A Conference Cabin Weekend

Every six months our church has what we call General Conference, where our leaders talk to all the members all over the world. The meetings are broadcast over the Internet, and everyone watches at home instead of attending at their different meetinghouses (pajama church!).

We thought it was a great weekend to get away to our cabin, and we invited any of the kids to join us. The Hoops and Browns took us up on the invitation, and we had a great, relaxing weekend watching church meetings and snuggling with the grandchildren.

We have a rule whenever the grandchildren stay overnight—you’re free to come jump into Grandpa and Grandma’s bed any time AFTER 7 a.m. Every morning we were at the cabin, Sterling and I would be talking quietly in bed and, right on time, we’d hear the patter of little feet running toward our bedroom and one by one, tiny little (and not so little) bodies would tumble into bed with us. “It must be after 7 a.m.,” one of us would say.

At one point, we had all five of the little ones in bed with us—that didn’t last long, of course. Sterling and I slipped out pretty fast. . . it was just too crowded. But what a great way to start the day! And then, to move from hugging little ones right to good food to watching TV and being spiritually strengthened and fed meant that the entire weekend was amazing!

I loved listening to our leaders, and the kids were pretty quiet as well. They each had packets that they’d gotten in Primary, and every time one of the leaders got up to talk, they took notes and put stickers under the photo of the leader speaking. I took notes too! I loved lots of the talks, but I think my favorite was Elder Jeffery Holland; he’s always a favorite. He talked about faith and focusing on the positive rather than negative. Other leaders talked about everything from the importance of marriage to obedience to finding peace in today’s world.

I’ve always loved General Conference weekends, and I love them even more at the cabin!

Spring Baskets

Last weekend we gave our grandchildren some Easter/spring baskets, and even though it’s a few days after the fact, I still wanted to share them. I actually shared a version of these baskets earlier, and originally I had planned to make those baskets for all the grandkids, but then—surprise, surprise—reality hit, and I had to simplify a little. (I’m sure none of you can identify with that!) So these are the baskets we ended up giving, a little bit quicker and easier and much more realistic, given everything on my to-do list.

We try to give the grandkids little gifts for most major holidays, and these are one of my favorites ever! We wanted to focus on Easter and spring and new life and growth, and we got it right with these! We gave each grandchild a biodegradable pot, a packet of seeds, and a few goodies. (I’m not a fan of sugary goodies for grandchildren, but I think we’d have pretty disappointed grandchildren if there weren’t any.) The pots are biodegradable, so you can put them right in the garden when it’s time to plant them outside, so we told the grandchildren to take good care of their plant because we’ll be replanting them all in the Gardner Family garden in a few weeks.

In addition, we gave each family a few of our favorite books: The Continuous Atonement and The Continuous Conversion (both by Brad Wilcox), Believing Christ by Stephen Robinson, and The Golden Rule by Ilene Cooper, a beautifully written and illustrated children’s book.

My Favorite Day of All Time

My granddaughter Sidney had a great opportunity last weekend, and I asked her to share her experience with you. This is a pretty personal blog, but most of my blogs are! Since my blog is pretty much my journal, I hope you understand. . .

Every year our church has a meeting for young women ages 12-18 and their leaders and mothers. The meeting is in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, and it’s broadcast around the world. Each year a different group of young women sing, and this year, a group from our area was invited to sing, and I got to be part of the group!

It was amazing! They asked us to do a lot as we prepared. We learned five different songs, and we memorized the words and the parts; I tried to listen to the CD they gave us every day. Because we were singing so many songs, we knew we would be on the camera a lot and we wanted people to know how we felt about the Savior just by looking at our faces. Because of that, our leaders asked us to read our scriptures and pray every morning and night and work on making good choices so we’d have the Spirit with us.

I have to say it was hard. I was so busy with school and stuff that sometimes I would forget to pray or read my scriptures. But every week, our director would tell us that if we forgot, we could start again and just keep trying. We didn’t have to be perfect, we just had to be trying our best.

We practiced every Sunday for six weeks, and the practices were two and a half hours! Each week the director would teach us something about the songs that we were singing. She wanted us to have our own testimonies of the songs and believe for ourselves that the words of the songs were true, so we looked deeper into the meanings of the songs.

Saturday we left at 11 in the morning and didn’t get home until 9:30, so it was a long day. During the day we practiced and had a devotional and stuff. They told us that young women around the world were praying for us. When we finally walked into the room it was insane—everything we had been working toward came together, and it was awesome. There was such a strong spiritual feeling. . . a lot of the girls got emotional. That day was incredible, probably my favorite day of all time!

If you want to watch the broadcast, click here. I was on camera a couple of times; see if you can pick me out (I’m wearing an orange cardigan)!

I’ve definitely changed. I’m more aware of what I’m listening to now, and I’m starting to realize that some of the music I listen to isn’t the best! I try to choose music that makes me happy.  I’m also in the habit of praying and reading the scriptures. I feel way better now. It just makes me feel better to be doing the stuff that I know helps me have the Spirit with me all the time. I love that feeling!

An Evening at the Theatre

Last night we enjoyed a great evening at the Hale Center Theatre, an amazing community theatre here in Salt Lake.  We went with all of the grandchildren (except for the twins and Makai) and all the Gardner grown-ups (except for Shanna and Jared), grabbed a quick dinner, then watched “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

I was impressed with how well the grandchildren behaved; even the younger ones sat quite still. For those who are familiar with the show, you know there are a few scary parts (the Child Catcher is really creepy!), so we had an opportunity to talk about the difference between what’s real and pretend. And, as always, Hale Center did an amazing job. Their productions are all theatre-in-the-round, and I love being so close and involved in the action; often the characters actually play off the audience.

We had a great time! Of course, any time spent with family is great, right?

I Did It!

I’ve been keeping a little secret, and I’m ready to share—I’m starting to go on rides with Sterling. Many of you know that he’s gone on rides for years without me. I often travel with him, but I stay back at camp while he does the endurance rides. Those rides take time and training, and I just haven’t been in a place where I felt like I had that kind of time.

However, I’ve been watching him commit to yoga. . . going regularly with me because he knows how much I love it. . . and I decided it was my turn. He laughed when I told him I wanted to start training, but we went on our first ride this morning, and I have a goal to go on a 25-miler with him in June. (Keep your fingers crossed. . . )

It was fun! We started out slow and short, but since I love speed, I’m sure we’ll work our way up to faster and longer pretty quickly. The weather was perfect, the scenery was delightful, and the company. . . .well, all I can say is that any time spent with my sweetheart is a wonderful time!

I’ll keep you posted. . .