Two weekends ago we left all our kids home with a wonderful young couple from church and drove up to the Oakland temple for Ben and Barbara's sealing. From start to finish, it was an incredible weekend. 
I got my own endowments at the Oakland temple 13 years ago, and it was wonderful to be back. It rained both times. It's up on a big hill, and they tell my it has a beautiful view of San Francisco. 
There's nothing like being with my family in the sealing room. As always, the spirit was very strong, and I was just so happy for Ben and Barbara and the eternal family they are starting. Now all nine kids have been married to their sweethearts in the temple. What a blessing! 
The rain did slow down long enough for pictures afterwards. 
Then we went to Fenton's for lunch. Apparently it's where everyone there goes after temple trips. It's also the ice cream shop the old guy takes the little boy to at the end of the movie Up. The food was really good, and we especially loved this homemade caramel sauce and toffee almond crunch ice cream. Yum! 
Josh came from Maryland. Megan stayed home with their kids. We missed you Megan!
Jen and Uche came from Oklahoma. 
Aaron and Marrisse came from Utah. 
Ellen and Jason came from Hawaii. They've been able to stay here for 3 weeks, and we've loved hanging out with them.
Anna has grown up so much in the 10 months they've been in Hawaii. But she and Brennan are still best friends, and they've spent every possible minute playing together.
The two siblings missing were Maryruth (who just had a baby) and Emily (who went to help Maryruth after she had her baby). We missed you guys, but how wonderful for you. Welcome to the family, Makayla Grace!
Afterwards we went shopping and had all kinds of success. Kristen and I don't have many stores where we live, so we were in heaven at Ikea and Crate and Barrel outlet in Berkeley. 
I'll end this post with some classic laughing pictures from the other end of the table. I don't know what Josh was saying, but he sure had them all cracking up down there.
4 comments:
I love your family too and was so sad I couldn't make it! I love the pictures on this post! I can tell you are using your new camera and it is wonderful! Josh does have a way of cracking people up! Good thing I get to live with him!
Great pictures Hilary! I was so grateful to be there. As soon as Ben and Barbara were sealed, there seemed to be a far greater feeling of completeness to our family, even though not all of us were there in the room. And strangely (though maybe not so strange), the feeling of completeness was much stronger than when they were married civilly last year, even though we were all at that ceremony.
I'd been looking forward to seeing the pictures you took. Now I'm not so sure. The funny thing (no pun intended)is that I don't remember laughing that much at Fentons.
Josh and Marrisse and I didn't leave till Sunday, so that evening we went out to dinner with Ben and Barbara, where we had a really good time. I remember thinking, "the other people in the restaurant must think we've really had a lot to drink."
This was such a wonderful experience. It was so awesome having you guys there. These pictures are great, we've been looking forward to seeing them.
I remember what we were talking about in the laughing pictures! As we were looking at these huge things of ice cream, Josh said, "Hey remember in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure when Napoleon is at the Ziggy Piggy?" and then sort of acted out the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsBrd3u1JZw
Trying to explain why Josh was funny is never as good as being there. It's not that what he says is necessarily funny in and of itself, but it's amazing what he's able to think of and it's perfect in the moment.
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