THE House-Buying Trip to Utah...

This week I had my 3 x 10 birthday (my dad says it doesn't look so bad when you count by decades. Ha!). Thanks to so many who wrote such wonderful thoughts and recalled so many fun memories. It was touching.

For my birthday, Paul bought me a house!


He did, however, let me in on the surprise and I got to help pick it out... you know... And, per my request, we spent the day working away to make it more ready for our family to move in at the beginning of June.

This was Paul's major task: clearing the massive amount of tumbleweed that covered the "yard."


Whataman! He really took it for the team on this one, while I daintily dusted the construction dust and debris and did other cleaning to make the house move-in ready! Oh, and I dreamed up lots of schemes about where to put our minimal amount of furnishings.

But that's only part of what made this trip worthwhile. After Early Easter Dinner #1, the masses gathered for a rockin' dance party with Uncle Stevie and Aunt Hannah... courtesy of "Michael's Rockin' CD..."



(Stevie is teaching Michael how to play the 'air guitar' with style,

and Bekah and Abby are wearing their favorite dress-up clothes. Justsoyaknow.)

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Other notables that made this "get things done" trip fun, too!:

• time with the NYHipster
• letting the kiddos play and play and play outside
  
• 2 batches of "Hannah cookies"
  
• a quiet lunch with Mel while Aaron was recovering from his surgery
  
• faxing and calling and over-nighting and stressing about last-minute house-closing details
  
• introducing Hannah to IKEA (can you belive the girl had never been??!?)
  
• General Conference and the traditional mid-Sunday walk
  
• Early Easter Dinners #2 and 3
  
• birthday pie
  
• a very violent children's theater production--Tales of the Arabian Nights (tell your kids what "beheading" means before going to this one... yikes!)
  
• lots of snow (I'm going to have to beef up the winter clothes budget next year)
  
• an early visit from the Easter Bunny
  
• mid-potty-training-woes
  
• Ella's scooting progress!
  
• time with cousin Aaron
  
• lots of calls about estimates for home improvement projects
  
• and just fun times with family

Another highlight was taking Michael to General Conference. Michael loves Conference time. He knows them by name has his favorite (L. Tom Perry... he played football, you know...). We came across some tickets to go to the Saturday morning session.

I told Michael, and he just lit up. He talked about it the whole week before we were to go. In one of his prayers, he said something like, "I am grateful that Conference is coming up. And I am especially soooo grateful that I get to actually go to the Conference Center to see President Monson and the Apostles and that I just actually be there when they speak to us."


But wait! Aren't there rules about these things? Isn't there an age limit of 8?? Um... yes. But, you see, there was the circumstance of a certain mother who made a promise to a certain 5-year-old.


Props to Aunt Hannah for getting Michael through the security check without telling a lie. And Michael was so well behaved that I don't feel a bit guilty. It was a wonderful morning... thanks for coming with us Hannah and Mel.


And special thanks to Grandpatty and Grandpappy, Hannah, and Lafe for your logged hours of time with our kiddos to help us get everything done. You are the best!

Now we are home and I get to switch gears to packing. I don't know where THAT's going to fit into the schedule... but it will get done one way or another!