Growing up in the Church, we would make the occasional drive down to the Los Angeles Temple and explore the grounds, including rolling down the steep grassy slope out front. Then, I remember when the San Diego Temple open house happened, and we had to dress up and drive down there to visit and actually walk through a temple. That felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was very beautiful inside and almost surreal.
On my mission, I got to have it as a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as the Manchester Temple open house happened whilst we were there, and our entire mission got permission to hop on buses and drive up to the temple for the day. Again, it was beautiful inside and much different from the limited number of temples I have been in.
Living in Utah, we have temples all over. It’s been really cool when we drove up to Yellowstone, as we passed a large number of temples (Mt Timpanogos, Jordan River, Draper, Oquirrh Mt, Salt Lake, Bountiful, Ogden, and some up in Idaho as well.) The Brigham City temple was under construction, but we still got out and walked around the area for about an hour.
Now, we had a chance to attend the dedication as the church was broadcasting it to local buildings. Even better, they allowed kids eight and up to attend, if they could get an interview to get a recommend. Since Ethan and Tyra were both over eight, they were able to get theirs and attend their very first temple dedication with me. They were really good at sitting through the talks, and both got to enjoy the overall experience.