The Manti Pageant

                               It is such a beautiful temple!!

We have finally made it to the pageant. 11 years ago when we first moved to Provo I saw a sign on the freeway advertising it and ever since then I have wanted to see it. Last year I swore it would be the year we made it there but we had a family reunion with The Blanchard that was right in the same week that I had thought of going, so this was the year it had to happen!

Gary and Jo Ann have always wanted to go as well so we all went together. We left the house bout 3pm and arrived at about 4:20pm. When we pulled up to a parking spot as close as we could get to the temple Pops recognized the people getting out of their car next to us. They work together at the temple. Seriously, everywhere we go they know someone.  Manti is so so small we walked around until they opened the gates at 6pm so we could get our seats. We first headed for the chocolate covered strawberry stand but the chocolate wasn’t ready so we moved on to the ice cream just a little ways down the street. It was so so hot that day.

We went down to a little old crappy craft fair that we didn’t stay at for long then, we headed for some water. There we met this lady with the best personality. They were selling tri-tip sandwiches that we just had to try, my Love  ordered one that we all shared. They were so good. She kept making us all laugh. Before we left she gave us all free water. The next day they were going to Delta to feed all the firefighters that are there now fighting this huge fire. This was the first year they had done Manti and things hadn’t gone very well so they were taking their extra food to donate to the men.

She was so sweet listening to Esher telling her all about his baseball game. She kind of reminded me of Patty Jo.

While Jo Ann and I waited in line My Love took the kids to the restroom. He was taking forever so I kind o f started to panic a little because just 2 days ago a little 6 year old girl was kidnapped, raped and murdered in West Jordon, but they had no idea who did it. So, I’m just getting really worried that something has happened to the kids and Jared is on his own trying to find one of them. I finally can’t take it and I ask Jo Ann to havePops9 who is in the shade) find them. So Pops calls and a few minutes later My Love shows up with my chocolate covered strawberries in hand. He is just he most thoughtful husband I have ever met. he apologized for making me worry-I love him so so much!! I’m in heaven these strawberries are amazing!

Then my love tells me that Silver and Terri are there. He tells me that when he walked up to the strawberry lady Terri was there talking to her. She says “What are you guys doing here are you here for the pageant?”  My Love responds with “Oh no, we just came up to get some of these strawberries.” Terri being the Terri that we all love says “Oh really!” Silver who is standing right next to her says “Come on Terri are you serious, of course they are here for the pageant.” I laughed so hard when My Love told me about it. Well, it turns out that Silvers “Utah Mom” lives in Manti and her daughter who sells the strawberries does too and that is why Terri was chatting with her when Jared walked up to get me my strawberries. So we ended up sitting with them for the pageant. Tristan really wanted to sit right in the front but Silver and Brigham(he is in the pageant and Jared had been talking to him earlier) both said behind the sound board was the best. Next time we are definitely sitting in the front.

Once we got our seats we went to have the famous $7 Turkey Dinner at the stake center. The outside of The Stake Center was so beautiful I couldn’t wait to see the inside.

Dinner was actually really really good!! Pops bought all of our dinner-thank you so much Pops it was delicious!

Afterwards Jo Ann and I really wanted to see the chapel so we snuck up in the elevator and ended up in the most gorgeous chapel I have ever seen. You could tell it was made with lots of love! It even had a balcony and an adorable spiral staircase to it. I think I might come to church here one day, just for a day though because this down is really too small for me.

We walked back to get more strawberries and meet up with Terri and them.

Tomorrow is Troy (and Sebastian’s) birthday so I thought it would be cool if we all took a picture with a sign wishing him a happy 40th. Since Terri was there, we had her family jump in on the picture too. 

This is the picture we sent him at midnight on our way home. He was actually at Mario’s house up talking to him so, he texted us back right away.

The kids did this to the sign.

They set out 14,000 chairs and a blanket area. They expect about 200,000 total for the 7 nights of the pageant.

The pageant was wonderful .So Jo Ann would have a nice drive home My Love gave her Bejeweled to play until the iPad died. Right before it died she got the highest score and all kinds of lights and colors flashed on the screen-she loved it! It’s a good thing hand held video games weren’t around when Jo Ann was raising the boys-that could have been bad !

                                      What a fun day it was!