Utah Trip

Now that I have finally loaded our Utah pictures onto the computer, I thought it was high time to do a little show-and-tell of our jam-packed weekend of adventures.

WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION - FRIDAY

Prior to attending the graduation, Dave had to do some work beforewe met up at Susan's office in SLC.  We were able to visit with her boss, President (Keith) Garner, who is a fascinating & hilarious man that Dave has known for quite some time.  He took us all to lunch at the Red Rock Brewing Company.  While we ate (I had a dish of lasanga that was absolutely divine), we had a lively conversation with Susan and the former president of Temple Square.

That afternoon, we attended David's (my brother) graduation from the Construction Management program at Weber State in Ogden.  While commencement exercises are not terribly thrilling, David is the second person in my family to graduate from college, so it was awesome to be there and support his achievements.

At left is a picture of his family:  David; his wife, Rachel; his oldest son, Rhees (3); and the new addition, Parker (2 mo). Rachel's parents and sister were able to attend because they live close-by in Layton.  In addition to Dave & I, my parents and my youngest brother, Brent, were also able to be there to show their support.

Later that day, we headed back for a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Bountiful with Dave's Aunt Susan.  Shortly thereafter, we met up at Nielsen's Frozen Custard with one of Dave's BYU friends, Jessie, and her husband.   I had vanilla custard with hot fudge and it was as scrumptious as I remember from my BYU days.  Earlier, Dave mentioned that Jessie was a big fan of card games so we might do that after dessert.  I told him if they suggest that, I would totally fake going into labor (even though I was only about 5 1/2 months pregnant at the time).   

As a quick aside, I have huge issues with card games, namely I am horrible at them and thus, I hate playing them.  BYU scarred me; no matter what the game, I could not hide the fact that I was not good or very strategic so I was the constant target for complete annihilation.   For that reason, I don't play them and usually stick to trivia and word games... which are much more my forte. 

As luck would have it, we were sitting outside eating our custard when some ominous clouds suddenly burst and the rain came down.  Nearly on queue, Jessie asked, "Well, do you want to go play some cards at our place"?  I didn't even need to look at Dave - I could just tell he was laughing hysterically on the inside as he exclaimed, "Yes, of course"!   As we got in the car, he smirked as he said, "I was just waiting for your Oscar-award winning performance"!  

A large pit started to form in my stomach and memories of those horrid face card games came back with utter clarity.  But, I decided to bite the bullet - it was only one night.  I think the game was called Nines (or maybe not); it didn't matter, I'd never heard of it so I just gave up any hope of having a clue of what I was doing.  Two hours later, as we finished the last round, I was happy that I had stuck it out.  This particular game was not too bad - in fact, I won.  Not that I'm gloating - I was just relieved not to have another horrible experience to add to my list of war wounds.

A DAY IN SLC - SATURDAY

On Saturday, we told Susan the day was hers; she was in charge of finding something fun for us all to do together.  Susan "claims" that she's just not fun, but I don't buy it for one second.  In the end, she chose a trip to SLC.  We went to the Joseph Smith Building where we watched the Joseph Smith Restoration movie, which was wonderful.  Afterwards, we headed up to the 10th floor for lunch at the Garden Restaurant.  The food did not disappoint and the view from the restaurant was amazing.  I snapped a quick picture of the temple and then Susan took a picture of us as well.

That evening, we were invited to dinner by another of Dave's BYU friends, who lives down in Spanish Fork.  The drive down there made me pretty nostalgic for college life, with memories of Hart's, hiking the Y and Utah Lake - all of which we saw as we drove down I-15.  We arrived a bit early, so we helped Julianna and her boyfriend make a green salad and a fruit salad as we waited for the Luau Chicken to cook.  Dinner was wonderful and we talked for nearly 4 hours before we realized how late it was and the long drive we had ahead of us.

LAYTON HILLS WARD - SUNDAY

While it was fun to be there for graduation and to visit old friends, the main reason we came to UT was to participate in Parker's blessing, which David and Rachel had kindly postponed so that both events could occur while our family was down there.  It was fun to attend their ward and David did an excellent job bestowing the sweet blessing on his little boy.  Rachel's family invited us back to their house for a barbecue, which was a nice way to round out the weekend.  

The best surprise of the weekend was Rachel's kind offering of an enormous garbage bag filled with maternity clothes.  While transporting them in our packed car was a bit of a challenge (especially for Brent, who had to sit with them), it was worth it as I suddenly have an entire new wardrobe of super cute clothes... that fit!!