Women's Conference--Day 1

Good heavens, it has taken me a week to load these photos and finally sit down to write this post, crazy.

So rewinding back to Wednesday April 27--I took the day off work so I could finish cleaning and preparing the house for Kristi's arrival. It's ridiculous how long it takes me to thoroughly clean when preparing for a guest, but turning the kids' room from a kids' room to a guest suite is a lot of work!


I finally finished at 6:01pm and was ready to fall into a heap; this is always a problem for me when hosting something because I wear myself out so much in preparation that I'm not always in good form for the actual event/guest arrival. This time I was tired and experiencing day 1 of a cold (what the?!) but was happy for Kristi to be coming.


My mom had made a bowl of her fantastic caramel popcorn, so I knew that would say "Welcome" more than anything else.

Kristi arrived bearing a bag of pebble ice and looking cute as always.


We were both starving, so before doing any real chatting we decided where we were going for dinner.


After a leisurely dinner with lots of conversation we stopped in at Wal-Mart to get some soft tissues for my newly irritated nose (what horrid timing). Kristi freaked me out by suggesting we buy these scary nightgowns. They were on the clearance rack but were still $11, so that was too pricey for a joke (in my opinion), plus I told her my self-esteem could not handle the blow of wearing such an ensemble.


Back at home, Kristi brought out these great gifts for me. I didn't have anything to offer her except for clean bathrooms and bedding. It's ridiculous how much I love those monogram pencils! I always use pencils at school so I get to see them all the time, woohoo.


The next morning was Day 1 of Women's Conference and we actually arrived on time (in years past we have been a bit late) and were very happy to score a sweet parking spot directly across the street from the Marriott Center. Kristi paid the guy who lives in the house (he made a lot of money that day) and even paid him to hold a spot for us the next day.


While standing in line waiting for Kristi's name tag she was texting back and forth with Michelle who was already inside saving us a seat; their smart phone technology mocks me so (I'm still kicking around with a flip phone so texting takes me forever).

Dinosaur me.

We made it around to Gate "N" just as Denise, Charlotte and Emily arrived too, so it felt like the party had really begun.


It was quite pleasing to look down the row to see all these great women from Michelle's family taking notes. The opening session by Virginia H. Pearce was quite good.

For the next class we all schlepped down to the Smith Field House to sit on bleachers to hear John and Kim Bytheway.The tulips are always one of the highlights for me.


Michelle and I actually got to sit together (and be overheated) for this class. In fact, Michelle's mom (who is ALWAYS freezing) actually said, "It's kind of hot for me." So you can just imagine how much the rest of us were suffering!


We were delighted to find that we were sitting a couple rows above our blogging friends Wende, Laurie, Patsy, and Kristy.


The hike back up to campus almost killed us (or maybe it was just me and my clogged head), but was so beautiful.


We split up with the group after that because they had other classes they wanted to attend. Kristi really wanted to see the Carl Bloch exhibit while she was here, so we went to the museum to see about getting stand-by tickets. The stand-by line was over an hour wait and it was mighty warm in there. I was NOT dedicated to doing this (I know my limits) and would have gone somewhere else if she had wanted to stay, but we found out that coming back at 9:45 (just before closing) would be the best plan...phew!

I love this view on the East side of the museum.

We took a shuttle (sweet mercy) back up to the Marriott Center, bought some Cafe Rio-type salads and mint brownies for lunch then went in to hear a class featuring 5 former General Relief Society Presidents.


Since we were staying in the Marriott Center for our next class, Kristi got the smart idea to move down to the cushy seats on the floor (I always thought they were reserved) and found out we could sit in them for that class, but would have to leave for the last session. It was so glorious to sit on a soft comfortable seat while feeling the air conditioning.


While waiting for the class to start we had a couple celebrity sightings; Kristi got her picture taken with Elaine Dalton and I got to visit with Michelle's in-laws, Bob and Mim, who are quite possibly the nicest people on the planet.


After all our classes we headed to the bookstore to wander around with the hordes of women. I was once again reminded of how much I hate being overheated and hate crowds, but then one of the women turned out to be our blogging friend Shannon (from Pennsylvania) so my bubble of irritation burst and turned into fun instead. We knew she was at Women's Conference and that we were going to meet up at some point, but it was quite fun running into her unexpectedly like that.


Poor Shannon was roasting in her boots and wanted to fold the tops over but hadn't because the size information was written in white text inside, so Kristi went and borrowed a black Sharpie and solved the problem; this was quite random and funny.


These were my only two purchases (granted, I didn't browse long and was repelled by the crowds) but is this indicative of my job at the junior high or what?! I never would have thought I'd be excited about buying a book about math.


We met up with the whole gang in the book store and I was struck (as I always am) by how glamorous Michelle's mom is. It cracked me up that she had her name tag fastened to her waist so as not to ruin the effect of her ensemble! She was wearing 3 inch wedges for all that walking too, I don't know how she does it!


We drove up to the mall to have dinner together at California Pizza Kitchen, which ended up being really fun despite the size of our group (sometimes it's hard to talk in a big group like that).

Windy group shot outside.

After dinner we went inside to shop for clothes and ran into Patsy's group!


Our day just kept on going when we went back to the Marriott Center to see the Evening Concert. There were some good parts, but pretty much it wasn't worth sitting in those cramped seats for another 2 hours, especially when we could have been lounging at home in cozy clothes.


Kristi and I ducked out of the concert at 9:30 (it went until 10) so we could get into the Carl Bloch exhibit. It felt so fantastic to walk outside in the cool breeze by ourselves since all the crowds were at the concert. We didn't have to wait at all to get into the exhibit and had just enough time to see it at a comfortable pace before the museum closed at 10:30. It was an excellent way to end our incredibly busy day.

When we got in the car at almost 11:00pm I got the world's saddest phone message from Whitney, this is what it contained.

Pause....
Mom....Whitney, sob, sob
Magic died! Sob.
Click.

Oh my goodness, it was painfully sad to hear. It was too late to call and talk to her about it, and I couldn't believe this happened while they were staying at Robyn's house (how's that for dramatic house guests?).

**Did you make it through this post?
Would you wear a nightgown like that?
Do you enjoy decorative pencils?
Do you have a smart phone/iphone?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I STILL have my cold that started on April 27th!