A happy anniversary to celebrate, and celebrate we did. It's been 10 years since Dan's mission president got home from Poland and they had a really nice reunion we traveled to Utah for. We headed out on Thursday night directly from Dan's last softball game of the season & spent the night in Little America. I am so glad that place exists! Since we would be heading back & forth to downtown Salt Lake, we asked Dan's little sister, Stacie & her family to not only host us, but to take care of our children as well. You know how some women are just really put together? Stacie is one of those. We graduated from high school the same year but she is leaps & bounds ahead of me in things like a clean house & meal plans & hair & fashion. And she works too! Amazing. Anyway, this was our first time staying with them & it was wonderful. I was really proud of how our niece & nephew gave up their bedrooms for my 2 oldest while they had an extended slumber party in the den too.
Here we are with President Tobler. We met for the 5pm session in the Salt Lake Temple & afterwards he was waiting for his wife while I was waiting for Dan. He took me on as one of his own missionaries simply b/c I had married who I did. Also helped his son served in Taiwan like I did. At one point he got serious & looked me in the eye & said there was something he wanted my children to know: that their father was a great missionary. If I was the crying type I would have shed tears over that one. I was grateful for the love he & his wife showed. I know he means a lot to my wonderful hubby & helped him be the person he is.It's fun to pick up little bits & pieces of things & to meet people in person for the first time. Below is Dan with one of his MTC companions he also served with in the field as co-seniors. His family came all the way from Calgary! There were others from Massachusetts, Texas, California & places closer to Utah too.
After the temple, we walked to the Smith Memorial building for dinner & a program. I loved hearing songs & prayers in Polish and listening to the mission president and his wife speak. Everyone introduced themselves and 3 was definitely the popular number of children to have. It was a great, late night & if the TRAX had been more comfy, I'm sure I would have fallen asleep.
The next morning we left our children with their extended family again to attend the Saturday morning of General Conference. Oh, I'm so glad I was in the room! President Monson was 20 minutes late & when he did arrive, it was announced he was the next speaker & he acted all surprised. When we reached the podium, he said "hello" in such a silly way. It was amazing to hear where the new temples were being built. I loved the ooooos & the ahhhhs in the room. I'm most excited about the Provo Tabernacle because I can remember how hard it was to get into the Provo Temple as a BYU student. I'm so excited for the future students of BYU... maybe even one of my children will go there someday.
On Sunday afternoon we walked down Stacie's street to the Oquirrh Mountain with our children. We had missed them so much. We enjoyed walking on the temple grounds where Danny had been sealed to us on a cold winter day & make some happy memories of our family being together there. The ornamental grasses were fun to play hide and seek in & Kaelah wowed us by being able to jump over entire bushes... while Danny made us laugh at his attempt to do the same.
The next morning we left our children with their extended family again to attend the Saturday morning of General Conference. Oh, I'm so glad I was in the room! President Monson was 20 minutes late & when he did arrive, it was announced he was the next speaker & he acted all surprised. When we reached the podium, he said "hello" in such a silly way. It was amazing to hear where the new temples were being built. I loved the ooooos & the ahhhhs in the room. I'm most excited about the Provo Tabernacle because I can remember how hard it was to get into the Provo Temple as a BYU student. I'm so excited for the future students of BYU... maybe even one of my children will go there someday.
On Sunday afternoon we walked down Stacie's street to the Oquirrh Mountain with our children. We had missed them so much. We enjoyed walking on the temple grounds where Danny had been sealed to us on a cold winter day & make some happy memories of our family being together there. The ornamental grasses were fun to play hide and seek in & Kaelah wowed us by being able to jump over entire bushes... while Danny made us laugh at his attempt to do the same. We don't have any pictures of being with Dan's family, but they were great, I promise! The children sure do love their cousins. And you should have seen Danny when he figured out Shannon was there to visit us! She was like a mother to him after I gave birth to Michelle! Still bummed she moved to Utah, but so many things are going well for her & her new hubby you just know it was meant to be. Hopefully next time I'll be able to squeeze in more visits too. Never enough time in Utah... but always happy to come home too. In a nut shell, it was a great weekend!
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