Salt Lake Trip

I've been gone the past two days in Salt Lake to attend the Primary Open House. Not only is this a great way to get great ideas for my calling but it's a great way to get a little break from my normal life. To make things even better one of my good friends, Carolyn, was just barely called as my 2nd counselor and was able to go with me. Of course it was SO much work getting ready to leave the kids. Jason had too much work to do to take the time off so I practically killed myself getting things ready for a babysitter to come to the house and watch the kids. But it was all worth it when we landed in Salt Lake. I quickly forgot my worries about home and started having fun.

My sister picked us up at the airport and took us to pick up their extra car so we could go shopping. Their extra car is an H2 and we were quite the sight driving it slowly through the streets (and parking garages) of Salt Lake. Our first stop was Costco for some discount Shade. We found it to be a terrible selection as it was very picked over. But we dug until we found what we wanted. Then we headed downtown. We stopped by the Primary Resource Room for ideas and fell in love with the giant scriptures. They were made out of vinyl like you can buy at the fabric store and our hope it to recreate them on a smaller scale. Next we headed to the Gateway to shop. We tried several stores and finally found success at Ann Taylor Loft. It was so nice to shop without children. We wanted to see the Joseph Smith movie so we headed back to Temple Square for the 9:00 pm showing. After that we headed back to my sister's house and fell right to sleep.

We were up early the next morning and headed back downtown for our meetings. The morning flew by. The highlight of the day for me was a panel discussion by the three auxilliary presidents. I literally wept through the whole thing as these amazing women shared personal stories from their lives. It was the same feeling I get from reading blogs as I realize that we, as women, struggle with the same things as we raise our kids, do our callings, serve in our communities, etc. I am sure it will be published on the church website at some point. We also attended a great workshop on the Faith in God program that we will use for our upcoming leadership meeting. After the meetings we shopped at the distribution center for supplies. We then headed back to my sister's house and for some reason (um, actually carolyn and I were talking) I got lost. We made it to the airport just in time.

We had a four hour layover in Boise. Lucky for us, one of our bookgroup buddies had just moved to Boise. She picked us up at the airport and we went to dinner at the cheesecake factory. On our flight from Boise there were only a handful of people. We got home earlier than we thought. My boys were waiting up for me and Jonah said, "I'm glad you came back mom!"

Tonight we made a rare public appearance at the school for Eli's 6th grade music production. We had not taken the entire family to any school event this year but ventured out for this one because Jonah and Emma gave it such rave reviews. They were able to see the dress rehearsal earlier today. The kids were all entertained and Jack made it to the middle of the last song and then he was done. It was so fun to see all the kids that Eli has been with since kindergarten as big 6th graders. Eli loves chorus and has come a long way from his kindergarten and first grade days when he didn't sing in the music nights. I'm amazed at how he has grown right before my eyes.