Conference with Mom

Mom came to visit over Conference weekend recently.  She was here for about a week and we managed to get some different things in during that time.  A lot of the time was taken up by Conference, of course, and some of the other time was taken up sitting in the blasted traffic that always seems to exist around the point of the mountain.


On the weeknights, I only had a few hours available after work, and these were mostly occupied by playing with the kids, eating dinner, and playing games after the kids went to bed.  Basically, my sister-in-law Elisabeth is demonstrated her dominance at Boggle (as in her score usually beats the rest of our scores combined), the others decided they don't like Mille Borne, and everyone had a fair amount of success with Sequence and Guesstimation.

Saturday and Sunday was mostly occupied with Conference, as I said.  This was somewhat unfortunate, in my opinion, because I felt like Conference and limited family time are rare enough special occasions that aren't especially enhanced by each other.  That might have been a little different if we'd actually gone to the Conference Center, but I can't especially recommend combining the two limited engagements.  I found myself conflicted by two good things and unable to give either the proper attention they deserved.

Some had more energy during Conference than others :)

Still, we did have time to do some walking/easy hiking between sessions which was nice.  On Saturday, we did Battlecreek Falls.  The kids had a grand time throwing rocks into the creek at various points, so much so that Molly was grumpy about having to hold my hand near the water.  She just wanted freedom!

On Sunday after Conference, Mom, Gerrit and I took the kids for a walk partially on the Murdoch Canal Trail and partially around Manila pond after Conference ended.  The kids were running around the pipe display while Gerrit and Mom were getting ready at the trail head when a lady who pulled up next to us asked Mom how she knew her.  Mom looked at her and realized that it was someone who had been in the ward in Kirksville.  They caught up for a little bit before we went on our walk.  It really is a small world sometimes, and it seems that the church often makes it quite a bit smaller!

We walked along the trail for about a mile, but it's not especially exciting since it just goes through the back section of some neighborhoods.  Plus, Gerrit was worried about the kids getting smacked by the frequent cyclists, so when we saw a little dirt path that lead down to the pond, we went that way instead.  This was a much calmer walking section and was fun to go around.  On our travels around the pond, we got to see an awesome treehouse that looked over the water and out to the temple.  It was pretty big, so we couldn't entirely tell if it was it's own house or if it was connected to the property of a nearby big house that was there.  Either way, it was very cool.  I wouldn't want it to be my only house, but it would be a fun place to stay for a week or something.

On Monday, we went down to the BYU art museum for about an hour with the kids after I got off work.  They had an interesting period movie costume exhibit there which was quite cool.  There were some pretty iconic costumes on display including one of Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow get-ups, several gowns of Emmy Rossum's from Phantom of the Opera, and other notable outfits from productions like Sense and Sensibility.  We also enjoyed looking through the Indian art exhibit.  Then we all went out for dinner together at Wild Zucchini, though Mom didn't actually get to eat since she's on some restrictive diet for her sleep problems right now.  I thought the food was quite good and will have to include it on my list of tasty AF restaurants for future reference!

It was nice to have Mom come visit for awhile, even though I didn't get to see a ton of her thanks to work and my mission reunion, thrown in with the Conference complications.  Fortunately, I'll get to see her and the rest of the family fairly soon when I go back home for a visit!