiting area, which I will get to).

The Celestial Room was small and had two green, overstuffed couches that reminded me of something my sister Tasha would buy (or possibly owns). Then the room is ringed with more chairs of different types, mostly moss green and beige. The stained glass window had the Tree of Life (I assume). The room also had a puzzling grape motif. I know that when I think of Nebraska, the first thing that comes to mind is grapes. Go figure.

The final, really interesting part, of this temple is the waiting area on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs. There is a beautiful painting of the settlement of the Saints at Winter Quarters. There is also a painted stained glass-ish window with multiple scenes and people that are important to Winter Quarters and the Mormon Trail. We got to meet the temple president and matron and told them that this was our 50th temple in a little over 5 years of marriage. They seemed much more impressed than people were when we had only visited 49 temples. They were extremely nice and wished me luck with school (I told them I am going to need it). 

I have decided to include our other Omaha adventures (the Mormon Trail Visitor's Center, Kanesville Tabernacle, Italian steak, and Sioux Falls) in the next blog post. Right now I just want to revel in the fact that we actually, weirdly, have now been to 50 temples. (It probably goes without saying that Josh has already planned our next temple tour, but it will have to wait until the summer and the end of my internship). 

Temple #49: St. Paul, Minnesota

Josh and I decided to spend the morning of our fifth wedding anniversary at the St. Paul, Minnesota temple, which is about a 5 1/2 hour drive from Grand Forks. I love going to the temple on our anniversary.

This temple was dedicated in 2000, so it's one of the smaller, more plain temples. There are a couple pretty notable things, though. Firstly, this temple may have the least amount of grounds area than any temple we've been to so far. What you see in this picture is literally it: 

The temple shares a parking lot with a stake center, but even that isn't very large. The other unique thing is that this message, which appears on all LDS temples, is etched in glass over the door. I don't think we've seen that before, either:

Finally, the temple workers were mostly young marrieds, which was unusual. But maybe it was just that weekend for some reason. Also, someone's cell phone went off multiple times while I was in the dressing room. In a temple that small, you can hear that stuff. Turn off your cell phones, people! You're in the house of the Lord!

a weird, backward way of letting you know with my fingers how crazy we are for visiting so many temples

I have said many times that the 50th temple makes us officially crazy. Well... we've chosen #50 and we're heading there soon. I'll let it be a surprise as to which one it will be. 

ShepAlder Temple #48: Billings, Montana

As part of our ridiculous road trip halfway across the country, we stopped in Billings, Montana to do a session at the temple.

The main thing of note is that this is a one-story temple with a tall spire, which makes it a very unique. There is no mistaking the Billings temple for anything else. Also, it is right next to the hills, which makes it very picturesque.

It is also practically impossible to get lost. There are glass doors that remind you to stop and go a different way. It was very well-designed. The inside was pretty plain, of course, with a lot of white walls and gold trim. No purple couches, sadly.

One thing of note is that the Celestial Room is asymmetrically designed, with bay stained-glass windows. There is also apparently a skylight in the main foyer that offers a view of the angel Moroni, but I forgot to look for it.

We are still trying to figure out where temples #49 and 50 are going to be. Josh wants to go to the St. Paul, Minnesota temple sometime soon, but after spending over 2,000 miles in the car to get here, I don't think I'll be willing to spend over 10 hours in the car round trip anytime soon.

So what do you think? Where should temples #49 and 50 be?

Temple #47: Orlando, FL

It is almost official that the ShepAlders are a pair of temple-going crazies (the 50th one makes it official, so stay tuned) because we have now been to temple #47. This past week, Josh and I went to a family reunion/business meeting get-together with my family at Walt Disney World (pictures forthcoming, I promise). We took a red-eye flight (I semi-literally walked into the house from work and then out to the car with my suitcase) to get to Florida on Friday morning so that we could enjoy the temple before my family started arriving.

