Oakland

   The Oakland temple has a special place in my heart. My parents were sealed there and always had a picture of it prominently displayed in our home. Growing up that picture was like looking at heaven in my mind. Daniel served his mission for the church in Oakland and so he has many fond memories of the temple and the people he met there. So when it was announced that the Oakland temple was going to be refurbished and then rededicated I was keen to go. I had never been inside it before and I wanted my children to have a chance to see inside a temple too. When I lived in Utah I was able to go to several temple open houses before I was endowed, but here in Washington, we don't have that many opportunities so my children had never been to one.
 Planning began and I was so excited! I made the kids all shirts, scheduled an Air BnB and wrote an extensive packing list. The timing was poor for Daniel. His job does their major shut down all through the days of the open house. For a while, it looked like he wouldn't be able to go at all! I got tickets for the very last day of the open house and prayed like mad that somehow we would be able to make it! It was touch and go there for a while. Daniel had to work Thursday, so we left without him. I packed the kids and excused them from school. Figured out how to get them to watch videos on the tablets and drove down.

Lizzy had fun in the car using filters.

 We stopped for lunch at In and Out burgers, because you just can't go to California and not eat there it's the law or something...Anyway... It converted Charles to hamburgers so that's the power of In and Out!

 We kept on driving. Our Air BnB was in Hercules, Just outside of Oakland. It was a beautiful house in a quiet neighborhood. The kids loved that it had 3 bathrooms. They just couldn't get over it. My poor deprived children. We checked in and then went to dinner at a local hamburger joint. We picked up some breakfast items at a store nearby and then headed back to sleep. 

  Daniel meanwhile got an early flight into Oakland on the 1st so after breakfast, we cleaned up, locked the house and headed to the airport. We found him and went straight to the temple. Driving in Oakland was fun. It reminded me of living in California. I guess it makes an impression on you, even though I was quite young when we left California.  The bars on the windows made the kids nervous, it made me laugh a bit to think how sheltered my kids are. I mean, I love that they have always known a safe environment, but it is not typical for a lot of families and somehow I had not prepared them for that reality. 

  

Birds of paradise are my favorite flower and it was so nice to see them in bloom all over the temple grounds.

 We wandered around the grounds for a while before joining the group waiting for the tour. We saw a few video presentations as we wound our way through the stake center before entering the Temple.

It was lovely and a great way to spend our 13th anniversary.  After our tour, we visited some of the places Daniel served on his mission. Unfortunately, the family he had hoped to visit wasn't home. We went to a park and played and ate lunch before heading home.

 Our final view of Oakland.