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It took us quite a while to get thru the LA traffic and down to San Diego/Carlsbad for the night.  So, our schedule was a bit delayed.  We got to the San Diego temple and caught a session in the morning.  Our plans were to head to Las Vegas after we finished in San Diego.  The Redlands temple is closed for the twice annual maintenance schedule so we missed them completely.

San Diego is a beautiful temple, both inside and out.  We really appreciated it immensely.

The entry to the temple grounds.

The view as you enter the grounds.

Some of the unique stained glass throughout the temple on all sides.

The West wall.  The roof has an open ceiling that allows sunlight (well, it is San Diego and the sun shines almost all the time) into the inner core of the building.

We left, headed for Las Vegas and our next stop.  However, our plans were to attend the temple there but, upon arrival, discovered the traffic to be worse than LA and at a stand still.  It took us over an hour to get off the freeway and travel a mere 3 miles to our hotel for the night, thereby eliminating the evening session for us.  Why?  Well, there was this special "debate" going on in Las Vegas between a couple of presidential hopefuls and Las Vegas and the Feds literally shutdown the freeways!  Miles of stopped traffic!  Completely sitting in their cars and going nowhere.  We just happened to hit a side road a few miles away from the hotel but the side roads were just as bad as the freeways, only with a tiny bit of movement.  So, we had to put things off till the next day.  I couldn't figure out why all of the hotel rooms were booked and so hard to come by.  Now I know.

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Back on the move again, leaving dear old Bakersfield, we headed towards the Los Angeles temple for our first stop of the day.

One thing about Southern California, they do have really nice weather!  Probably why all those people want to live there.  It's one of the older temples in the church but the murals inside in the rooms are spectacular. 

The North side...

The main entrance on the South side.  Has a view of the valley...when you can see it.

You just hafta love those blue skies, right?

The front area is massive and used to be all grass but they let it die out, due to watering restrictions.  They are now planting it with what looks like drought tolerant plants.

This is an interesting tree.  It's been here for many years and I've been told they are called "Tulip Trees".  Don't know for sure.  It is very large for the type of tree it is.

After some looking around the site, we moved on to the Newport Beach temple.  It took forever to get there, arriving much later than we had hoped.  We attended a session then drove more miles to our hotel in Carlsbad.

The entry to the Newport Beach temple.  This temple was built in 2003 and was the pattern for the Sacramento temple.  However, it is very unique, quite a bit different from Sacrament, and a bit smaller.  It has some features that are quite different.  

For one thing, the garden area to the side is very lush and I didn't see any rattlesnakes or turkey's (not that I've ever seen any rattlesnakes in Sacto).  It has a beautiful fountain on this side.  Of course, it does not have anywhere near the property.  The doors on the inside have a distinct Spanish influence with rounded tops and beautiful dark wood finishes everywhere.

The whole area has a distinctly Spanish influence to it.  Very beautiful.

Well, another day has completed and I will add more later.  See you then...

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It's been awhile but we've been pretty busy.  Settling back into the whirl of everyday life takes a toll on you after an 18 month mission.  It seemed like we had almost an everyday occurrence to do something or be somewhere.  Had to take care of medical issues and get that all straightened out, dental exams and get back into the swing of doing that plus some fixes (not quite done yet, either), had to continue getting Elder Kevin ready to attend BYU Idaho (I think that is now, at least mostly, in the bag, until registration starts November 16th.  We still haven't spoken to the high council or the ward.  I guess, maybe, they really don't want to hear from us.  But, I'm OK with that.  What can I tell them?  "I fixed toilets for 18 months!"  Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

We had a request to come down and spend some time with our grandkids in Bakersfield, Brenden and Deven, for a few days while Mom and Dad were off at a work conference for Tina.  We decided to couple that with our much anticipated California temple tour of 2016.  So, here goes...

On our way down, October 12th, we stopped at the Fresno temple for a session.  It's a small temple of about 10K square feet and most of these temples are very similar in design.  Each one is unique in their patterns and designs.  Obviously, I can't show you what they look like on the inside, I'll leave that up to you.

Oft times the sign for the temple is on the road and there is no place to take the picture but this one is easy to get to.

The front.  Unfortunately, when we got there, the door was shaded by the sun so it's not too easy to see the door.

The North side and the stained glass windows.

The South side with the angel Moroni visible.

We arrived and spent a few days there enjoying our grandsons while Mom/Dad did what Mom and Dad do when they are away from their kidlets.

Garret sent Brenden a few "Toxic Sour" things to suck on.  This was just before he ran over to the trash and disgorged them, unceremoniously.  However, to his credit, the next one he managed to keep in his mouth and got past the nasty "toxic" flavor to, what I am told, is sweet.  Personally, I tossed the thing into the trash in far less time than Brenden sucked on it the first time.  Double yuck!

Well, since no one looks at my blog, I can post pictures of my kids.  Brenden, the youngest, helped us to appreciate the need for young parents to have kids and not old people like us....boy, did he...

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The first Sunday back, September 25th, we had a get together at the Seger ranch after church.  We had many visitors and a few things to chew on.  It was nice to see everyone and catch up a bit with friends.

A few of our guest.  Tommy Tolman, recently returned missionary, Greg Pilling, Tim and Sammy tolman.  

Tanya Pilling and their daughter, Jared Spencer, Sister Tolman, Jenny Tolman and others in the dinning area.  

