A wonderful weekend.

I had a wonderful weekend. Friday night Dave and I walked over to PF Changs for dinner.

 

 

From there we walked over to Abravanel Hall and went to the symphony.  The Utah Symphony played music from Alain Boubil and Jean-Claude Shoenberg.  They were the composers for Les Mis, Miss Saigon, etc.  They were both in attendance for the performance.  There were also five soloists who performed Les Mis on Broadway.  The original Javert, the original Marius, Eponine and the very first Cossette from Paris.  Also a girl who was the star of Miss Saigon (which I have never had the chance to see, but want to now).  The singers and symphony were unbelievably good.  I loved every minute of the performance. 

 

Saturday Alex rode the train down to visit us for about five hours.  We went to the Utah Natural History Museum.  It was so fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday we had our Stake Conference at the Tabernacle at Temple Square.  Dave and I sang in the choir.  It was fun to sit in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir seats just one hour after they had done their Sunday morning broadcast.  I'm sure it's the only time I will ever sit in one of those seats and sing. 

 

After our conference we drove up to Dave's dad's and brought dinner.  Alex and Andrew came over to eat with us, too.  Then Ash and Jud and their boys came to visit as well.

 

Baby Brigham changes every time I see him.

 

We went over to Stowers for a bit to see them and their new kitchen.  I should have gotten a picture of it.  It is so nice.

 

The kids loved seeing Uncle Roo.

 

And Uncle Alex.

 

Livie is such an affectionate little lamb.

 

Jack is too busy for hugs.

 

 

It was a wonderful weekend.  It would have been completely perfect if we could have seen Steph, Jared and Shad.  But someday . . .

Checkin' out my new neighborhood.

Since I had to quit both of my jobs (Pro-biotics and teaching piano) to move down here, I have a lot of extra time on my hands.  My foot was feeling pretty good today so I decided to do some exploring of my new surroundings.

 

I still feel like we live in a hotel.  I took the elevator down to head out.

The lobby of our building is pretty.

This was the doorway a couple of doors down the street.  I heart doors.  I will have to do another post sometime just on all of the cool doorways around me.  But this will do for now.

Every hour we hear the chimes of St. Madeleine's Cathedral a block away.

 

This Roman Catholic church is beautiful.  It even has gargoyles.

 

Across the street from the cathedral is the Presbyterian church.  Another beautiful building.

 

The doorway on the top left is one of the ugliest I have ever seen.  It belongs to a mortuary.  Yuck.

I do like our closest grocery store:  the Harmons at City Creek.  It's a bit pricey for a lot of things.  But you can get a small gelato for $1.79 and it is so good. You bet.

And what's not to like about City Creek Mall?

What the?  How did my car get in here?  Just kidding.  I don't think it's all that great.  I'm still trying to figure out what to call that color.

This was my mode of transportation, in addition to my boots, today.

I love the City and County Building.

My goal was to go to the library today.  I got my library card and checked out a dvd of The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency.  So excited to watch it!

And the best serendipity of the afternoon:  street food.  I got a warm, ginormous piece of Naan for one dollar!

I have been loving being so close to the temple.  I want to go as often as I can while we live here.

It isn't quite the right season to fully enjoy temple square.  But looky!  The bulbs are beginning to peek out of the frozen ground, and the pansies are on their way back to looking good soon.  Can't wait!

My camera battery died right after these two photos.  So I took that as my cue to head home.  I did go across the street to the conference center and took a tour.  I will have to do it again, though.  Too many things I want to take pictures of.

A lesson in humility

We moved downtown on February 9th and the next day went to our new ward, the Ensign 18th ward. We meet in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Here are some facts about this ward:

-Two days after Brigham Young entered the Salt Lake Valley they camped at North camp. This area later became the Eighteenth Ward.

-Two years later (1849) the city was divided into wards.  Although the Eighteenth Ward had over 200 members, there were only three famnilies in the beginning: the families of President Brigham Youg and Heber C Kimball, who were members of the Frist Presidency of the Church, and Newel K Whitney, the Presiding Bishop of the Church who also became the bishop of the new Eighteenth ward.

-The Eighteenth Ward started many traditions that were later incorporated into the church as a whole: *The first sacrament service in which individual cups were used. *The first missionary farewell where the missionary spoke in sacrament Meeting. *Two wards sharing the same building (this wasn't until the 1930's)

-The Eighteenth Ward has been home to every modern-day prophet with the exception of Joseph Smith.