Like a lot of temples, the Orlando temple just kind of appears out of nowhere while you're driving on the highway. I think you go up a little hill or maybe turn the corner and there it is:

It was very sunny and muggy, so in all the pictures of us we look a bit wilted:

This temple is much bigger than I had anticipated. The dressing room reminded me of the temples in Utah where the matron has to tell you specifically which locker to use because otherwise there would be massive chaos. But it wasn't busy. In fact, there were four couples exactly in our session, which is apparently the perfect number.

I really liked the chapel, which was kind of small but had a cloud mural on the ceiling. That was a surprise because this temple was dedicated in 1992 and temples of that era tend to be more utilitarian than overtly decorative. It wasn't until the early- to mid-2000s that environmental murals became commonplace. This wasn't an environmental mural, but my point is that it was beautiful and unexpected.

from the back

There were several other surprises about this temple. Firstly, the Celestial room has purple couches that are modern and as soon as I saw them I thought, "Oh, this is a first!" I loved them. I love that whoever was in charge of choosing furniture made that choice. Seriously, I would have hugged these couches if I could have fit my arms around them.

The second surprise was that the temple is a haven for geckos. All of Orlando is, really, but they kept scuttling around and freaking me out. I hate when I can see something from the corner of my eye moving and I'm not quite sure what it is.

This particular one was living in a light fixture:

The final surprise was that, while Josh was off taking more pictures and I was sitting in the air-conditioned car minding my own business, someone hit our car! Everything turned out fine, but it was a super awkward situation, especially since I suspect this person may not have left a note had I not been sitting in the car when she hit it and had I not then gotten out of the car and stared at her. So now the Orlando temple will always be known as the one at which someone hit our rental car.

And also the one with all the geckos:

ShepAlder Temple #46: Vancouver, B.C.

This weekend, Josh and I made the deceptively long trek to Vancouver, British Columbia in order to visit our 46th temple. We've been planning a trip since the dedication in 2010 (I mean, it's only a state and a quick border crossing away, right?) but, like with Medford, things just never seemed to work out. Since we are t-minus 4 weeks from our move, we decided this was the perfect time. (It wasn't, but, like Tim Gunn insists, we made it work). 

It's funny, because from pictures I assumed that the VBC (Vancouver, B.C. shortened for my sanity) temple was huge but when we got there it seemed much smaller. But then on the inside it seems much bigger. Generally I judge the size of a temple by three things: the presence of a cafeteria, clothing rental, and a chapel/ordinance waiting room. VBC has all three, though in much smaller sizes than, for instance, Portland. 

After you go inside, the dressing rooms and ordinance rooms are upstairs. For some weird reason, this is among my favorite dressing rooms. Maybe because there are some nooks and crannies so I felt like I could get a locker without having to fight people for a dressing stall. It's weird how I judge my various temple experiences. It also smelled really good-- like my family's summer house when I was growing up. 

There are two major things that sets this temple apart for me. First of all, there is a landscape mural in the ordinance room (which I always love), and it features both the deer and what I assume is some sort of Canadian elk (?), who are all kind of hanging out in the woods. But they are going about their business, and maybe the artist was worried that people sitting in the room would get a little skeeved by what might seem like elk and deer staring them down, which means that all I noticed was paintings of elk and deer bums. The second thing is that we spent nearly half an hour talking with the temple worker at the front desk about the Temple Riders-- a group of church members that ride their motorcycles to visit the temples. I think that's cool and I'm wondering if there are any other groups that organize around visiting temples around the country.

I didn't realize how weirdly stressed I am until I saw the pictures from the temple. In every single one, my face looks contorted. It was also raining. Depressing. 

ShepAlder Temple #45: Bismarck, North Dakota

We traveled from one end of the country to the other in the past couple weeks in order for me to go to various internship interviews. One interview was at the University of North Dakota counseling center, and I convinced Josh that this was the perfect opportunity to visit one of the temples we never thought we'd see: Bismarck!

This temple was dedicated in 1999 and is a smaller temple, similar to Fresno, Medford, Palmyra, and Detroit. It's the 61st operating temple and is pretty plain, so I don't have much to say about the interior. However, the temple workers were beyond nice and we chatted with some of them for awhile. They wished me luck on my interview (which was the next day) and I think it helped that we started our trip with the temple.