The living room and the Bishop, on the right, stopped by.

Outside we had Markie Turner, Lesa Turner, Nicole Seger and a few other visitors in the back.  It was a pleasant night and we enjoyed ourselves.  

A few days later, Garret took apart a couple of hard drives just to see what was in them.  Working so diligently to get all of the pieces out of the hard drive.  Got to see what makes them tick...

All and all, it's been a great week.  More stuff to follow, I suppose.

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Leaving Salt Lake for the trek home.  We planned to stop in Elko, Nevada and visit Matthew, Donae and kids for a little while.  We stayed in Elko at a hotel and visited the kids in Spring Creek, just over the hill from Elko.  We left

The Bonneville Salt Flats...that's flat...but it was nice that day...

Last day out and it's raining...leaving Elko, Nevada

Across Nevada, into California and finally home...we are back...now to the stake center!

President Bitnoff reads our release letter to family and friends after removing our missionary tags...

Nathan, Tabbi, kids, the Gardner's and Arlene.

Yes, it is official, no longer missionaries!  Thanks, President Bitnoff!

Well, it's been an experience and the time is now over.  We are doing our best to settle in and get used to not being on a mission.  I guess I need to change the name of the blog but not sure what to call it now.  We are going to visit a vew temples in a week or so then come back and try to settle in a little more so I guess this will change to a more family story oriented blog.  I guess it will play itself out in the next few weeks.   

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I need to catch things up a bit.  We got home and I was a little bit behind on the blog but we've been so busy that I haven't had any chance to catch things up.  With conference this weekend, maybe I can finally catch up.

On September 20th we went down, with Marilyn Boekweg, our lovely hostess in Herriman, UT, our beloved sister-in-law, to visit the Provo City Center temple.  What a magnificent temple that is and they have done such a beautiful job of putting that temple back together again.  

The parking lot to the temple is subterranean.  This is the entrance to the temple.  The whole parking lot, with the exception of a few spots above ground, are under ground.  Nice during the winter, I suspect...  We attended a session there and enjoyed the splendor inside.  While there we ran across a couple that we worked with (the Walters) in the Sacramento Temple before we left on our mission.  We had a nice talk with them and they told us about their move to Provo and their work in the Family History Center there.  They have plenty of openings at both places for missionaries.  It's the 2nd largest Family History Center next to Salt Lake.  So, we had a nice talk with them about serving there.  We may be following up with them later.

Such a beautiful temple.

Detail of the side of the temple.

The other side of the temple with a familiar statue in front of it.  remember it from Nauvoo and the women's garden?

Marilyn Boekweg and Arlene in the shade of the temple.

The building served as a tabernacle for many years until it burned a few years ago.  It was completely rebuilt as a temple and it is absolutely splendid.

Front of the temple.

The annex is out in the parking lot area.  It is kind of a meeting area and has a elevator to go from the top area to the parking lot below.

I just couldn't resist a pict of the hinges in the doorframes.  These are simply beautiful!

Marilyn, her grand-daughter and her daughter, Jenny.  Back at Marilyn's house.  We had a couple other visitors and some interesting family discussions.  It was a really nice day.

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Some time off for good behavior today.  Visited Temple Square, specifically the history center/museum near temple square.

Guess what famous bell this is?  Yep, the Nauvoo bell.

Here is the story behind the bell.  It's located between the old tabernacle and the new one against the West wall.

Heading towards the museum...

The original Grandin press from Palmyra.  The one in Palmyra is a copy.  This is the original.  It had the first 16 pages on it and it was typeset and ready to go.

The original box that the plates were stored in during translation.  These plates are only for reference.

The "Seer Stone" that Joseph used during the translation period.  Along with the pouch that Lucy Mack Smith made to hold it in.

These are some items from Nauvoo.  The flat tiles in back on the wall are original.  The drain block in the front is from the Baptistery and is also original.  Bricks on the right came from the floor of the Baptistery floor.  

Other items from the temple.  A part from the oxen of the font, a form for drawing symbols, a star shape, a part of one of the sun stones, a part of a step.  

This was a very large painted mural that was part of one of the displays.  Nicely done.  A winter scene.

This was a picture of the martyrdom of the Prophet and his brother in Carthage.  A very well done artist rendition and depiction of what happened.

Another section focused on the presidents of the church.  It had a Moroni statue taken from the top of a building in Washington DC church building that was sold off and placed in storage.  It has been here for many years.

Here's the description of the statue's life.

I thought this was interesting because not too many people know what that thing in the middle is, let alone ever used one!

Walked over to the Family History Center but just did a quick look around.  Just didn't have any time to do any work there.

A nice, warm day in Salt Lake today.  Couldn't resist taking this picture as we walked over to the visitor's center.

When we were in Salt Lake in spring of 2015, on our way out to Nauvoo, we saw this intricate model of the Salt Lake temple but we weren't able to set any time aside to look at it.  So, today we grabbed a few minutes and took a good long look.  This is a really impressive scaled model of the temple. 

The Celestial Room...

One of the ordinance rooms...just so much detail.

A little farther along was a display that showed one of Arlene's favorite door knobs in the temple.  So classic.

...and, of course, the yoke for the oxen that hauled the granite for the temple.  I think there is a story about a yoke in this somewhere.  such a nice day in Salt Lake.