Thursday, May 26, 2011

BYU Women's Conference

My mom has been going to BYU Women's Conference every spring for the past few years. This year, I finally wasn't pregnant or nursing a new baby, so she invited me to come along! I undertook to task of getting the planets to align to make it possible for me to slip away for a weekend. With the help of an amazing babysitter who even braved an overnight stay with our 5 crazies, and a husband who juggled all of his tasks and mine...I was able to spend 4 days in beautfiul, snowy Provo and enjoy some much needed "girl" time.


The conference classes themselves were amazing - truly inspiring! They alone would have been worth going for. And time alone with my mom - just the two of us was worth every effort. But if that wasn't enough...the rest of the company of ladies and the accomidations were to DIE for. Explanation: My mom and dad are part of a special Leadership Council for BYU (my mom always tells people jokingly..."if you donate enough, you could be to!") So BYU uses the conference as special retreat for the council women and makes it an absolute "retreat" in every way. The other 70 ladies who attended were incredible woman - beautiful, kind, generous, and involved in wonderful things. We kicked it all off with a special tour of This Is The Place State Park in Salt Lake City, and then continued on to Sundance where our cabins awaited us. I've seen some beautiful things in my life, but the cabin used for the group gatherings and the second one where my mom and I slept in were unbelievable.




This was the cabin that we had all gatherings and ate all our meals. It belongs to an amazing family that has 11 grown kids and 50something grandkids! The woman in the red suit standing in the middle of this picture is Sister Kristen Oaks...yep, she came and spoke to us one evening.


The cabin that my mom and I slept in was just walking distance away. We didn't get to spend a lot of time there, but it was gorgeous - I could have just sat in the quiet rooms all weekend and drank in the beauty. It was like an enchanted fortress.


Beautiful views from about every window



A grandkids bunkroom that slept 16 and was simply amazing




And a game room with that had EVERYTHING imaginable! My boys were drooling over the pictures.


There were amazging meals, evening devotionals, beautiful luncheons, shuttles that drove us to BYU campus and dropped us off curbside for our front-row seats in the Marriot Center, sweets on our pillows each night before bed, See's candies set out at every table, a goodie bag for conference filled with a journal/candy/gum/mints, and Ogio luggage with BYU logo embroydered on the front as a take-home gift.


To say we were pampered was an understatement. To say "thanks" to my mom for toting me along is simply not enough. It was a wonderful weekend in everyway!

2 comments:

Brooke Romney said...

How wonderful. I'm so glad you got a chance to go!!

Laura Call said...

Wow... it looks truly AMAZING!! So fun for you to get a chance to get away for such a fun and uplifting weekend... good for you for making it happen!