Saturday, May 7, 2011

"By Small and Simple Things are Great Things Brought to Pass"

Women's Conference with a lot of girls from my old ward!! 

Some of the girls who were in attendance from our ward and Beverly who we met...She's from Idaho.

Beverly and Karla.  Bev was Karla's roomie in the dorms...

Had some serious fun staying in the dorms...feel kind of bad for those who were in the dorms...they probably didn't get much sleep!  It was a par-tay every night!

Especially fond of these two gals!!

Ashlie and Jen
Ashlie was my roomie.  We stayed up even after all our fun in the other girls rooms just talking.  Girl time...we all need it every now and again;) 

Cannot even put into words how great this conference was!  I was definitely spiritually uplifted and came away with a desire to do more and to remember what I am doing is good too.  This years Conference theme was "By Small and Simple Things Are Great Things Brought to Pass"  The small and simple things are what bring us to where we are going and where we will be.  Daily prayer, daily scripture study, daily going about of praising our children, remembering we are good and we are great, and that we will do great things if we stick to the basics and then add more as we can.  But the important part is sticking to the basics.  If we are not prayerful and do not study the scriptures regularly it is difficult to receive the inspiration and guidance needed to steer us in the right direction.  I went to several classes on Marriage and I loved learning about how Dave and I can improve our communication together, improve our love for each other, and improve our appreciation of all each of us has to offer to our little family.
There were so many great talks.  One that was especially touching was Sister Pierce's in the opening session. I think I loved hearing her story of how she and her husband relished and enjoyed his last year here on this earth.  It was sad to hear he died, but I often find myself yearning for things in my relationship... When it comes down to it...I find that I actually have those things...I am just so caught up on some of the things I think we lack I loose sight of the important things we already have.  I have made a point to focus on what we have together rather than what we don't have together.  I got into all the classess I wanted to and here are some of the ones I went too:  Sister Dalton's talk on "the best measure of true greatness is how christlike we are" That was really good.  I went to a talk on the Beattitudes-that was good. Went to several on Eternal Marriage-both good and helpful.  Went to one one on the atonement-really liked sister Wilkinson's talk in that one.  Went to another on delighting in the scriptures.  It was all good!  There were so many other talks I wanted to go to...but you have to just pick one.

All of the General sessions were great!  Elder and Sister Bednar spoke in the closing sesssion.  I really like those two.


We always sat together in the opening and closing sessions.

Thursday night was the big concert.  H-O-L-Y COW!!  Who knew it would be as badass as it was!!!  It was seriously so good and oh so much fun!!  We got to hear from Kirby Heyborne who was hilarious by the way...I'm totally going to go see his new show.  Hilary Weeks performed, Sherie Call, Vocal Point-these guys were amazing!  Absolutely loved their performance.  They are an all a cappella group.  It didn't hurt them that their opening number was Beat It by Michael Jackson.  Anyone who can successfully sound like Michael Jackson is definitly going to be a winner in my book! We also heard from Jenny Oaks Baker-most beautiful violin music for sure! My very favorite song and performance by April Meservey.  She sang a beautiful song(can't remember the name of it though).  Then there was Josh Wright.  Wowwweeee!  He has got some talent that boy!  Amazing piano skillz!  It was so much fun!  Afterwards I got in on meeting some of my favorite performers.

Hilary Weeks....Wasuuuuuuuuuup!!! I like her...but the long line to see her was way long and so a picture of me by her backside was good enough for me;)

  If you haven't heard of her...wowza...you are missing out!!  She is an amazing violinist.  I just had to get a picture with her.  I got her CD too.  I had her sign it to Lila Jo!  I want one of my kids to play the violin.  I've always wanted to play it, but there are only so many things a mom can do.  Playing the violin isn't much of a priority;)  I love the music a violin produces...so beautiful and spirit inviting.

OH MY GOSH!  This girl brought me to tears with her song.  April Meservy is her name.  I just bawled through her entire song.  So so good!  I had to get a pic with her too!

The girls were kind enough to wait for me while I went on my photo frenzi with all these awesome musicians.


Next Josh Wright.  H-o-l-y HANNAH!!  HE IS GOOD at playing the piano!!  He was AMAZING!!  So I had to get a pic with him too.  One day...I'd like to be good enough to play the hymns at least.

On the last night we were there we totally had to initiate the newbies to
 King OOGA BOOGA!!!!

Yours truly...

If you want in...you have to pass the test of King OOGA BOOGA!!!!  Let me know and I'll hook you up!


Jen Luker and I

Yep...it's official...I am expecting...hahahaha...just kidding.  This baby bump is more of a buffet bump:)  There was some good eatin at The Cannon Center at Brigham Young is all I'm sayin about that.

Jen Perez made it up on the last day!  She was my VT before we moved.  Love that girl!  She is one of the most kind people I know.

We had ourselves a few good laughs over this pic...

Sunday, April 24, 2011

It's Gone!!

All twenty plus inches of it!!!

A couple of quick shots of my hair before I chopped it off...Yikes am I really willing to part with this hair I have been growing since Drew was a baby?!!
I really have loved having it long...


The braid

My favorite stylist!


The new Doo!  I'm loving it!!

Salt Lake Half Marathon With The Girls!

We started the afternoon of picking up packets with lunch at my most favorite soup restaurant Zuppa's!!  I am seriously wishing we had one here in St. Georgie.  After lunch we headed to the expo to pick up our packets and to stock up on cheap running clothes...
Which would include our matchie outfits;)



  
Jess was kind enough to host us for the night so we could all carpool over to the race.  She kicked Danz and Claire out for the evening.  I ended up driving separate due to a jam packed weekend full of going to and fro.


Pre race pics




Aims in action 
Me right before my finish

We were running late...as usual.  We didn't start the race until 21 minutes after the gun.  You can see me as I am crossing the finish line(I'm the one with the white racer back and red shorts).  My time says 2hrs 8min 10 sec.  Translated to my actual time considering our actual start time at 1 hour 47 min and some change! A new personal record...only by a like 25 seconds, but it's a PR!! Woot!








Sissy was right by my side first thing.  She seriously just makes me smile.  I hope one day we can run one together:)

Poor Aims...there was a huge divet in the road and her foot twisted and sent her a tumbling down which left her with some pretty skinned up knees and a sore ankle.  She was one tough girl though...she got right up and it didn't even phase her.  She ran like a stallion that girl!!

proof of her toughness!!

After the race Dave, the kids and I met up and talked for a bit.  The kids were getting restless, so Dave headed for home with some of my crap and Aimee and I were on the lookout for Jess.  Little did we know Jess was enjoying  herself a lovely massage!  Dang...I missed out on the free masseuse this year...but oh don't you worry I will be all over that one next year! We headed back to the car and immediately I realized some of that crap I gave to Dave nearly a half an hour before had my car keys in it.  So the poor guy had to turn around and come back to let me in my car.  That man did some serious running around for me this weekend and I love him for it.  While we were waiting for my keys we chatted about the race and how we felt about it.  Initially Aimee's time was posted as quite a bit slower than we thought we had run.  My time wasn't even posted.  So we were kind of bummed at our performance initially until we checked our results online and we went right around the same time as last year.  I was happy with that!

After the race I totally forgot to get more pics of all of us together in our cute matchie outfits.  We all had a white racer back with the same brand of shorts, just different colors and headbands.  It was so much fun matching it up and doing this race together!