Miscellany--Phone Style

It is already time for Whitney to register for her 9th grade classes (how did that happen so fast?!). She applied (along with 110 other kids) to be in the yearbook class. This involved getting two teacher recommendations, submitting 5 photos she'd taken, and filling out the application questions. (I'm happy to report she got in!)

Whitney and her friends were standing outside the office one day during lunch time so I started taking pictures of them.

Amie's daughter Jessica is a senior in high school and is also enrolled in beauty school so I scheduled an appointment to have her give me a manicure. I've known Jessica since she was 4 so it's kind of crazy that she's so grown up now.

Michelle and I met up with Collette for her birthday lunch on February 6th.

Michelle and I went to Pebbles in My Pocket after lunch and found all kinds of cute things (I am addicted to tags) and ended up buying stuff to make Valentines.

 I love coming home to find Landon doing his homework!

Saturday February 7th was so glorious that Whitney and I read outside for an hour!

 Junie basked in the sun next to us.

Randy and I went to dinner at La Costa with Adam and Amy while the girls hung out at home.

My visiting teaching companion and I did a 3 minute stint on visiting our sisters regularly during our Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference. I had Randy make this poster for me to show how we're all connected through visiting teaching...I love it!

Sometimes you just gotta take a nap horizontally across the bed with your feet hanging off and no blankets or pillow...what the?!

Our Valentine making day was a success! Michelle made treat bags for her visiting teaching people and a bunch of cute Valentines to mail. I made treat bags for my co-workers and book club friends.

I got this funny Valentine in the mail from Natalie S. It's the only one I got.

I read in the cozy every day, this time Landon stopped in and grabbed my phone for a selfie.

We read Man's Search For Meaning last week for Bookclub and all loved it. I'm always reluctant to read non fiction and concentration camp type books because they're so rough on my soul, but this was super inspiring.

I gave this bottle of cuteness to my Secret Pal.

May Book Club

Michelle hosted book club again this month because Marc was in Paris (and still is)! We were celebrating Jana's birthday and opted to bring our own take-out rather than try to coordinate a nice dinner...life is so crazy for all of us this was a gift to ourselves.

We had one of our best book discussions ever (too bad Amy wasn't there) thanks to Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. It was beautifully written, though a little tough emotionally (I sobbed and felt shaken for days later) but such an interesting picture of motherhood and family life.

Michelle baked chocolate chip cookies (with browned butter) which we topped with ice cream and Jenn's fabulous homemade caramel.

Jana got to make a wish and blow out a candle, we gave her a $100 Amazon gift certificate.

Jenn got a new phone! She's baby stepping her way in the world of technology and no longer has to text with the number pad. She was flustered with trying to manage the new phone, but we're excited for her.

Cute Jenn. 

Collette checking out GoodReads on her phone.

Max had work to do on the computer but I don't think our loud talking bothered him, he was in the zone.

Poor Michelle got the most uncomfortable seat in the house when we moved into the family room.

Women's Conference--Part 2

Friday morning we all slept in from our late night of chatting, then we hung out talking in the morning and planning our day. Danielle cracked us up by saying she'd like to be a shuttle driver at Women's Conference because then she'd get to hear all the best parts from all the talks without going to the classes. 

Kristi spent most of the day with her mother-in-law, but joined Michelle and I at the Marriott Center in the afternoon where we met up with Patsy. Brad Wilcox and another lady (sadly I don't know her name) gave a great class, but I missed part of it because I was so tired from our late night that I kept dozing...oh the shame.

Neal A. Anderson and his wife spoke at the closing session and wrapped up our 5th annual Women's  Conference experience.

 

It was such a treat to exit the Marriott Center the opposite way of everyone else to make our way down to Collette's car. We were out of there in 5 minutes instead of being stuck in a major traffic jam for an hour with all the other ladies! We had time to go to a cute boutique in town. Michelle was concerned that I wouldn't want to go there because I don't like to shop, but I reminded her that it's not shopping I hate, it's shopping for clothes that I hate to do! Big difference! 

We all found some cute stuff.

 

Kristi treated us all to some Cafe Rio take-out, which tasted particularly awesome after such a long day.

 

Eventually we made our way back to the theater room and our jammies to watch "The Help". Amazingly Michelle and I hadn't seen it yet because we'd originally planned to see it with our book club, but that never happened. We loved it of course! 

Kristi and the mission friends all left Saturday morning, but Michelle and I planned to have the day out so we went to La Dolce Vida for lunch and then went shopping for awhile. The best part of the day was going back to Collette's house (she had plans for the day but kindly let us continue our stay) for a nap in the cool, dark theater room. We were so tired and ended up sleeping for 2 hours before packing our things up and returning to normal life.

Women's Conference--Part 1

We mixed things up a lot this year for Women's Conference. Rather than staying at my house, we made arrangements to stay at a hotel, but then talked to Collette and ended up getting to stay at her awesome house instead!

We met up at Michelle's house to start our weekend off.

We had dinner at JCW's in Provo...it's sad that Training Table is no longer there, but we love JCW's so it's okay.

We got to Collette's house around 9:30 Wednesday night and got the grand tour (for Kristi's benefit since Michelle and I have been there lots of times). Collette had welcome notes and Cadbury Eggs laid out for us on our beds. Michelle and I shared a room with a California King mattress and Kristi had her own room with a Queen sized bed...deluxe!

Michelle had given Kristi and fun little gift bags when we arrived at her house, but I didn't get to document it until later.

Collette had a BYU bowl full of movie treats for us...along with an awesome theater room!

This is not a good picture, but we stayed up late hanging out talking in the theater room.

The next morning we slept in (such a treat) because we'd decided not to go to the opening session. It was so liberating not to feel rushed to get ready, plus we had the bonus of being 5 minutes from campus.

Upon exiting our first class (which was great) Kristi ran into a friend from Nashville...when will this not be surprising?!

Our morning self-portrait.

It was a gorgeous day and since our first class had been at the JSB we were at a part of campus we don't usually get to see during Women's Conference.

We ran into Ciria! Which is really amazing considering how many people are on campus.

Michelle, Collette and I went to the Marriott Center for some lunch and to listen to the new General Relief Society Presidency. Kristi met up with her sister and we didn't see her again until 5:00pm!

For the 2:00 class Michelle and I went down to the soft seats in the Marriott Center to hear Sister Dalton and her daughter speak (they were great). Collette had gone home to take a nap (this was very tempting, but we didn't go with her.)

For the closing session we hear Brother and Sister Richardson speak. It was a very cheesy presentation, but their message was great and we were glad we heard it (I'll write about it for a Sunday Thoughts post soon).

We had the deluxe treatment of being chauffeured around in Collette's Jaguar with the added bonus of her Employee Parking Permit so we didn't have to deal with the crazy traffic at all.

We stopped at McDonald's for drinks on the way back to Collette's. Then made a quick pit stop at Collette's house so Michelle could get some things, then we dropped her off at her house because she had to play the piano at an Art Gala at Eva's school. (Kristi, Collette and I went to dinner during that time.)

When we got back to the house I took advantage of the gorgeous view from Collette's patio to sit outside by myself to review my notes from the day's classes and to think for awhile. It was relaxing and glorious.

Inside the house, Collette and Kristi were talking with two of Collette's former mission companions (Danielle and Ashby) who were also staying at the house (there are 3 guest rooms!). Later on Collette, Kristi and I went for a walk.

Later we all gathered in the theater room to watch 13 going on 30, which was particularly fun since we are all about the same age and remember 1987 so well!

After the movie we stayed up way too late (1:00am) talking. It was fun to get to know Danielle (Ashby had gone to bed).