Day 6-part2-Orlando temple/Epcot

After leaving Hollywood Studios we headed to the Orlando Florida temple. It had been such a busy day, it was nice to get out of the heat and do something where we could really feel the Spirit on the Sabbath Day. As we were driving down the road we could see the temple in the distance and it instantly brought a feeling of peace.

The Orlando temple is absolutely beautiful! We sat in the parking lot for about an hour. Everyone except me took a nap. I decided to write my brother, Jason, who is serving a mission right now.


The boys fell asleep in the car so I had Jared take a picture of just Brooklyn and me at the temple.


It was so nice just sitting there feeling the Spirit at the temple for a while. Soon we were all getting hungry because it was dinner time so we decided it was time to go. We stopped and ate some dinner and then I had a crazy idea! (Of course it didn't seem crazy at the time...but looking back...) I wanted to go to Epcot on the way home and ride one of my absolute favorite rides, Soarin' over California. I knew it would be the only time we would be able to ride it, and I really thought the boys would love it just as much as me. It took a little convincing because Jared wasn't sure he wanted to, but he conceded.

As we were walking into the park we stopped for another family picture...


Then we headed to Soarin'. I was 100% correct. We all had a ton of fun on the ride. I rode it first with Caleb and Kyson and then Jared took them on it. We would have loved to do it several more times but it was really getting late and we needed to get back. As we walked out of the building where Soarin' is located we were shocked to find it was absolutely pouring. When we walked in, we didn't see any sign of rain so we couldn't believe it! Any other time and we would have had our ponchos with us but since we were just running in to ride the one ride we left them in the car! We stood there and waited for about 10 minutes and decided it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. It was a good mile back to the car but we didn't know what else to do other than run for it. Jared picked up Kyson and carried him on his shoulders, I pushed Brooklyn in her stroller while Caleb ran along with us. We ran from one building to the next until we got to the front locker area. We were all drenched and Caleb was crying he was so scared and wet. We decided to take a break there and it's a good thing we did because all the sudden the wind picked up and it seriously looked like a hurricane out there! There were benches floating down the sidewalk and tons of debri flying through the air. We knew we needed to just wait it out for a while. After about half an hour the wind died down a little and it wasn't raining quite as hard so we decided to run to the trams that would take us to our car. We started running and Caleb was so scared he asked Jared if we could say a prayer (we were so proud of him for thinking of that when he was scared!). Jared pulled off to a little area that was covered and we had Caleb pray for all of us. Then we ran the rest of the way to the tram and got on.
After getting on the tram I knew I had to take a picture to remember our crazy adventure. I couldn't back up far enough to get a great picture, but here we are so grateful to have made it safely to the tram. The only dry thing on any of us was Jared's shoulders where he was carrying Kyson. Gratefully Brooklyn was kept dry in her stroller with the blanket that is covering it.


We finally made it to the car and we drove back to GKTW. When we made it back we all said a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for helping us get back safely. We were wet and tired, but we were all together and we were all safe.
Looking back I am grateful we had this experience because I was able to see how my sweet Caleb would react when he was scared. The fact that he was the one to suggest saying a prayer made me so happy. I hope my children will all learn to always pray to Heavenly Father and Jesus to help them when they are scared or need comforted. What a great example Caleb was to all of us in that moment!
After getting out of our wet clothes and getting our pajamas on we were soon in bed. We needed to be up early (again!) for our last day at Disney World!