The Papers Are In!

  After almost two months of trying to get Maren's papers filled out and submitted they are finally in!  She'll probably have her call in a couple of weeks.  Maren had to take a picture to submit with her papers and couldn't seem to get a natural smile so Emma "helped" her.  Where's Becky when you need her?

Here's the difference between my picture of Maren and Becky's.  Sigh...

Mindy Stalking

We thought it was pretty funny that we sat right behind Mindy Gledhill at the Lower Lights concert, 

so I decided to put all of our Mindy pictures together in one post.  Here goes: 

The first time we saw Mindy was at her Christmas concert at the Stephen's Performing Arts 

Center in December 2011.  Becky and I took our girls for an early Christmas present.  

My parents won tickets and went with us.

The second time we saw Mindy was at 7 Peaks in Provo, Utah in August 2012.  We were combining a

 fun day of swimming with dropping Katherine off at the dorms.  As the girls were leaving they spotted her

 coming in, and Becky quickly whipped out her camera for a photobomb picture without Mindy knowing.

 

 The third time we saw Mindy Gledhill was at a concert at BYU-I in Rexburg in September 2013

 for the release of her album, Pocketful of Poetry.  She was kind enough to sign our cd and say hi 

to the girls and their friend, Jessica Tolman.

 The fourth (but probably not final) time we saw her was when she sat in front of us at the 

Lower Lights concert December 2015.  Pretty fun for us!

 I think we need to let her know that we're destined to be good friends.

Lower Lights or The Christmas Trip Becky Missed

One of Becky's favorite groups is The Lower Lights, a group of LDS artists who sing awesome folk/bluegrass-style music, so when she heard about their Christmas concert in Salt Lake at the U of U she immediately talked me into a girls getaway for an early Christmas present. 

 We planned to visit Laura for her birthday and have lots of fun shopping with Maren, Megan, Emma, and Ellie.  Unfortunately, life is what often happens while you're making plans, and it made havoc of Becky's.  

 Becky had to have half of her thyroid removed, along with a giant cyst that was growing on it, but she scheduled it immediately after Thanksgiving so she'd have time to heal and be ready for our fun weekend.

Exactly a week later, however, she ended up in the ER with severe pain in her abdomen and back.  It turned out that it was a large kidney stone which required a week with a stent to pass.  Not fun at all!  Becky put off giving away her tickets until the night before but finally decided she couldn't go.  We were all sad that we wouldn't have a getaway for the cousins, but what can you do when a kidney stone is sending intense pain through your body?!  Fortunately, Becky's friend Arlynne Larsen lives near SLC and offered to let us spend the night in return for the coveted tickets.  Arlynne's girls, Melanie and Layna, came and we enjoyed the concert so much, but we all felt bad that Becky was miserable!

Maren, Arlynne, Melanie, Layna

Love the photobombers!

The stage was beautiful!

About 10 minutes into the concert a group came in and sat directly in front of us.  One lady looked familiar, and pretty soon Emma leaned over and said, "Mom, I think that's Mindy Gledhill in front of us!"  It did look like her, but it was dark so I didn't think much of it.  We kept trying to get a good look and eventually we were sure it was Mindy.  On the last song the lights came up a little so I took a picture of my girls with Mindy just in front of them.  

After the show she was gracious enough to pose for a pictures with the girls, so now we've had pictures with her 4 times!  It's weird that two of those times were not even at her concerts, just random run-ins!  She used to be part of Lower Lights, but she said she had to quit when her career got too busy. 

The next day we went to the Odgen temple.  The girls had to have a picture with the nativity because the donkey looked like a unicorn.

We had such a fun weekend. So sorry you couldn't join us, Becky!  

State Staff Training

I work with some fantastic people, and it's always nice to get together in Boise with the staff from all of the offices.  After a full day of training, we headed to Sur la Table, a restaurant supply store and demonstration kitchen, for an Iron Chef competition/dinner.  We made a delicious spinach salad with Parmesan crisps, roasted rosemary potatoes, and a delicious steak with a sauce and compound butter.

Margaret Ballard, Bob Ford

Margaret, Bob, Sally, Mitch Silvers, Roy Hansen

My picture may not look great, but the steak was amazing!  For dessert we made molten lava cakes. Mmmmm.  My group won the overall competition and became the Iron Chefs!  Our team name was You Kill It, We Grill It.

Karen Roetter, Jamie Novis, Lindsay Nothern

Bryan Ricker, Brian Raybon, Courtney Lehosit, Farhana, Janice Wilcox

During the staff training we celebrated Bob Ford's retirement and also had a White Elephant Christmas gift exchange.

 

This is what I won in the gift exchange. 

Now that's what I call a White Elephant!  Our Senate trainer for the meetings was from Virginia, and she said she had never seen ammo as a gift as a Christmas party and was very surprised that two women fought over it!  There were two boxes given away and the other one went to the 19 year old intern in the office.  We told the trainer, "Welcome to Idaho! We do things a little differently here!"