475

I just noticed that this is my 475th post. Wow, someone doesn't like to shut up, does she?

I should probably do something special for 500 - like change my background or put on pictures of my kids that are more recent than 3 years old. Ha ha.

So, I would have blogged earlier, but I cannot find my camera cord to upload photos. Not that I have that many pics to post, but there are a few of our little jaunt to Kirtland, and Sis' first choir concert. They will have to wait.

So here is the boring dialogue part of the updates, with no photos:

*Conference was really great. I have been thinking a lot about Elder Lawrence's talk on courageous parenting. It struck me then as I know it did a lot of other people. I want to be a courageous parent. So many of the world's issues could be solved through courageous parenting!

*The following weekend, we went to Kirtland for an adoption conference. It didn't end up being what I had in mind, but it was okay. I felt a little crunched for time the whole time - we got to the church right when Dee was starting his meetings, and all the food was gone by then. So we snuck out and went through the Burger King drivethrough and then ate in the parking lot. Which actually wasn't a bad place for a picnic - the chapel there in Kirtland is in a beautiful location. But the grass was wet and muddy so we just sat in the parking lot.

Then registration and the first courses started. The kids went to the nursery and Dee and myself cycled through a few classes. It was interesting, as I look at this now both from the capacity of Dee's job, but also because adoption is always a little thought there at the back of my mind. I have so many concerns about it and I don't know if it will ever happen, but I do find the classes interesting and educational. One lady taught about having both biological and adopted children - which is the boat we would be in. Enlightening.

That night we had dinner (cold chicken or stuffed pork chops that would have been really yummy had they been warm). The first thing we heard when we picked the kids up from the nursery was that they got 3 chicken nuggets and they had applesauce poured over them. I'm sure that wasn't really the plan, but just in dishing up a lot of plates things "touch". Needless to say, kids weren't thrilled with the food. Neither were we.

After that, Dee and I were supposed to do a piano duet for the keynote address. The guy conducting forgot to have us to do it, so he asked if we would do it for the closing number instead. But...the speakers went on and on (it was Steven Covey's brother and his wife, talking about 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marriages). It was good, but was really dragging on and on. Finally I just slipped the guy in charge a note and said "nevermind". We really don't mind just forgetting the duet, honestly. So his next solution was to have us do it the next day.

We got back to the hotel, excited for the kids to swim and ride the waterslide, only to find that the waterslide closed at 9:00 and we got there a bit later than that. I stayed in the room and read while Dee took the girls swimming until the pool closed. They were not happy that they didn't get to ride the waterslide (it was the whole reason we picked this hotel), so we decided to adjust our plans so that they could do that in the morning: Instead of going to the morning devotional at the Kirtland temple, complete with a history of Kirtland, Dee would attend that by himself and I would stay with the girls and let them use the waterslide until checkout at 11:00. Then Dee would come and pick us up (sluffing one of his meetings, naughty).

So, we girls were at the pool/waterslide as soon as it opened...only problem was, it didn't. The waterslide never opened! We called the front desk several times and they kept saying "a few minutes", and an hour and half went by and finally we had to just leave in order to get showered and cleaned up for Dee to come pick us up. At least they got a little bit of swimming time in, and made some friends at the pool. But we were not happy campers that the waterslide never opened. I left a nice little comment for the hotel as well. We totally would have stayed a lot closer to our conference if it wouldn't have been for the waterslide in the first place. Plus I missed the meeting in the Kirtland temple that I really wanted to attend. Oh well.

Of course I had grumpy kids by then who weren't really excited to go back to the nursery and have yucky food. We kinda had to bribe them to get them back into the church.

They said it was much better the second day. They liked the food (sandwiches with the parents!) and had fun playing with all of the other kids. Dee led a group discussion on open adoption which I thought was really interesting. Of course, everything was running a little late, there was still a testimony meeting to go (which is where they wanted us to do our piano duet) and the last tour of the Kirtland temple was 20 minutes from when the last class got out. So, being the responsible adults we are, we just blew it off. Told the guy in charge that we wanted to do a few Kirtland things while we were there and that we really don't feel bad about missing the duet. Really. (I hated the arrangement anyway, to be honest.) We picked up the kids from the nursery and blew out of there.

After getting slightly lost (don't ask how that happens when the temple is just up the road from the church, but we managed to), we made it to the Kirtland temple right after the last tour had started. They let us join the tour and it was really interesting. The guy was long-winded though, kind of like I am right now. By the time he finished, there was a group of men outside waiting. Apparently they had needed the building 15 minutes earlier for a meeting and were patiently waiting for the tour to finish. Anyway, it was neat to at least see the temple for a moment and hear some of the history of Kirtland. We then walked through the cemetery to see Joseph Smith's home, which is now a private residence. Finally, we visited the LDS Visitor's Center there which is so well-done and which we will definitely have to go back to. We didn't have enough time there to do anything more than see the movie - as we had hungry children and a 3-hour drive home, and it was already almost 7:00 p.m. I will be back there next summer for youth conference, but we'll have to take the family again as well so they can see things there that we missed on this rushed trip. In hindsight, we should have taken an extra day - or at least driven down the night before the conference, so that we could have had the morning of the conference to do a few things. Oh well, live and learn.

After a quick but suprisingly yummy dinner at Denny's we made the drive home and arrived just after 11:00 p.m. That was our very short and somewhat sweet trip to Kirtland.

I must say this about Kirtland - what a beautiful setting! I imagine this is especially true in the fall, with all of the beautiful colors. We were there at a great time of year for that.

Sorry, this post is already too long. One more quick thing:

*Sis had her first choir concert this week. Dee was in Utah for meetings so it was just me and the girls. She loves her choir teacher so much and was very excited for her first concert. She looked so cute and did such a great job. It is amazing how polished they can get in just 6 short weeks! I thought the kids did very well. Biggest shocker of the evening: The difference in 6th and 7th graders, especially girls. The 6th graders went first, and they walked off the stage as the 7th graders came on. In general, the 7th graders all looked like giants compared to the little 6th graders. All the 7th grade girls looked like...women (NO!!) and the boys looked like....well, not as little of boys as the 6th grade boys did. It was the girls that changed so much in that year. It was shocking to me. Is this really going to happen to my daughter in the next year?