Women's Conference

I can't believe it's been almost a month, and I still haven't done this post! (It took me awhile to recover from April.)


This year, Women's Conference weekend was different than in years past. In addition to being with Jill and Kristi, my mom, my aunt Denise, and my cousins Emily and Charlotte all came to town!

{name tags that were left at my house}

So this year, I could look down the row and see 6 women that I love and admire! Pretty cool.

I think the best thing about Women's Conference is being with so many other women who are seeking knowledge, want to be uplifted, and are striving to be better. Being there with women that I really love is a wonderful feeling.

I've only been able to attend with my mother once before, and that was in 2000 (Grandma, Denise, and Jessie were also in attendance then). Mom stayed at my house, so we drove together, and pretty much went everywhere together. She lives in Pennsylvania, so it's not often that I get to spend so much time with her! (I love her handwriting.)

I think we ran into Patsy and the Centerville girls 4 times in different places the first day! Pretty surprising when you take into account the other 26,000 or so women who were there.

A trip to the BYU bookstore is requisite, despite the hordes of women and long lines everywhere. Jill showed me these books she picked up – I thought it was funny that she was buying these reference books, but when I loaded this photo it became even funnier to me because I noticed the "do you still have a crush on him?" and "horoscope inside!" headlines. (On a math book??)

My mom's outfit was too cute to be sullied by her name tag around her neck, so she fashioned a way to attach it to her belt! (I've never even thought of that.)

We went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner one night with Shannon and Heather, also in town from Pennsylvania. It's always fun to meet blog friends in person!

I think I like this photo even better than the first one. These two were seriously cracking each other up (and the rest of us as well).

My favorite pizza: pear/gorgonzola/hazelnut. Seriously so good.

One night we went to the free concert on campus. We've never done that before! Parts of it were good, other parts . . . not so much. We all agreed that it was far too long, and Jill and I couldn't help thinking longingly of relaxing at home in our jammies.

I was loving this weather, so of course my mom was completely freezing.

This is what we woke up to on Saturday! April 30th. It seems like we get a big snow every year when the tulips and the trees are in full bloom.

I felt sorry for this little guy – do you think he was surprised?

Eva was thrilled that Grandma and Grandpa were here on her birthday.

I took her shopping to get things for her friend birthday party, and we went to watch Max play at the state orchestra solo/small ensemble competition. (He did wonderfully well.)

We had belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for dinner. (Nothing like having dessert before birthday cake!)

Ken was on her list, but I didn't know she would be so excited about him!

She put on quite the fashion show to model her new clothes (mostly from Grandma).

I made chocolate angel food cake. I don't make this cake very often, and I didn't know about the trick of making the frosting the day before (I always make the cake the night before) so that it is easier to frost. Next time!

We took my parents to the airport the next day. I hate saying goodbye. Whenever they leave, I kind of feel like someone pulled the rug out from under me, which is not a good feeling.

Isn't my mom darling??

day 3 of roommate reunion 2010

On Saturday, we had another leisurely morning. Jill slept in, finally getting some much-needed rest. Kristi and I finished her blog changes.

When we were all ready, we went to Salt Lake because Kristi hadn't been to Temple Square in a long time. (Truth be told, neither had I.)

The temple is beautiful in any season. I love the landscaping, and the seasonal changes seem heightened on Temple Square.

Jill and I were quite taken with the combination of flowers they have right now: pansies, tulips, phlox, English daisies, and poppies! I think of poppies as a summer flower – I wonder if they had to grow them in a greenhouse to have them blooming with the tulips?

I enjoy taking pictures of Jill taking pictures. It is just so Jill to me.

We couldn't get enough of the poppies!

So unexpected and pretty.

We enjoyed seeing the brides and grooms and their families. There were 66 weddings at the Salt Lake Temple last Saturday, and we found out from one of the workers that that is a relatively slow Saturday for them!


Jill was asked to take a photo for this family. They definitely asked the right person for the job.


Temple Square self-portrait. It was fun to realize that we were all sealed there!

Whenever I see a flag at half-mast, I always feel a little clueless because I usually don't know the reason.

Jill wanted to show us a great restaurant right across the street, but it turns out it is closed on Saturday! What the?

We went instead to the new flagship Deseret Bookstore, which is really beautiful and quite impressive. We ran into fellow blogger Shauna there, who we met last year at Women's Conference!

She suggested the Nauvoo Café for lunch. We followed her suggestion and found her with her two good friends there. (Personally, I thought the company and conversation were much better than the food. But then, I neglected to get the cookie that Shauna says is amazing.)

Jan, Jolyn and Shauna have been friends in Florida for 20 years! They have been coming to Women's Conference together for the last 3, just like us. It was great to talk to them. We discussed our favorite talks and classes, and talked about the gospel and motherhood. It was a long, enjoyable lunch.

