Thursday October 1, 2009.
Apt 910, 10:30 pm
I am looking at my house with suitcases packed and cooler out wondering oh my goodness what have I gotten myself into.
The plan was this: Wake up in the morning, James would take off work to get the car ready and I would go to class to take a quiz. James would get the car serviced while I got some of my lecture notes from class. James would come pick me up, we would go pick up my brother and then head off to Utah. We would then drive pretty much all night to get to Utah.
I was excited yet somewhat nervous about leaving on such short notice when we had so much homework to do and other things to get done. But for some reason, none of that seemed to matter.....so we finished packing, got into bed later than I wanted to and tried to get some sleep even though both of us were really excited to be going to Utah.
Why would we do this crazy thing on such a spur of the moment? Well pretty much, it's because we can. And because I think we were meant to go....
My uncle called by some miracle and said that we could stay in his home, which meant that we didn't have to pay for a hotel. Such a blessing! My dad let us borrow his car
we didn't have to worry about whether my car would make it or not. Another huge blessing! My brother Braden and James were able to go to the preisthood session in the conference center even thought neither of them had tickets when we went up there. That was an amazing thing for both of them and I am so glad they were able to go. I think the biggest blessing of it all was that we were able to see some of James' family.
James' sister Becky was traveling up to Utah with some friends and James' mom with 2 sisters and David were driving over from Colorado. Sadly we didn't get to see the entire family but being with the ones who were there was so wonderful.
Driving wasn't too terrible but I still hate sitting in cars for such long hours. Braden kept us company until he fell asleep...and for the rest of the drive we just talked. Even James and I had some great talks it was still such an amazing feeling to finally get to my uncles house and go to sleep.
Saturday we watched conference at the house and then got ready for the afternoon session (got all dressed up in church clothes) and went to Temple Square. We sat on the lawn by the visitor's center and listened to the 2nd session of conference. It was fun to just be surrounded by family and hear the wonderful words of the apostles and prophet.
After the session was over, we went into the visitor's center to look around a little, then over to the church history museum-- it's amazing what they have been able to preserve for so many years! I have always found it so fun to hear the church's history and all of the amazing people who were apart of it.
After the museums Braden and James went to the priesthood session and all of us girls and David went back home to change and make dinner.
I had so much sitting and talking with James' mom and sisters. We had an awesome time and I think that this trip will be something we will remember for a long time.
Another part of the trip was letting Braden see some of his friends from EFY. I took him over to one of the girl's house Saturday night while James and I went to the store to buy food for breakfast the next morning. He had a really good time :) If you want details....I'll tell you later ;)
Sunday morning, my friend Cortney, her roommates and her boy :) came over for breakfast before the first session. To keep up with tradition, I made
biscuits and chocolate gravy. I also made regular sausage gravy and eggs and muffins for anyone who didn't want to eat the yummy chocolate. For my first year, I would say they turned out pretty good but mental note for next year: make the biscuits from scratch, not the ones that come in a tube that you keep in the fridge....
Braden's friend also came over that morning, to watch the first session with us. It was kind of sad that our trip was coming to an end really quickly but it was so awesome to be with James' family and feel of the spirit.
After a rushed effort to get everything packed and the house back in order we were all loaded up into the car and ready to go...Sadly....but we needed to get home, it was already getting to point where we would be arriving home pretty late. After hugs and kisses and last minute bathroom stops we were on our way. We had to drop Braden's friend off first, and bless her mom's heart, she made us a plate of goodies for the road. Then we stopped at my friend Marah's apartment to say a quick hello and have her finally meet James. We got back in the car and the second session was just starting so at least I had something fun to listen to on the way home :)
Aside from wind and a meeting with a handicap sign we had a pretty uneventful ride home. Wind slowed us down quite a bit sadly but we still made it in less than about 12 hours. The meeting with the handicap sign was not exactly the best thing but to make a long story short, a car rolled through a parking lot knocking over a handicap sign and wedged it under my car. Damage was minimal and the man who did it stuck around so we were able to get insurance things worked out.
Now finally home and back in the swing of things we are grateful for the opportunity we had to go and see conference and be with people we love. We had a great time and it helped to get us back on track in remembering what things are the most important in life.
