Roommate Weekend--Part 1

Just so you know, I feel completely overwhelmed about the catching up I need to do for our 2nd annual Roommate Weekend. I am trying to baby step my way through it, even though I really feel like fleeing to the cozy instead.


After spending all day Wednesday with my awesomely, insane to-do list (which I did not finish), the house was incredibly clean and organized. It was highly satisfying to have it so clean, especially the kids' room (aka Kristi's guest suite).


I was rather pleased that I'd thought to get some pictures from last year's gathering printed to help make Michelle and Kristi feel more at home. (It's so rare for me to think of something like that early enough to make it happen.)


I barely had time to shower (and had no time for make-up) before hustling to the airport to pick up Kristi. I was staked out watching the escalator and kept speculating as to what she'd be wearing. I guessed correctly about the skirt, but had been wrong about the presence of pink.


We took this blurry self-portrait after our power-hug greeting. Kristi is a great hugger!


Our first stop was JCW's for dinner and an "over the top of the cup" shake for Kristi. She got a chocolate, peanut-butter shake and ended up rocking my world when she tossed the remaining half of it in the trash as we left. What the?! That's what freezers are for, that's the beauty of such a huge shake, it keeps on giving.


Kristi brought me these 4 huge spools of satin ribbon! Weeha, the colors are so pleasing together they reminded me of Neapolitan ice cream.


We were about an hour behind schedule for Day 1 of Women's Conference, so we didn't pick Michelle up until 10:30. It was so fun to be together again...that year just flew by.

Hello Women's Conference, we meet again.

I saw this sign on the grounds of the Marriott Center and related to it instantly. Maybe we should all wear signs like this around our necks (though perhaps smaller) to remind us to be more gentle with each other . Seriously.


Kristi and I had both signed up late for Women's Conference this year, so neither one of us had the booklet with the class schedule in until we got to the Marriott Center. It's always pleasing to look at the variety of classes offered, even though it's only possible to go to a fraction of them.


Since we were running late, the 11:00 class was already in session. Kristi had been texting her friend Stacy and had asked her if she was going to come outside to see us, but Stacy's reply indicated she'd do that after the class. We thought that was so funny because we hadn't been to a class yet and weren't in class mode.


We went into the Marriott Center and caught the last half of Sister Dalton's excellent talk about pointing our lives toward the temple. I ended up taking 2 pages of notes, and was so glad we made it in there for her talk.


We were able to meet Stacy (and her cute sister and mom) when the class finished. Stacy and I had each other for the first Pink Christmas exchange a couple years ago, and know each other through our blogs. She is "Think" to Kristi's "Pink" on the 2Clever blog...just in case you didn't know.


We were about 30 minutes late for lunch (just FYI, in case any bloggers showed up and didn't see us) but had a nice time refueling and eating our first mint brownie of the weekend.


Stacy and I were both surprised when we saw Jeff's mom Sharon approaching in the cafeteria creeping up to surprise Kristi. Kristi didn't know Sharon was going to be there and in true Kristi style, immediately burst into tears. Michelle and I both wish were capable of such a reaction, but sadly are not.


Upon leaving the Wilkinson Center I heard someone call my name, but didn't recognize the caller. It turns out Ciria reads all of our blogs (but rarely comments, tsk, tsk) and wanted to say "hi". I asked a passing student to take our picture, and was just delighted (not) that he got our entire bodies in the photo. Um, ever heard of cropping? He's a guy so strategic photo taking is most likely not part of his life.


We experienced some torturous knee pain as we crammed into the stadium seats in the Marriott Center for our next class, and were truly bewildered as to how anyone taller than us can fit in there. I'm 5'4 and had NO ROOM, what's up with that? We scoped out the few leg-friendly seats in the place and grabbed those before the next class. We found ourselves reveling in the leg room during that hour, and would periodically stretch out just because we could. Hee.


We met blogging friend Liz B. (Kristi knows her, and Michelle and I had met her before) and her sister at the Marriott Center. It was fun to visit with her in-between classes and to attempt this self-portrait, not too shabby.

I love this picture.

After our last class of the day we got to meet blogging friend Lauralee in real life. We all pronounced her "tall" and very nice.


We dropped Michelle back home so she could be there for Eva's birthday party with the family, then Kristi and I went to get a bag of Sonic ice, a diet Coke and some Cafe Rio take-out for dinner. (Somehow in the process of running in to get the food Kristi lost her Women's Conference badge.)


Upon pulling into the driveway, we saw someone pull up and were very surprised to see that it was Pam. She has been in Utah taking care of her sisters' kids and was stopping by to give me a card and a bunch of daffodils. It was perfect timing and so fun that she got to see Kristi too.


There's nothing like sitting down to a tasty Cafe Rio dinner with cheery daffodils on the table after a very long day of lots of walking.


Later that evening, Randy and the kids stopped by to pick something up (they were banished to freakin Eagle Mountain for the duration of the roommate weekend). Randy and Kristi ended up having a good visit with much laughter, and I surprised by how happy I was to see the kids after just 24 hours apart (not that I'm not fond of them, just that it hadn't been very long).


Michelle was finally able to join us around 9:30pm and came bearing gifts. She gave us a bunch of her favorite things, which included homemade fabric coasters (I've really been wanting some of these), knitted wash cloths, a monogrammed notepad and the best smelling soap ever. We were thrilled.

These are the items she gave Kristi.

Around 10:15, I saw headlights in the driveway and was very surprised to open the front door and see Patsy standing there. She came bearing a big bag of favorite things from the blogger moms for Kristi, along with a huge pan of mint brownies made by Janae.


Kristi ran out to the car and coerced Patsy's sister and daughter to come inside (they were very tired), then we all visited for awhile. We all love Patsy and didn't want her to go, but pretty much tortured Ruthie and Megan (sorry girls).

We were super tired and ended up going to bed around 11:45. It had been a fabulous, friend-filled day of learning, hugging, laughing and chatting just the way we like it.

**Did you make it through this post?
Have you ever been spotted by a blogger?
Do you have an iPhone? Are you big into texting?
Are you tall?
Do you read the 2Clever blog?
How do you feel about mint brownies?**