Conference Weekend

Paul and I thought it would be really fun to spend general conference with our families in Salt Lake. We also thought it would be fun to take our neighbor Angelica and her son Gavin with us. Little did we know how eventful of a weekend we were going to have!

My dad gets season tickets to the BYU home games, and Friday the 5th there was a BYU game that Paul wanted to go to. Because Angelica and Gavin were coming to SLC with us we all decided to go to the game together. Paul bought me a legit BYU shirt and Paul, Angelica, and Gavin all wore theirs so we looked like an awesome bunch. The game was quite intense. Neither of the teams did well on the offense, but they both played a heck of a defense. We were sitting right in front of some hard core USU fans who were yelling and screaming at my dad for no reason, (probably because he is really good at cheering on his Alma Mater). I took it upon myself to yell louder than them for BYU every time they were trying to cheer on USU, (my lack of voice three days later has been an awesome reminder). Thankfully BYU won. It was a close game with an ending score of 6-3.

After the game (12 A.M.), we all drove up to Paul's parents to get some shut eye before our crazy Saturday. When we arrived at his parents house, the front room was filled with an air mattress and lots of pillows and blankets. Paul and I were to sleep on the air mattress in the middle of the family room, Peter, (Paul's brother), would be sleeping in the family room also, but on the couch, we stuck Angelica and Gavin in the spare bedroom down the hall, and poor Jessica, (Peter's fiance), was banned to the basement to sleep. We also had Paul's parents in their room, and Eric, Amanda, Sage, and Milo crammed into the basement as well. Needless to say, the Burnett house was literally a full house!

Saturday morning I convinced Julie and Jessica to go running with me. We took a lovely, leisurely, 3 mile run around the park before breakfast. Rex prepared a fabulous breakfast, after which, we all sat down to watch conference. After the first session of conference, (which was amazing by the way), we took Angelica and Gavin to Temple Square to see the sights and ride Trax. We parked at City Creek and walked around the mall for just a little bit before we went to the temple. Angelica had never ridden Trax, so we jumped on and got off at the next station just so she could say that she had been on Trax. We had to walk further to the temple than we would have if we hadn't ridden the Trax, but it was kind of a fun experience with them.

While we were at the temple I felt the Spirit so strong. It was so amazing! I was trying so hard not to cry in front of everyone but my feelings were so profound I had to wipe away a few tears. We walked down the street where all the protesters were to get to the North Visitors Center. Also on that street, amidst the protesters, many LDS people lined the sidewalk and quietly sang hymns to peacefully counter the protestors. We walked right through the make shift choir, and the spirit that was there was even more amazing I had felt before. When we got to the visitors center, we made sure to show Angelica and Gavin the Christas statue. That was the climax of my spiritual day. I could not look at that amazing statue of Christ and not cry. I had had a really heavy heart all week, and seeing that statue immediately lifted my heavy heart and gave me a very strong reminder of how much my Savior really does love me.

When we got back from SLC we watched the second session of conference and went to dinner. While the boys went to priesthood session I played with Gavin and Sage in the back yard for a while and then held baby Milo for another little while. I also painted toenails with my awesome sister-in-law to be Jessica. When the boys got back we watched the Avengers (which I had not yet seen, and it is INCREDIBLE!) and then went to bed.

Sunday we watched the first session of conference with the Burnett's, then went to my parents house and went for a drive up Butterfield Canyon. It is a family tradition of mine to drive up the canyon during the fall conference and look at the leaves changing colors. Tyson and Yulia came up and so we were all one big family minus Tanner who is still in Peru. We drove up to the top of Kennicott and looked down at the mines. We goofed off, like our family usually does, and listened to conference.

I thought it would be a really good idea while most of our family was together to take a family picture. We didn't have an experience photographer with us, but with the amazing skills of Angelica, we were able to get some pretty awesome family pictures.

After our drive, we made delicious lasagna and played some games with my family then headed back to Cedar City. We promised Angelica that we would be home before 11PM and true to our word we got back to Cedar at 10:45. We had an amazing weekend full of lots of spiritual food. I am so grateful for the gospel. I am a Mormon! I know it, I live it, I love it!