Monday, February 26, 2007

A Weekend in the City


I spent the past weekend in Salt Lake with my four fifty-ish friends. We are continuing our new tradition to celebrate our friendship by finding fun and interesting things to do together. Truthfully, Ann is the one who has come up with the great ideas, but Nikki, Marla, Judy and I are eager followers. So Saturday morning, we traveled to Salt Lake and met Marla who flew up from St. George. We stayed at Little America and had lunch in their wonderful dining room. The afternoon was spent shopping and I bought four books. (A small amount compared to some of the others) It's so fun to discuss books with these women. Then dinner at P F Chang's where we all ate too much. That night we attended a performance of "Little Women," a musical presented at the Hale Centre Theater in West Valley City. It's theater in the round and we had front-row seats. That made it up-close and personal. Judy had bought everning gloves for all and we were very elegant even though we didn't take the time to change into our dresses after shopping. The play was superb, beautiful music, fantastic voices, and a great story. I had to take my gloves off to wipe a tear from my eye since I didn't want mascara stains on them. I definitely want to go to future productions at the Hale. On Sunday morning, we attended a sacrament meeting at a gorgeous old church on 4th South that was built in 1909. We arrived early and explored. They don't make churches like that now with the beautiful woodwork and stain-glass windows. The regular ward-members made us feel so welcome. Another great idea of Ann's that we all appreciated. Then it was back to Little America for their famous Sunday breakfast bar. Wonderful fresh fruit. Cheya, you would die for those raspberries and the blackberries were even better. After seeing Marla off on the shuttle to the airport, we headed for home, missing the worst of the snow storm that blew in that afternoon. I know that there was great conversation except I slept most of the way home. I am fifty-one after all. Judy, Nikki and Ann are still young 50-year-olds.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

memoirs of a Birthday



I celebrated number 51 last Sunday. Usually, I don't say much about birthdays since . . . well, it's 51 . . . nuff said. But this was a nice day. I went to church. I gave the lesson in Relief Society and there were lots of good thoughts and ideas shared. Several people wished me Happy Birthday. I was told I didn't look 51. Is it okay to lie in church? Sacrament Meeting was particularly spiritual. I went home and got on the internet while I ate a quiet dinner. My mom stopped by and gave me a book for my birthday, always a welcome gift. My daughter called and we chatted for a long time. She's such a sweetie. Then my son called and gave me a great present. . . I'm going to be a grandma in September! What a fantastic birthday.