Utah - day 6

Thursday was a beautiful morning in Idaho Falls. I got to the temple early and spent some time outside writing in my journal and then had to hustle a bit for my 8:00 session. 

I popped into the loo right before and as I was going into the stall I did a double take and sure enough - Lindsay Edwards. Such a coincidence!

Anyways, it was a v cool old temple with murals and all. I loved it. 

I went back and had brekkie with Adi and then we headed up to rexburg. First stop, the temple, obvi. 

We did baptisms and then drove about 3 miles down the same street to the site of the new rexburg temple - the Teton River Temple. 

It took forever to find parking, but we made it and then we hit a snafu. We had a little misunderstanding so she went on the golf cart tour on her own. I know she’s anxious about graduating and I’m anxious about helping her navigate and it was just a small blip in an overall wonderful week. I often tell my kids I’ve given them the gift of an imperfect mother that will always apologize and always try. 

I scored a free swig drink so we got that and then hit the Taco Bus and it was as delicious as I remembered. 

Adi found an escape room we thought would be fun, and right next door was a crystal and rock shop that also sells loads of tiaras. 

We did manage to complete the room, but we got extra time and several hints. 

I’m still proud of us. Most of the hints were like half hints because we already had a good idea. 

Cosette told us this potato chocolate milk was better than The Creamery’s, so we grabbed one and Adi got an ice cream, then it was back to our hotel for a game night. 

Adi put me through the wringer with skipbo! It was fun! At sunset we walked the riverwalk. 

The temples right there and so beautiful. 

One of the things I love about blogging is reliving life and I really loved this special week with Adi. Tough times and all.

Utah - day 5

Layton temple Wednesday morning! I tiredly miscalculated my time so I was late but I did manage to finish my initiatories. 

Every morning I read the Book of Mormon in the celestial room and it was such a good start to my day. 

A 17 minute drive away (17!!!) is the Syracuse temple. Both of these are new since last time I visited. Laura has three temples within 30 minutes! I die!

Laura met me in Syracuse and we did an endowment session. 

We went home and changed and headed right to a fun little Indian restaurant to meet Shelly and Christina for lunch. We went around the table and caught up on our families and lives and the food was delicious and I miss these ladies!!!!

We stretched our lunch as long as we could and I’d have loved if it was hours longer. Anyways, I dropped Laura off and picked up Adi and off we went for the next phase of our trip. 

Rexburg bound!

Adi being the only child was able to get a Maverick milkshake whenever she wanted. We ❤️ Maverick. It’s one of my top 3 gas stations, #2 I think. 

I was *so* tired by the time we got to our hotel. I had also been backed up so had a large glass of Laura’s home canned grape juice and my tummy was a little upset. We relaxed in our room for a bit, went swimming, and popped over to Walmart to buy a game to play in our room. We made it an early and quiet night which was perfect since we’d been running so much.  

Utah - day 4

On Tuesday morning I sweet talked Adi into getting up early with me to drive down to the Draper temple. She was really sweet about it

I love worshipping in the temple. And I love traveling and I love combining two loves. 

Also, Draper is up on the mountain and the area around is *beautiful*.

We met up with Frey and Taylor at their house at 9 and they took us to Thanksgiving Point. I told him we’d love to do a hike or something and he asked if we’d like to walk around some really pretty gardens. I had also wanted to go to Thanksgiving Point but knew nothing about it, so I was excited to discover the gardens were at Thanksgiving Point. 

I unfortunately did not take my phone, so only got the one picture. But we rode a fun slide, walked through the statues of Christ’ life and the Book of Mormon and the gardens. The whole park is really beautiful. 

After, we got a tour of UVU where Frey works. My fav thing at UVU was when we went by their bank and they had tons of free swag and I snagged this amazing ice cream scooper thing. I got one for Laura and Katie too. 🤗

We ran into a few snafus trying to get lunch but finally got our food from Los Hermanos.

This is Lexi’s cat from when she was at byu and when she came home for the summer she left her with Frey and then never took her back. 

Frey had a root canal at 2:00, so we headed home towards north Ogden, but when we passed Lehi, I got a wild idea. We found the old Sister Wives house!  

I know, I know. 🤣 It’s just that we had the whole afternoon and it was *right* off the freeway. 

Our next stop was the Sandy DI, which Cosette said is the best one. We got Adi and Frankie cowgirl boots for Tennessee. 

