194th Annual Conference

(April 6-7, 2024)

Conference weekend is the best! I love it so much. It is the best time to recharge and relax and soak in family and prophets and good food and stitching. It makes me smile.

We actually ended up with some bonus activities (thanks to June) so conference was a little more crowded, but the more, the merrier. First up, Daisy made us some awesome BINGO sheets. I loved them. And she even made little snack bags for us. You didn't have to use them on the bingo sheets. They were just for munchies. I was a little picked on. One square said: Someone cries—extra points if it's mom. (I never cried) Another square said: Speaker makes everyone laugh—extra points if mom cackles. (I admit, when Elder Kearon told the Mother-in-law joke, I cackled.)

Tyler made salsa and lots of it since June was having a party in the evening. Some of it was super hot. But some was just right. You might say he made Goldilocks salsa.

This is a picture of a great Saturday.

The evening session brought lots of June's friends. It's so fun to see all these guys back from missions.

After conference, they did a Crack Off. This guy here on the left is Chris. June is a little head over heels for him. I think he likes her too. 

The egg cracking came down to Simeon and Hyrum. Hyrum won. He didn't even have one of his eggs break. Nicely done.

Pearl and I didn't compete, but we ran the bracket and were an attentive audience.

Sunday was much quieter. But Chris came back. He stayed for breakfast, and both sessions and even some games in between. I think we'll be seeing more of him. 

The summer tree went up. Yay for warmer weather on the horizon. 

Pearl went for a walk today and she said she found Spring. See? The conference tree worked. 

Thanks again to Daisy for making the fun BINGO cards. I don't think anyone got a black out, but we all got a bingo. 

I'm very much looking forward to reading all the conference talks again. Speaking of which...we did our conference reward just a couple weeks ago. We didn't get everyone, but we had a good group of second-time-through finishers. We chose to go to the Wick Lab, where you make your own candles. You start at the wall of smells. 

This was actually really hard for me. I don't love candle smells in general. And that wall had maybe four scents that didn't make me gag. (Ever since having kids, chemical candle smells are the worst) After you pick your smell and container, you sit down to mix your perfect concoction. 

They bring over hot wax and you pour your candle.

Then you add your smells and make a label. There are other things you can add as well for some extra money. You can get a fancy wick or add glitter. (I actually love the glitter.)

Besides the smell, it was a great time. I had to wash everything, including my hair when I got home so I didn't stink up my bed. I could never work at a place like that, but I'm sure glad we got to go celebrate our conference rewards.

Spring Break 2024

I had big plans for Spring Break. I was going to take Pearl (and whoever else wanted to come) to Mount Rushmore. 

But that didn't happen. 

Sometimes it is nice to stay home as well. There is plenty to do around here and it is nice to have a break from planning anything. Our week has been pretty chill. Here are some of the things we did.

Daisy deep cleaned the storage room. It was quite the task and I wish I'd taken a picture when she had everything pulled out. It filled her entire bedroom. Makes me wonder how it all fits in that small room. She said she found mold and other gross stuff, so she wore a mask most of the time while cleaning. Smart girl. And the end result is awesome. I'm thinking it will be much easier to find stuff.

The weather has been nicer this week than any week so far this year. We took a walk on Tuesday. I'm not sure Tyler should have gone since he was feeling a little sick, but we enjoyed his company. Pearl took pictures for us.

We did the bridge walk and took the mandatory pictures at the end. 

Eye on the temple folks. (And llamas too apparently.)

We got lots of reading done. Often I would curl up and read for a long time and kids would come and go. And then we'd take pictures of the dog being silly.

Wednesday was our most out and about day. We went hot tubbing at Jorri's. It was so gorgeous outside and it was so fun to get in suits (and make sure we have something to wear for the summer.) I love the smell of sunscreen because it means summer. We totally forgot to get pictures in the hot tub, but Pearl got one in the apartment and Ivory got one as well.

Then we went to lunch at Smoked Taco. I feel like the tacos are trying too hard, but the Churro fries are out of this world! We got the regular ones and the lemon raspberry ones that were even better. I didn't have time to take a picture of the lemon/rasp ones before we inhaled them. It was such a fun day hanging out with Jorri!! Love her.

Ivory got some fresh wounds while skating. She got a gash on her knee while wearing kneepads. Skillz. Also, her rump seems to take the brunt of her injuries, so she's going to get some back padding. Should help the burn.

There was some other cleaning we got done. Some rooms are looking much better this week and it looked like Nova cleaned Pearl's forehead. 

I got to do two temple shifts. I picked up a shift on Wed and had my regular Friday shift. I really love my evenings in the temple.

Certainly not the craziest Spring Break, but just right for me. I also started blogging again (obviously) and made some new health goals with Burgundy. (She is practicing to be a Wellness Coach.) Hopefully April will bring me some more time or at least focus to get things done. ;)

Cracking Together Again

(March 31st, 2024)

It's been nice to have June back with us for holiday festivities. It feels right to have five kids hunting for eggs and five kids to beat in the decorating contest. Except I didn't. But that's neither here nor there.

Hannah's family ditched and ran off to Missouri for the week of Spring Break so she had nobody home for Easter. We were more than happy to have her join us for the day. She came to church with us. I had to speak. Bleh. It wasn't my best talk, but I felt good about what I spoke about. 

In the afternoon, we decorated eggs and then in the evening we cracked them, as is the custom. Hannah's eggs were less decorated since she spent much of the afternoon with her grandparents. She still quickly did the eggs before the contest.

We had such fun ones this year. 

This is one of the hardest decisions of the year...voting for your top five favorites.

It was actually pretty close for the top two. They were only three votes apart. Pearl won with her little luma-egg and Daisy came in second with her El-egg-trical discharge. (Seriously, her lightning bolts were so cool!) And June snatched up third with Hei hei. My Blue egg (Blue's eye from Jurassic world came in fourth, but only because Ivory forgot to vote for it. Well, it might have been fourth anyway.) p.s. This was Pearl's first time winning. She was so proud.

Then after deciding who did the best job decorating, we smash all our eggs. Typical. 

I got the award for first loser. (Meaning both of my eggs were out—cracked first.) And Tyler wasn't far behind. But there isn't an award for second loser. That's just plain loser.

Cracking is always such fun. We had lots of misses. And rerolls. Beau's egg was named Eggy and she chimed each time she got up, "What about the Eggy?" And the chorus returned, "We made time for that!" (It's from a Reel if you're lost.)

Eventually it was down to Hei hei and The Eggy. (That was a little slug bug if you couldn't tell.) Let's do this!

And it went to Beau!! She was the winner. And her other egg never even entered the competition. He was too cool to crack anyway.

Then I made egg salad. I don't make it often, since I think it takes too much work. But I love a good egg salad sandwich. Sorry Hei hei. 

It was a pretty great Crack Off. There were others that will make it on here as well. All in good time.