 

As we went to church that first Sunday I learned that two of the members of the Twelve and their wives are in our ward, along with a member of the Seventy and his family.  Also, many prominent authors, community and church leaders.  So yeah, I was kind of excited.

 

Looking out of the classroom in Sunday School there was an awesome view of the temple.  The building is so elegant and beautiful.  I was loving it.

 

Fast forward to the middle of that week.  We get a phone call asking us if we can meet with President Ames, the Stake President, that Saturday.  To make a long story short, we are called to be in the Rio Grand Branch.  (This is the branch for the homeless people that live in "The Road Home" homeless shelter.)  Dave serving as ward clerk and a member of the Branch Presidency.  And me as piano player (they had just been singing with a cd player up to that point) and member of the Relief Society Presidency.

We still get to meet in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for now.  (Through this door seen here).  They are working on finding a new place, however, because Church security is worried about people meeting here.  (Not to be rude, but the homeless peoiple  bring their sleeping bags, backpacks, etc. with them to church and like to hang out in the bathrooms if they can and it makes some people nervous with it being such a nice building and everything)

So, it's on to a new adventure.  We feel like we are needed, that's for sure.  It is a small branch with about 30 members.  The full time missionaries come and are teaching several people, so that's good, too. 

Lovin' those Mason boys

I got to help Ashley bathe Brigham when I went up to their house on Thursday.  He doesn't care much for his bath until it is hair washing time.  He quite likes that part.

Mmm, there's nothing like the sweet smell of a freshly bathed babe.  Ash is such a good mom.

Later that day Ashley dropped me, James and Logan at the Frontrunner station to head back down to Salt Lake for an overnight adventure.

I had put Angry Birds Star Wars on my tablet and phone.  I waited until the scenery wasn't thrilling them anymore and pulled out the devices.  They didn't make a peep the rest of the hour.

 

It was all I could do to get them to eat dinner because they were so excited to swim that night.  Dave had a church meeting so I swam with the boys.  James hopped right in.

Logan wasn't sure if he wanted to get in.  After about 10 minutes he slowly made his way into the water and for the next two hours acted like a little fish.

The next day we went over to the Disney store.  I let them pick out an inexpensive toy.  (If you can say anything in that store is inexpensive, ha!)  Then we had lunch at the food court.

They played on the playground for awhile.  After the third time in about 30 minutes of taking them to the bathroom there we decided to leave.  (Ash told me later it was because I let them drink apple juice all morning)

Last stop before returning to the apartment: gelato at Harmons.  I thought it was sweet when Logan offered James some of his.

When we got back to the apartment the boys wanted to swim again.  They spent the next two hours in the pool.  I fed them a nourishing dinner of corn dogs for dinner afterwards.

We were going to have them stay over one more night, but after hearing that a huge snowstorm was due the next morning we decided to drive them back home later that night.  We definitely crammed a lot into the day and a half we were together, so it was all good. 

I sure love those three little guys.

A wonderful President's Day

 

Sunday after we had visited with most of our family, we took Lily and Jack back to Salt Lake with us.  They didn't have school the next day, because of President's Day.  So they slept overnight.

 

The next morning they were hardly able to eat their waffles because they were so excited to swim in our apartment's indoor pool.

They spent about two hours in the pool with Dave and I trading off being in there with them.

Then Holly and Olivia came down and we all walked over to City Creek.  The kids got some fun stuff at the Disney Store.  Then we ate lunch in the Food Court.  Cody was working down in Salt Lake so he joined us for lunch. Of all the choices there, my adorable, but crazy, grandkids chose McDonald's.  Then they ran around like maniacs in the play area, getting out all of their energy.

 

Dave was anxious for everyone to have a gelato from Harmons.   Lily and Jack said it looked like they were on a date. 

 

Cody had to get back to work, but the rest of us walked over to Temple Square.

The kids wanted to touch the door of the temple.

Olivia didn't want to leave the Christus statue.  She sobbed when we did.

 

It was just a wonderful way to spend our holiday!  Dave and I mentioned it kind of felt like we were on vacation somewhere.  We still haven't gotten completely used to living downtown yet.  But we sure love having visitors!