After we parted ways, we drove South to meet up with Lisa P. and Kelly. They were starving, so we went to Chili's, but I couldn't eat a thing! It felt kind of funny to sit there all that time and have only a glass of water.

Kelly and Lisa are great company!

Lisa invited us to her beautiful home – she just moved in 5 weeks ago! They had cupcakes from the Sweet Tooth Fairy for us to sample. (By that time, I had just enough room to try a little of the vanilla and coconut varieties. Thumbs up.)

We had a tour of the house, complete with awesome backyard, and then sat and chatted some more on Lisa's comfy couches. We left only when we discovered that it was already 10:30. Lisa had to teach in the morning, and I had to go grocery shopping on the way home.

It was a marvelous three days, but they went by so fast! It was hard to part ways and know that it was all over.

It's such a great tradition we have going here: renewal of our friendship and spirits, connecting with other friends, learning together, and coming away feeling rededicated to improving ourselves and our lives for the better. I loved every minute of it.

day 2 of Women's Conference

For our second day of Women's Conference, we decided to sleep in. The opening session was about family history, and we just were not as committed to that as we were to Sister Beck, so...

I must say, it was glorious to sleep until I woke up naturally (8:20). That never happens!

Self-portrait as we left Jill's house (I still had wet hair).

Kristi had gotten a deal on a rental car ($14 a day!) so she was our designated driver. It was a switch, because Jill normally drives. Me and my short legs are content to sit in the back.

I usually take a self-portrait with my W.C. tag, but Jill had to take this one because my T. Rex arms are too short to reach with my big heavy camera.

It was so cold that Kristi had to borrow some gloves from Jill. We have such unpredictable spring weather, you just never know what you're going to get.

We were a bit late to the second class due to our leisurely morning, but we still enjoyed hearing the new Primary presidency speak. My favorite part was this video where they interviewed Primary children, it was incredibly sweet.

teary self-portrait

I enjoy taking pictures of other people taking pictures.

After that class, it was already time for lunch!

We walked past the art museum and saw this installation. We had to go investigate the flaming mustache, because as Jill said, "there might not be a later." It is called "self-portrait." I sure would like to see the artist!

While the flaming mustache was interesting, this is really more my style.

We picked up Collette from her office in the Wilk so we could all eat lunch together.

Bree came to meet us for lunch as well, even though she couldn't attend the conference on Friday. We loved getting to know her. And while waiting in line for our food, we ran into Lisa P. and Kelly! I love meeting blog friends.

We had to get mint brownies. Sadly, these ones were slightly disappointing.

Amy M. arrived to present her class! Adam and the whole Maher clan were in attendance, as well as friends and members of her ward. We had a whole cheering section.

She was very poised and did a great job. She didn't seem nervous at all! The other speakers in her class were wonderful as well.

At this point, we hit the BYU bookstore, as we hadn't made it there yet. We all bought t-shirts for our kids and candy at the candy counter (I love that place). I bought dark chocolate orange sticks (Kristi and I love them) and double-dipped chocolate malt balls (we all love them).

Although we had planned to go to the final session of the conference, we were all feeling emotionally drained and exhausted, so we decided to cut out early.

As we were walking, a shuttle driver stopped, picked us up, and delivered us to our car! Such service. We didn't even realize until we sat down in the shuttle how truly exhausted we were. At that point it seemed ridiculous that we thought we were going to walk all the way down to the stadium.

Because of our early departure, we managed to get ahead of all of the traffic, which is always substantial. We went for our traditional dinner at Training Table so Kristi could use the phone to order.

Burgers and cheese fries. I wasn't hungry when we got there, but we stayed and talked so long that it was no problem.

We talked about the fact that we will all turn 40 next year, the horrors! (I forgot to tell Kristi to switch hands.)

cheese fries remains

I wish I could remember what prompted Jill to make this face. Perhaps it was just weariness.


On the way home, we stopped at Sonic to get a bag of ice. Doesn't Jill look happy?

And at JCW's to get milkshakes (another thing on Kristi's to-do list).

Somewhere along the way, we saw this newspaper headline. It cracked me up that we live in the dullest place in America. (Really? Duller than Wyoming?) It reminded me of when Denise called us "low-level recreators." I guess we really do not need much to have a good time.

When we got back to Jill's house, we had a little photo session so that Jill could take a new picture for Kristi's new blog header. Kristi had a vision and had bought these pink grapefruit balls at the candy counter.


Jill had received a good mail package from Linda that day, containing these cute notebooks and pens for all of us! Even though we didn't have them with us at Women's Conference, we loved them and we going to use them to plan out our goals based on what we learned this year.

Kristi's husband says that this will be the start of her new year, and we liked the sound of that. So we are all going to make some goals and resolutions that we will revisit next year when we are all together again.

Jill went to bed at a decent hour to try to go to sleep before she missed her window, and Kristi and I stayed up late making a new blog banner. It was so fun to have this collaborative project to do together!