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!