General Conference!

Wow, October already???  Craziness!  I don't mind fall.  It's great and all.  But it means winter is coming and I don't like the cold.  Boo hoo. 

My friend Angie has a birthday the first part of October. She and her daughter came over and some friends.  It was a nice evening.

Lee's birthday present, but not a birthday present came!  He upgraded the wheels on his bike.  Very fun!

The girls and I were about to embark on a fun trip to Utah to attend General Conference and the General Women's Session.  First stop, getting our nails done!  I've only ever had my nails done twice, and it's been with the girls.

Getting ready!

We made it on the plane! Thankfully it was a direct flight to Salt Lake City.

It was 70 in Virginia when we left, and a blustery 50s in Utah.  Brr! Fun driving by the LDS Business College.  My nephew Paul is a student there.

After arriving at the airport, getting the rental car (I was upgraded for free to a mid-size SUV...very fun!) we parked, met up with Lena and Kirsten and then did baptisms at the Salt Lake Temple.  All of us were able to be witnesses which was neat.

The luscious grass out west!

We stopped at a visitor center for a little bit then toured the Beehive House. We're 9th cousins or something with people from Studio C.  Haha.

Next stop the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a view.

The Kia Sorenta.  Right now I am not a Kia person, but this was fun to drive and very new.

We got pretzels at Whetzel Pretzel, did a little shopping at City Creek--mainly H&M, then met up with Roger, Brittany, Lexi, Riley, Sheldon, Ciera and Paul.  So fun.  We ate at a make-your-own pizza place.

That night Shanna and Kirsten went swimming and that was the only time anyone went!  At least they were able to go once.  Shanna, Haley and I were going to share a big and sleep the opposite way on the bed. When Kirsten found out she was going to share a bed with Lena she said "I don't want to share a bed with you!". Haley replied, "Well, you can sleep with us!" It was so funny.  Something I realized on this trip is how witty Haley is.  She gave out funny comments all weekend-I loved it.  

Saturday morning for conference Haley and I exercised and Lena and Kirsten went to the morning session.  The girls wanted to watch from the hotel room, so we did.  It was really nice actually watching from there and eating snacks!

We met them outside of Temple Square and walked over to Harman's Grocery store.  I love that place!  SO fun! A mini pineapples?!  Never ever seen them in my life! We bought lunch from their deli.

Haley and Shanna got a little Ben & Jerry's. YUM!

We went back to the hotel to watch the afternoon session.  Then we headed to the conference center for the women's session! 

We were able to meet Elder Rasband. He was a couple rows down from us greeting people.  That was a treat. We didn't have tickets by Lena and Kirsten, so met them afterwards.  What a great session and how neat to be there in person! 

The back of Elder Rasband's head.

After the session Shanna, Haley and I headed back to Harmons for a treat.  Lena got turned around in the conference center and sadly ended up mistakenly taking the long way out.  Kirsten was upset about the long route. She didn't want to come with us so they went back to the hotel. On our way to Harmon's, my cousin Saundra stopped me. So fun!  She was on the infamous Hackberry Hike with us.

Harmon's did not disappoint with yummy desserts!  We stopped at Chick-fil-A at City Creek on the way back and redeemed my points for some free fries.  Yum.  

Sunday morning we went to Lena's sister-in-laws In-laws house.  Make sense? They have a big breakfast every Sunday morning of general conference. So yummy!  We watched the first session there.  Lena was able to see Jeanne and Josiah.  Jeanne's mother-in-law was so fun and nice. 

Our last session was the afternoon session.  We sat in the same section as the women's session.

After conference we headed down to Provo.  We stopped at Sheldon's and Ciera's for a yummy dinner and had a great time visiting.  Then off we went to Springville to see Uncle Steven, Aunt Susan and cousins Heidi, Holly and Jonathan. Loved seeing so many family members over the weekend! 

Hotel window art!

Monday morning Haley, Shanna and I exercised then after we packed up we headed to BYU.  Sheldon had a week off and met us at the Museum of Art.  It was so fun that he came over and hung out with us.

My dad is doing boxing right now that is helping with his Parkinson's.  I thought of him when I saw this.

We saw Sheldon's desk at the law school (I can't remember the fancy name) then saw Ciera's office at the Smith Field house.  So fun! 

Of course we had to go to the BYU bookstore!

After that Kirsten was signed up for a campus tour which we tagged along at.  Or maybe the tour happened and then shopping?  Can't remember.  We eventually headed out to Antelope Island to see some buffalo! It was further away than we thought, but still fun.

And we saw lots of buffalo.  Antelope Island is an island, but it was so dry there it didn't look like an island.

We tried to find the oldest house in Utah.  Not sure if this one was it.

On the way back there were buffalo in the road!  We still needed to eat before our flight and I did not want to wait inline behind these cars, to wait for the buffalo to move.  So I cut to the front, and honked the horn.  Not sure if that was allowed, but I didn't want to sit there forever.  They moved and didn't ram the rental car!

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant.  Yum!

We said our goodbyes to Lena and Kristen at the airport and headed off.  It was a great trip!

Back home Lee got some pictures for me.  Clark went to homecoming with some buddies.

Lee treated the boys to Nesquik.

They had a nice conference viewing at home on Saturday. 

We use the primary packets the church makes for taking notes for conference. Then the next family home evening we pick out a treat at the grocery store and go around sharing about three talks that we liked.  Cal made tabs.  So awesome Cal!

Sunday they went to Darrell's house for conference.  It was pretty noisy there, and when they wanted the TV turned up, Darrel would just turn it down.  Lee moved into the computer room to watch conference on his phone.  I think we are going to stay home for conference now.  We love getting together with family, but it's nice to listen and have it be more peaceful. They still enjoyed their visit, even with the noise and the quiet TV. I don't think this creation helped much, haha.

Cal and Elden chilling in the back.   Looks like Cal forgot something!