September Surprises 2015

I was asked to make a dessert for Parent Teacher Conference for the middle school. I never do ANYthing for that school. I don't give the teachers Christmas or end of the year gifts, there are just too many of them. So I said, "Yes, yes I can bring a dessert." The day of was a crazy one and my cupboards were bare. I did however have a frozen crust in the freezer and just enough peaches on hand to make a FROM SCRATCH HOMEMADE PEACH PIE. I type it all caps because, WHAT IS BETTER THAN THAT??? It turned out BEAUTIFUL. I was tempted to run to the store and grab a box of cookies but the thought was replaced with, "Always give your best." Sometimes my best IS a box of store bought cookies, but I decided to part with the pie. I promised the family I'd make them one at a later date. However, all the peaches were gone, the stands were out. Maybe next year.

Soldier Hollow Invitational September 25, 2015

Instead of the Wasatch Meet being held on a crisp Saturday morning, this year it was held on a Friday, after school. The weather was what Mallerie described as Africa hot. Combine that with the toughest Cross Country course in the state and, well, you had runners collapsing at the finish line. Mallerie kept her shades on as she ran and w did our best to line the course to cheer her on. When I told her ahead of time that that course is tricky because we can't see her for very much of the time she said,"You just have to run and find us mom." I said, "It's up a big hill!" She said, "Just do it!" I did! Not every hill, but more than usual. We got to cheer her as she passed. Everyone calls that course "The beast" so you can hear me screaming on the video, "Slay the beast!" Matt was like, Huh??

When someone presents you with Women's Conference tickets and says, "You and your girls came to my mind when I was thinking who I should give these too," you go! During the day we attended our Stake's Family History Day. Matt was the High Councilman over this and we were there to support.

Mallerie was a work, Grayson went home, and the babies wouldn't leave the children's activities so that left Ava with the two of us wearing random hats on a Saturday posing for a picture.

Anyway, later that day I left with Mallerie and Ava to go downtown Salt Lake City. We gave ourselves ample time to get to the conference center but probably could have left an hour earlier. The crowds!

As we approached Temple Square we were awed by the flowers! I asked two gentlemen who were sitting on a bench if they wouldn't mind snapping a photo of us. They were in SLC for the first time to attend Comic Con and were very perplexed at the march of women going past them. That is what they called it, a march. I explained about General Conference and told them that if they had come a week later they would see all the men. They said, "We are glad we are here this weekend!" They suggested we take our photo around the corner, "There is a huge castle around the corner." I said, "I know, I was married in that castle." I explained a bit about the Salt Lake Temple. How it took the pioneers 40 years to build it, etc... His dog wandered into our shot and he asked if we minded, "Not at all."

We stood in a LONG line at the Conference Center to go through security. I wondered if the Priesthood have the same holdup since none of them have handbags that need to be checked. I doubt it.

President Uchtdorf talked about "Ava" the whole time!

The meeting was already under way as we rushed to our seats. Ava and I compared the crowds to the Taylor Swift concert we had been at just weeks before. She performed for a crowd of 15,000. This was a crowd of 22,000. I noted that one outing brought FUN, the other JOY. The choir sounded so beautiful! I had to watch it again online to be enjoy it.

We are fans!

Mallerie found a kindred spirit

The sky was amazing as we exited the building and we enjoyed our walk through City Creek. The girls laughed that right when I tried to snap a photo of the amazing fountains, they turned off. We picked up some Sunday dinner at Harmon's before heading home.

On the way home Mallerie told us that she heard they are going to make a PREquel to Harry Potter. I said, "How are they going to do that? The actors are already old?" She said, "They made it work for Monster's Inc!"

It was a long night!

The next night Sunday September 27, 2015 we went outside to catch a glimpse of the blood moon eclipse thingy.

Oops, I didn't know my flash was going to turn on.

We fed the sister missionaries, Matt was once again out of town for this. They were both from the south. One of them looked at our family photo and could not get over the resemblance of Matt to the local news anchor back home. She said, "After we leave Google him!"

What do you think?

Speaking of Missionaries....we had gotten a letter from Kat a few weeks before giving us the heads up that though she was LOVING her mission her heart was telling her that her mission may be to come home and marry Giuseppe instead! Those are my words instead of hers, but you get the gist. We took the young man to dinner. We probably rattled his nerves by summoning him since he didn't know what we knew and we wanted to know what he knew and then tell him what we knew...got it? We met at Los Hermano's and had a great chat. It was really great.

 And then we all just waited.

I can't say I was shocked when Matt called me on Monday the 28th to tell me that Katrina had made up her mind. I was relieved. Not because I wanted her to choose one way or the other but because I knew what a wrestle she was having in herself and that is hard as a mom to know one of my kids is in such turmoil.

The next day went a bit like this:

We had sat down the kids the night before at Family Night and told them. Callie was over the moon to be seeing Katrina so soon. You'll remember, "I didn't even get to say gooooood-byyyyyyyye!!!!"

Callie ran downstairs when she got home from school the next day to see Katrina.

Her honorable release from a member of the Stake Presidency was very powerful and gave us a lot of comfort. Coming home from a  mission isn't easy. I told Katrina that whenever I have left a job I loved or moved from a place I loved I have felt unsettled. When Katrina went into the MTC she left something great and it left her unsettled. When she came home she also left something great, and it left her unsettled. Both are good things, she had to choose, she did, and now she doesn't need to look back.