It was extremely windy and our luggage was unaccounted for, but luckily we had planned ahead and brought appropriate clothing in our carry-ons. Josh had to change in the parking lot of the stake center because he was dealing with other stuff and forgot to change in the airport. 

We found the temple easily. There isn't much to Bismarck, though we were thankful it was a beautiful day since we were so worried about snow.

We flew into Bismarck specifically to attend the temple, so the fact that our luggage was lost was worrisome because we had to head to Grand Forks for my interview the next day and might not have been reunited with our luggage until Fargo or Texas. But as we were leaving, Josh listened to his voicemail and our luggage had reappeared at the Bismarck airport! So my fear that I would have to wear some cobbled together outfit rather than the one I had planned was allayed.

Disneyland in October

We have a family tradition (started in the last 3 years) of going to Disneyland every October with my parents and whichever of my siblings decide to show up. Last year it was almost everyone. This year it was practically no one. But that's okay. The important people were there.

The ShepAlders

And Pumpkin Donald

We've noticed that we take significantly fewer pictures each time we go to Disneyland. We tried to remedy that, but still only took a few.

While driving through LA, we stopped off at the LA temple. We've been there before, but weren't able to take pictures of ourselves out in front. During my August break, I was trying to put together a picture album from all of the temples we've visited, but we didn't have any good pictures from LA!

So we took these:

Our primary reason for going to CA was to attend the wedding of Josh's high school friend Audrey: 

She married the guy on the left:

You may remember them from when we went to the Hearst Castle together.

So that was the excitement of our October. Right now we don't have any more plans to travel for awhile. Hopefully in January I'll be all over the map for internship interviews! 

The ShepAlders Do Dallas (only by Dallas we mean Austin, Waco, and a little bit of San Antonio)

We spent some of July in Texas for the wedding and decided to spend some time with my sister and her family. First, we stopped off in Waco to see the Dr. Pepper Museum. In case you didn't hear, Diet Dr. Pepper is the unofficial soda of the ShepAlder family.

Things we saw:

The museum, in the original Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company building

Apparently Dr. Pepper was created by Doc ALDERton. It's almost like Josh and I invented it! You're welcome.

How blessed the day when the Dr. Pepper and the lion shall lie down together without any ire!

Although we are not NASCAR fans, Josh could not resist this opportunity.

Equipment

Bottles

A ShepAlder would abide by these priorities-- God, Country, Family, and Dr. Pepper. A true ShepAlder would know that movies come after God (but before country) and Dr. Pepper only barely edges out the importance of being right at useless trivia.

While in Texas, we celebrated my 30th birthday (ugh! so old!) with a key lime cake (yum!) and a monster pinata. More pictures will be posted at a later date as soon as I can figure out where they've gone. It was a very duck-themed birthday and I was excited to receive a cowboy duck (seriously, a duck with a cowboy hat) in honor of Texas.

Josh and the pinata, only slightly less deadly than my niece Michaela with a stick

We were also able to go to our favorite theater, the Alamo Drafthouse. This is the theater where Josh and I have been able to attend BNAT for the past four years. The food is super yum. (We may or may not have seen four movies in five days and eaten meals every time).

We also celebrated our anniversary (number four, yo) by going to the San Antonio temple (#8 on the ShepAlder list of temples we've already visited-- we went there the first time we came to Texas). I love, love, love this temple. It has beautiful stained glass throughout, a gorgeous environmental mural in the ordinance room, and it's probably my #4 favorite (in order: Portland, Nauvoo, Manti, and San Antonio). The people in Texas are really lucky, because all of their temples are so unique and so beautiful. And Josh and I are really lucky because we are able to see them!

BTW, San Antonio is ridiculously hot, and we were totes sweaty.

That was more or less our trip. We also spent tons of time lazing around my sister's house, reading books, playing card games, and just generally enjoying our free time. I'm not sure whether it was earned or well-deserved, but it was definitely needed.