Leaving Home!

So we decided a long time ago that we were going to take T to the MTC when he needed to report.  We knew that it was going to be during school and we thought this was a good enough excuse to take the girls out of school.  We decided also that we should go earlier than just the day before, so we set out on Monday morning.  He had been set apart as a missionary the night before so now he was bound to his dad until he checked in on Wednesday.  Hubby thought that was cool to be the senior companion to his son for a couple of days.  It was nice as we only had to pack light since we would only be there for 4 days, but this is the amount of stuff we had to fit in the car......

T really loves his dog....well it really isn't his dog, but he sure is "a boy with his dog" kind of a guy.  So saying goodbye to Duke was probably harder than saying goodbye to his family.  He spent a long time playing with him out front before we left that morning.  He threw his toy....he chased him....he ran with him.....you could tell that he was not wanting to say goodbye.  So we just let him play for as long as he wanted.

Since T went to the temple for the first time on the 11th, him and I went back once to Denver to take a session in a few days after that.  But he couldn't get enough of it....he wanted to go again and again.  It is fun to see his excitement about the temple now that he has been through.  So the day after we got to Utah, we took in an Initiatory in the Jordan River Temple, came home and picked up my parents and went to the Salt Lake Temple to do a LIVE Endowment session.  We wanted T to experience that since it is only done in a couple of temples.  It takes longer, but he loved it by far the best.  It was nice to have his grandparents with him since they could not make it for his first time.  The girls just stayed back at the house until we came to get them for dinner.

T had his pick for dinner as his "last dinner" before going into the MTC.  He picked Texas Roadhouse for a nice juicy steak.  It was interesting to see another missionary there for his last meal too.  All over we had people asking if that was our son?  Was he going on a mission?  Where and when?  He looks so handsome!  We got that in the temple....we got that at restaurants...we got that all over.  Only in Utah would the conversation steer that way and it was so cool.  It was a nice day...loved being with my son and hubby in the best place around.

And this is what we were doing the night before he entered the MTC....

Yes, we are unwrapping new short sleeve shirts to wash the folds out.  We couldn't find any shirts that were skinny and small necked for this "stick".  We knew Mr. Mac had them so we had to wait to get them now.  Tomorrow is the day......it is finally here!  (and that is for another post all its own)