do not try this at home

I knew it was trouble when:

1. I asked Whitney what we should have for dessert on Mother's Day.

2. She had the perfect recipe.

3. She had never made it or eaten it.

4. Jean couldn't even read it to me over the phone because she couldn't pronounce some of the words. (and she's a gourmet chef...and smart!)

5. When she scanned it over to me, it was four pages, small print.

6. It called for more than one alcoholic beverage.

I was smart and delegated dessert to Whitney.

She made several trips to random grocery stores trying to find strange ingredients and the result...

Pour cherry liquor on some cardboard slabs and top it with pretty shavings, and you'll enjoy our Mother's Day dessert.

I repeat: do not try this at home.

I knew it was trouble when:

I asked Whitney what to have for dessert.

fresh squeezed lemonade

cost: $3.50
earned: $31.25
(and we even slashed prices to half off 15 minutes after opening!)

grandma paul

I stayed after Women's Conference to visit Grandma Paul. It was so nice for Jann, Debbie, Billie, and Andelyn (and little Soleil) to entertain me for the day. I am so lucky to have family that is so helpful and that I enjoy visiting so much. It had been a while since I'd seen Grandma, so it was a bit tough at first to adjust to seeing her that way.. with oxygen, struggling to speak. But as we got to chatting I was shocked to realize how well she remembers the funniest things. She was remembering all my "missionary mishaps" with old boyfriends and how it took Troy and I so long to decide to get married. She was recounting the stories like they happened yesterday. Grandma always had dating advice for me. My favorite thing was when she shared and Grandpa's love letters with all the girls. This picture of them on their honeymoon hung in my college apartment for years.

Just driving to her house and walking through her halls brought back SO many memories of summers in Utah. I remember walking down to the swimming pool and eating plums from the trees on the way home. I loved when we helped clean Grandma's garage… we always found such treasures in the closet...lots of gold leafing and the greatest coats and party dresses. Trying them on entertained us for hours.

Oh I'm glad I could see her again.

mia maids

This weekend Noelle, Kris & I headed up to Utah for some "presidency bonding" at Women's Conference. The weather was beautiful and I even enjoyed the rain. Being my first Women's Conference, I didn't have much to compare it to (except those wild EFY weeks!)

We mapped out our classes and thought we'd picked some real winners (a perfect blend of heavy spiritual and light humor...or so we thought) After staying up till all hours in the morning chatting, even light spiritual was too heavy as were our eye lids. So we made sure to cross the entire campus multiple times down the long flight of stairs to the fieldhouse for some more humor.. but it was nowhere to be found.. we just kept being stuck in serious classes, with no backed benches, no ac and loud fans. They were actually all great, just not what we had expected. Although Brad Wilcox came through for us in the end and we were thrilled.

Thursday night they had a concert and this "boy band" a capella group did a 80s-90s rap medley. The women were in the aisles dancing and waiving their cell phones around like lighters. I was embarrassed to even be in the crowd, I was laughing so hard I was in tears. The MC called us "a bunch of Mia Maids" for how we were acting. He hit it on the head! They also had other wonderful performers including "Bring Him Home" by Dallyn Bayles . Now THAT deserved a standing ovation (unlike the closing song following Elder L. Tom Perry's devotional where we were the ONLY three women sitting out of 26,000). What snobs we are.

One of my favorite parts of being away was that I ate constantly and never prepared or cleaned my own meal! (and yes, strawberry milkshakes and "Cougar Tails" are considered meals!) I'm still a bit sick from eating the entire brownie sundae solo. I'll never live it down!

I loved what one of the speakers said...that most of what we will take away from this conference, the ideas, insights, inspiration... will come through the discussions we have after we go back to the hotels each night with the women we came with. I absolutely found that to be the case. I was so uplifted, enriched and edified (and sometime mortified!) by the stories, advice and discussions both Kris and Noelle shared on our trip. I am so lucky to be surrounded by great women!