That night we cuddled with babes and spent time with friends. All the babies are so sweet! Braxton and Asher were a little discombobulated from traveling, but I did manage to get a pic with Ollie.  

One other thing about Utah is their sodas. Last time I was there - 6 years ago I think - I found and fell in love with Swig and I was so excited to go back! But then we popped into a maverick one day and they have super fun flavors and this delicious cream. And their sodas are $.89 instead of $4+. So we stopped at several mavericks. I know sodas aren’t great, but a girls gotta live a little. 🤣🤗

Utah - day 3

Part of my trip planning was researching all the temples I could go to. 🤗 Laura has 2 new ones 30 minutes from her house! But first, I found that the Mt. Timpanogas temple was open on Monday morning. I didn’t have an appointment, but I woke up at 5:30 and drove an hour down anyway. 

So pretty. I performed initiatories and had the best morning. 

I had a lot of names since I have 3 girls doing baptisms now. 

I hightailed it back to North Ogden and picked Adi up and headed *back* down to Provo to meet Cosette for our byu tour. I drove a lot that week. 

She walked us all around and into some of the different buildings. I was most interested in the international studies building and all their study abroad’s! 😍

After a few hours touring we hit the creamery for ice cream. We sat in the shade there for several hours chatting. 

I have always wanted to hike the Y. My plan was to meet Cosette in the afternoon and then hike the Y when it got cooler, but it didn’t cool off for several more hours, so that wasn’t gonna work. 

We decided to go for it and I bought everyone a big water. 

We. Almost. Died. 

There was no shade and a very light breeze. 

I finished my water about halfway up and though Adi and Cosette shared theirs, I limited myself big time because I didn’t want to drink all of theirs. 

I was so hot that even though it was tiring, I would have hustled through, but my comps requested lots of breaks. It just felt like prolonging misery, honestly. 

There was one point as we were walking up that I started getting chills and I really wondered if I was getting heat stroke. As the oldest adult there I was just asking myself if I was being dumb putting us all in danger. I envisioned medics running up the mountain and asked if the girls would like to turn around. They agreed we’d hike to the bottom of the Y, and thankfully we made it and were all fine. Someday I’ll make it to the top!

We went to Cafe Rio for dinner and drank all. the. water. We drank several bottles full and I still didn’t pee for several hours, I was v dehydrated. 

We took Cosette back to her house and she showed us around and we gave hugs and thanked her for spending the day with us. It’s a real bummer that she’s graduating from college as Adi’s graduating from high a school. She’s good stuff!

We had a very interesting character come up to us at Cafe Rio. She ranted about her 44 trespassing violations and several counts of resisting arrest and showed off her ankle monitor loud and proud. Also, Kevin Costner called her while she talked to us. Poor thing. 

I-15 is long and boring, but the HOV lane was wonderful. We visited and played games with McCombs and went to bed tired and happy.  

Utah - day 2

Since Laura and crew were out of town we reached out to Shelly and Christina to see if we could go to church with one of them and Shelly won. 

Her ward met at 12, so we had plenty of time in the morning. I went for a run and Adi slept in and it was a lovely and slow morning. 

Shelly’s ward was really amazing. The testimonies were beautiful and singing The Star Spangled Banner together was perfect, there wasn’t a dry eye. Shelly’s kids are so grown up and I just miss their family! Adi went to SS with Charlie and I went with Shelly and they were great lessons all around. 

We had planned to stay the next few days with Frey in Provo, but that didn’t end up working out. We had already made plans to see aunt Jeanne in Salt Lake, so we drove down again - almost an hour to visit then. Pit stop at In’n’Out on our way. Animal style always. 

We had some time to kill so we walked around the Conference Center. 

When the salt lake temple opens that will really be something special! It’s been a long time!

We talked to the cutest missionaries and it was a really lovely afternoon. 

We rock paper scissored this photo shoot and I lost. Best 2 out of  3 even. 

Adi was a good sport and posed also. 

I loved this beautiful paper art. So unique!

We had a nice visit and root beer floats with Jeanne and Ray. Ray worked for Delta so he gave Adi some of the inside scoop.  

We made it back to Ogden in time for an 8:00 hike. 

I’d kill for this trail! 5 minutes from Laura’s house, I die. 

When we got back from our hike, Laura, David, Katie, and kids had arrived so we visited and played games and it was another fabulous day in Utah.