Temple Square Lights

Shafer always ends up with several days of vacation time left over at the end of the year. The last few years he's taken off every Friday in December to use some up because if you don't use them you lose them. We thought we'd try to do some fun family things as long as he wasn't working.
Our first Friday we decided to go to Temple Square to see the lights. It's been a few years since we've been, so we thought the boys would enjoy it. Because Shafer didn't work we were able to head into town early. He found a parking spot literally across the street from the gates, it was awesome!
It was still light when we got there so we went into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to check it out. I love the boys' faces in this shot:

They couldn't get over how big this tree was:

We went up to the observation window to check out the view and while we were looking the lights all turned on. It was pretty exciting! Even Baby S got a look:

Once the lights were on the boys were all begging to go down there. They were loving all the lights.

It wasn't too cold either. We've been there before when we've needed snow pants and tons of layers, but we did fine with coats and gloves this year.

Cheeks in the Tabernacle:

Big Boy with the Sister missionaries in the back doing their acoustics demonstration:

Because we were there so early we missed the big Friday night crowds. We got there around 4:30 and were ready to head home by 6:30; right when the crowds started showing up. It was perfect! We just walked across the street to our car and headed out to dinner. It was such a fun evening! And, we got to spend the night looking at this sweet face: I love Christmas time!!!