Graduation

On August 25th, we drove around 7am to get to the Banquet in Phoenix at the Arrowhead Country Club, which is a very nice place (I wished I could take more pictures but it was really hot that I forgot to take some pictures of the facilities outside and  busy with Joel running around inside).

We were a little late trying to find the right entrance, so by the time we were there they celebration started, but we were there just in time for lunch and for the rest of the program, where Tom got to have a recognition (and couldn't take a picture of that moment because Joel fell down and started crying so I had to leave the room).

It was a long program, so after Joel calmed down the lady at the reception asked me about how old he was and about when he started walking, then she told me the club has a play room (which is a day care for all the members) where I could take him, by that time I wasn't sure if I should take him or not because the program was about to finish, but I told Tom and he said he could find us there, so we went to our new adventure. It was a very nice day care that the country club has next to the gym, they even have cribs for babies to take their naps (I wished I knew that before because Joel didn't take a nap and it was close to 3pm without sleeping since 6am) anyway! He was very excited to be in a different place, especially with lots of toys to play with and more baby friendly, he definitely had a good time for the 20 minutes that we were there till daddy picked us up.

Next day August 26th, we were thinking if we should go to the Graduation Ceremony, but after talking about Joel's naps and rest, we decided to let daddy go by himself, especially because he had to be there two hours before the ceremony and that meant nap time for Joel (who didn't have enough rest the day before) and a long day for him again. We just said bye bye to daddy before he left, we had mixed feelings because we wanted to be with him but the schedule and weather (lots of heat - over 110 degrees) didn't help us.

After daddy's Graduation Ceremony we went to celebrate at Peter Piper Pizza; little Joel had some time in the carousel and other baby games. After that we drove around a little bit because we didn't want to get out of the car. We wanted to visit couple friends but we changed our minds, summer time during the day is not a good time to socialize!

We drove by the site where the Phoenix Temple is being built after lots of disagreement with neighbors and changes to the layout (and it is just 10 mins away from the first place we used to live back there), through all this we just remember what the Standard of Truth says: "...no unhallowed hand can't stop the work from progressing.."  and one more time we see it fulfilled!!  We can't wait to come back for the open house, probably in 2 years or so.  It's going to be a beautiful structure.