A Sweet Escape

I have been M.I.A. this week for a good reason, but I'll get to that in a minute. While I was gone: the sun disappeared for three days which made for six soggy and cold soccer games for Adam and the boys; Zach had an amazing solo as the Blue Marlin in his second grade musical program (I was so heartsick to miss it!); and a general crazy and fun boys' weekend was had by my five guys. I missed them so much, but I know they are in good hands. Thanks again, Adam, for being the kind of husband who not only encourages me in my endeavors, but is also such a great dad that I don't worry a bit when I am gone!

As you can see, I may not be a great sewer, but I am a wizard with duct tape (yep, that's mostly blue duct tape holding the whole thing together)!!!

Zach sung a song about being a blue Blue Marlin asking people to catch and release because Marlins are over-fished. The music had a little blues-ey twist. He did a great job playing the melancholy little fish. Since Adam was manning the camera, the kids and the video, I don't have a short clip for you; it's all on the video camera. But trust me, it was fab!

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As for me, for the second year in a row I was able to attend the Women's Conference at BYU. And for the second year in a row it was an amazing, fun, spiritually uplifting call to action! I learn so much and grow so much at this conference. I come home MORE; more peaceful in my role and job as mom, more determined to be better at it, more brimming with great ideas for helping my family become close to the Lord, more full of Christ's love and the goodness of the Spirit. I just love it.

The spiritual experience is my best reason to go, but it gets so much better than that! I also get to spend the weekend with some wonderful friends. This year I met up once again with my friend Mo, whom I've known since my undergrad years, and our friend JoDee, whom I met while Adam was getting his MBA. We were also joined by two of my great friends from my ward here, Kendra and Jenn. We got up way too early on Thursday morning to fly there (3:30am), stayed up way too late every night, ate way too much food, talked and talked (but not way too much, since that's not possible), came home way too exhausted, and loved every crazy minute of it!

JoDee, Mo, Kendra, Me and Jenn outside the Marriott Center on the BYU campus.

A view of "The Y" with beautiful Spring springing all around. It was so green and smelled so good with all the flowers coming out! With the snow-capped mountains in the distance and everything looking bright green and vividly colorful, it was lovely to behold! I have so many fond memories of my days spent at BYU, and going there brings them all back. One of the classes I went to was in the de Jong Theater, the place where my singles' ward used to meet back in my sophomore year of college. Sitting there on Friday afternoon, I remembered the Sunday morning after Adam had given me my ring. He had proposed on New Year's Eve 1997, but didn't have my ring until about a month later. He took me out to dinner one Saturday night and surprised me with it. The theater lighting really makes a ring sparkle and I was so giddy the day after, even though we had been engaged for a month already. Watching my ring glint in the lights 10-and-a-half years later, made those moments of gazing at the ring, giggling with my friends, dreaming of the future and happy it would be filled with Adam feel so long ago, yet not long ago at all. Kendra, Jenn and I having a little shopping fun. As rad as we look, we didn't buy them.

The closing speaker for the conference was Elder L. Tom Perry (on the right), who is one of the leaders for our church. He gave a great talk on helping those outside our church understand us better; there are so many terrible and humorous misconceptions out there! While he didn't speak, Elder Nelson was there too (in the middle). The man to the left is the President of BYU, Cecil Samuelson, who spoke, along with his wife, at a class I had attended earlier in the day. Not a great picture, but I wasn't all that close....

Here is Kendra, Me, Jenn, Mo and JoDee at the closing session of the weekend. No, I am not afraid to ask strangers to take pictures for me! What a wonderful weekend, what blessings it will bring to my family! Go, if you can, go.