Tonight we wanted to do something to get in the Christmas mood so we decided to take the kids to Temple Square. Have you ever had a great idea but when it came down to actually doing it, it just didn't feel worth it? Ya, tonight was one of those nights.
By the time we got in the car, the kids were grouchy and didn't even want to go, Brian and I were a little more impatient with them than we should have been because we didn't really want to go either, but we felt like we needed to go for the "experience". At one point, Brian and I were talking about how we realized that there had to have been so many times where our parents were trying to do fun things for our families and they really didn't want to do it, but kept a happy face for the kids. We were joking around and said, "We are going to go see the Christmas lights and we are going to LIKE them!!!" (We had to keep saying that to ourselves, because the night just got crazier)
We finally got downtown and the kids were cold before we even walked to the church office building, but luckily we had gloves and hats to go around. Trying to keep track of 4 kids in a busy, crowded open space is beyond what I would call fun, but it's part of the experience, right?
So our trip to Temple Square went a bit like this. Please tell me others can relate and I'm not the only one who felt like it was way more work than it was worth.
1) kids were cold (yep, we already talked about that one)
2) Kaden had his camera with him so he decided to stop and take pictures of every single group of lights on ever single tree we walked past.
3) Brighton would stop and look at every little light on the ground and he's so small he kept getting lost in the crowds. He was usually just a person or two behind us, but it was still stressful trying to keep him holding my hand.
4) Avery just kept twirling around in circles in the middle of the crowded area's oblivious to the hundreds of people all around her trying walk.
5) Connor had it easy and actually loved all the lights. He just chilled on Brian's shoulders the whole time.
By the time we finally left (I think we went through all of Temple Square in a record time of about 30 minutes), I was stressed with making sure all the kids didn't get lost or run in the middle of the busy roads I couldn't wait for them to all get home and get to bed.
But here's the kicker... you know when I said earlier that I was having one of those moments that I felt like how my parents probably felt when they were doing things for the "experience"? With all the fun things I did as a kid... I never knew my parents were stressed, tired or didn't really want to go to the trouble. All I knew is that we always did really cool things together as a family.
