America!

So since yesterday I'm back in Belgium!

I had an amazing time in America! I saw so many things :D I really had dreams come true there :)
I saw my favorite temple, the Salt Lake temple :D And it was great! I even had the amazing opportunity to get in there! :D

To see pictures, I'm sorry but I'm not going to post more then 300 pictures on here, you'll have to go to my profile on facebook to go see :) haha

So the first week, we were in Utah where we stayed with the family Toyn. Wow, they are such amazing people! And they were prepared to take us ANYWHERE!! We went to see so many things! :) haha

The first day, we went to see Temple Square. It was sooooooo pretty!! Oh I couldn't believe my eyes that I was finally where I've been wanting to be since I was a very little girl! Pictures and words cannot describe the beauty :D We went to conference center too. WOW, that is sooooo huge! And they have grass and trees and fountains on the roof of it! :)
Then we went shopping in Gateway, which is an outdoors mall :) And I am going to miss PANDA EXPRESS! :) I fell in love with the orange chicken :p haha. After that we had the funniest game night ever! We played Disney Scene-it and had tons of fun!

The second day we went to see the cemetary where most of the deceased prophets are burried. It was interesting :) We got to see Gordon B Hinckley's grave. He's my favorite! :) We also went to beehive house. Which is the house Brigham Young lived in with his family. It was cool because they had a lot of stuff that belonged to him and aren't replica's, but the real things :) We had lunch in the lion house, I'm not sure what that house ment...But the food was nice :)
We went to see how Utah looked like from the top of Joseph Smith memorial building, and Church office building :) It was a nice view, especially from Church office building, it's the biggest building in Salt Lake City :p Then we went to the church history museum. It was sooooo cool! They had things there that were real things people had. Again, no replica's :) They had Joseph's and Hyrum's original guns, the original pocket watch that saved John Taylors life by catching a bullet. The original death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith (plaster imprints of their faces that were taken right after they were killed to remember how they looked like). It was just crazy to see all that stuff, it was a cool experience :) And then we went swimming! That was sooo cool because they had an outside pool with outlook on the mountains :) But one downside...the changing room was one big thing, so we saw naked ladies everywhere! :s I mean...EW! We went changing in the showers.... didn't want anybody to see us changing...that's just wrong! :p

The third day we went to East High School. Does that ring a bell? (Ok, so now you should either scream or shrug, because that's where HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL was taped!!) haha. I loved it :D It was pretty cool because they kept certain things they put up for the movie there and stuff. Like the Wildcats banners and stuff :) And we went to the capital of Utah. Amazing building :) It was so pretty and white... I liked it! :) Then we went to the Great Salt Lake... NEVER GO THERE! I've been there and I tell you... don't go there...ever! To get there, you have to go through burning hot sand, once your feet aren't burning off your legs anymore, you are knocked off your feet by the horrible smell of dead shrimp that are everywhere... When you don't see shrimp corpses anymore... you get eaten alive by millions and millions of flies! I mean...there wasn't a single spot on the ground that wasn't covered...it was discusting! So there you are...with your feet in the water...for 5 min... and then you have to go through that horrible stuff all over again...only it's worse this time since everything sticks to your feet since they are wet! EW!
Then we went to a rehearsal of MOTAB. It was nice, because instead of in the tabernakel, they had their rehearsal in the conference center. Which is way more impressive of course :)
Then it was time to go see the movie "Joseph Smith, prophet of the restoration". And yes...Charlene Verdegem cried with a movie. But in my defence... it's an AMAZING MOVIE! So touching and powerfull, it's just wow! The song "Praise to the man" will never be the same anymore. It's just...wow. After the movie it was dark enough to get to see temple square by night. That is even more pretty then at daytime! The temple is so beautifully lit...just beautiful

The last day in Salt Lake we had a typical American breakfast. It was yummy! :) Gotta love American pancakes! :D After we had our tummies filled, we went to see the open house of the Mount Oquirh Temple. That was cool :) Very pretty! And since we were in the temple mood, we went to the Jordan River one just to go take pictures :) And then to SNOWBIRD! You go there with a tram on a line (kinda like a skilift...only this is big and holds like...30 people :p hahah). So yeah, you have a beautifull view from up their. Since you're on a mountain :) And they had snow there so we had a snowballfight in the middle of summer! It was crazy and hilarious!! :D And then we had a movie/game night where we saw "Hotel for dogs" and played Disney scene-it again! I LOVE THAT GAME!! haha I'm so going to buy it whenever I find it! :D

The day we left we still had some time to go to the picnic :) It was pretty cool :) Nice food and I made a water rocket :p haha ...hey that thing flew pretty high! :D I was happy with it...hahah :p And they had jumping castles and stuff...prettay cooowl!
But then it was time to say goodbye... :( I was very sad...

But then we went to IDAHO! It was so weird to see the everyone there in there own surroundings, and it was us who were in another country :) We went shopping and stuff :) haha we got to go to deseret books where Caitlin spent A LOT of money. But hey! We don't have that store in Belgium... that money makes up for what we lost! Okay that didn't make any sence... :p haha. We went to the Boise river but decided to go to friends of theirs instead :p Which was way cooler because they had a waterslide (ok, I didn't find that part all that exciting... :p) But they had a zip-line there!! I'd never been on one! It was way cool! The first time I clamped on to the bar at the top...but then I panicked because that felt like if you would let go you would crash to the ground...But the second time I let the harnas carry me and just held on to the rope, and that was WAY cool! But since I hurt my feet the first time when I tried to stop myself...I decided to not put my feet down....not a good idea because I almost hit the pole on the other side! :s haha it was fun though :p And we drove a mustang convertable! I was stoked, we liked to act like it was actually our car while it was the car of the people we went swimming to a couple of times. Oh, and the first time we went swimming we found a dead rat in the pool...I was a little grossed out.. :p haha Ooh! and I tried original A&W's rootbeer from the tap! It was nice...but I felt like I drank a whole cup while I actually only took a few sips...

Then we went back to Utah for a day, where we saw Greg again! And he got us into the SALT LAKE TEMPLE!!! I was so excited!! WEEEEEE! I kept on smiling the whole time :D haha

So yeah...that was my trip for yah! I hope I didn't get you bored! ( I propably did, didn't I...haha)

Charly!