Conference Weekend

It's conference weekend! That means that there was a lot of this goin' on... 

Our family has a lot of room for improvement. Thankfully we have the gift of repentance. I didn't fall asleep today but did yesterday afternoon. I think Sophi slept through every session yesterday and today. She is that dark head dead on Corey's lap in these two pics. 

She and Natalie served as weighted blankets on Corey's lap this afternoon. It did not look comfortable to me. I didn't take any notes this year, just listened as I did stuff in the kitchen today. Yesterday I missed most of the first session cause I took Owen to his soccer game at 10:15. I did catch Elder Christofferson's talk on gambling at the end. Listened to that while we were at the frontrunner train waiting to pick up cousin Seth. I'll catch up on it next week. Seth came, I brought Owen and him home,  and then Corey took Daniel to his game at 12:45. Hyrum's roommate Sebastian and his sister spent the night here last night and I got up and made them some fresh sourdough for breakfast before they went downtown to the first session of conference at the conference center. They went by Daniel's game on their way back here. Daniel asked him to come, cause they are buddies after Daniel went up there last month. Cousin Seth went to Daniel's game too, and Katharine. 

Yesterday morning was also busy cause we went to visit my sister at my parent's house. She came in from Indiana to pick up her boy Nate who has been serving a mission in the Saratoga Springs Mission. We visited for a bit before they flew out at 10:30. We forgot to get a group photo, but Beka snapped these as we visited outside before parting ways.  

It was afternoon before Corey and I had a chance to exercise. We decided to do a ride and were going to go to Millcreek, but as we were on our way we remembered the construction in the canyon, so that meant we couldn't get up very far (and I didn't really want to do Rattlesnake, there are no fall colors there yet)... then we checked and saw that on odd days (which was yesterday) the upper trails were closed, boo - so then he drove us to Park City. I don't think he really wanted to go that far away, and didn't seem in a great mood about it, but that's what we did. It was very pretty and I enjoyed it. 

Started at 5:45 pm and we went up Armstrong > HAM > Seldom Seen. That's a simple and quick ride, just took us 1 hour 13 min, and so we finished right at sunset at 7:05. I've been keeping track of the sunset and sunrise times lately for some reason... I spent this Sabbath morning at the creek and watched the sun rise (7:27am). I was able to take my sweet time (2+ hours) cause I didn't have to get back to hurry and get anyone ready for church, cause church was General Conference at home! Yay.

Mel and Christian came over for some of conference. She is very full term with her pregnancy, next month her little bundle will be here! They just got back from a last chance trip to Florida and they had a good time relaxing at the beach. After conference they made some vegan creamy pasta for dinner and I snuck away with Hyrum for a drive up the canyon before he goes to Iceland in a week.

My brother got in his Guardsman drive with my parents today, and I wasn't able to get away in time to join them, but I still wanted to go, so we did, just me and Hyrum. Had a nice visit. The trees are beautiful up there!!! SO SO yellow! I am going try to get up here again asap.

After we got home he cooked up some duck meat for us. He went duck hunting yesterday with some friends for the opening day of duck hunting season. Around 11pm last night, as I was finishing up sourdough dough, he was trying to decided if he should sleep for two hours or just stay up. Since Sebastian was here, he ended up staying up visiting with him until 1, then he left to go sit in the reeds and wait for sunrise so he could shoot ducks. He shot two, but only was able to find one. He was surprised how little meat here was on his duck. He doesn't think he could feed a family by hunting ducks. It wasn't even enough to feed him for one meal.

He cooked it up and shared it with everyone before family prayer. We talked a little bit of logistics this week, including moving FHE to Tuesday so we can hike the Y. We brought up the facebook video that featured Katharine when we hiked the Y three years ago. 

So that will be fun to do that again, and assuming everything going to plan and we make it down, this will be our 4th year in a row! Go team. Past years: 2012, 2013, 2019, covid, 2021 not on my radar, 2022 didn't go (Natalie had a party), 2023, 2024, and 2025.

HBD Date Night

Last night we went out to eat with Ethan and Bella to celebrate Bella's birthday. 

They were in SL for a class that Ethan has up here, and then we met up at Bandit's which I hope they liked. It seemed like a good choice cause it's close to the freeway and it's one of our favorite places. Bella and I both got the Farmer's Harvest salad, which is my go to at Bandits. Ethan got the Prime Rib, Corey got the pulled pork something, and of course he ate his vegetables first. Corey and Ethan text and send messages a lot about work every day and week cause Ethan is doing lots of entrepreneurial stuff down at BYU, so we visited about that and other stuff that's going on for them. Bandit's closed at 9 but we were able to take our time talking, and then when we left the dining booth we stayed in a little waiting area they have and talked more as Alvie played on a spinning chair. 

Bella wanted a quick picture of us with Alvie, cutie. 

That was a nice end of a busy day yesterday. I had been gone a lot of the day running errands with Katharine - to the library to pick up a book on hold, then she played a bit with new friends - 

Then we went to Burt Brothers to get the oil changed in the van. Took forever. She read her books while we waited.

Then enjoyed some hot chocolate.

Then she was doing some sliding game where she scooted under the chair and then pushed against the wall to shoot herself out like a rocket sliding across on the floor, yayyyy so gross, she took a bath as soon as we got home. 

After her bath and the kids getting home from school, I took Owen to trumpet, then from 6:10 - 6:30 I went and sat by the creek for 20 min before I had to be back for Lily to have the car for SNAP, a special needs mutual group that she's helping with this year. Not a lot of time to exercise yesterday, but today we went on a ride to the ruins for an early date night (counted our dinner last night as our date night dinner, and this was a date night/afternoon activity.) Corey used the stepping stones to cross the creek with me and came and saw my spots on the south side of the ruins. 

I showed him how/where I climb down the waterfall boulder - then where my reading and resting spots are. "Do you want to lay down and rest?" I asked. He replied "I didn't know I did, but I guess I do..." I got my sheet out of my biking bag so he could check out how nice is it to lay down and stare at the sky. 

It's nice, right!?!? Yeah, this is where it's at, chillin in nature. I hope to someday spend 40 days in the wilderness up here. That sounds amazing. So our afternoon ride and last night were out "date" and now he's at his dad's to get some work done and I am here blogging now and catching up on stuff at home. Soccer games and General Conference tomorrow, yay!