November, Mid-Month

I had a meeting I wanted to attend in Salt Lake City. I know. I'm weird like that.  I like to attend work-related meetings.  It's far better than "attending" by phone when it is such a big group.  The Friday of the meeting corresponded with the weekend of Mike's cousin's wedding, so we made the trip and got in some family visits, too!

My library meeting was 10 a.m. in West Jordan, so we left Cedar early on Friday morning and Mike and his mom dropped me off for that 2 hour meeting.  Mike dropped his mom off at Gayela's house and then when Mike picked me up at the end of my meeting, we headed over Gayela's to visit, nap, etc. Gayela had invited Nick and Kaylee to join us for dinner on Friday night.  It was a dreary, rainy day, but nice nice to spend time visiting with family.  We had dinner at Gayela's house that evening and Mike and I stayed the night with Nick and Kaylee.

Early Saturday morning, Mike took his Mom to go visit is brother in Draper, and I got to sleep in.  It was nice.  Kaylee and I went to Gardner Village later and wandered around the shops in the rain.  It was all decked out in Christmas lights and displays.  I'd never been there before, so that was fun.  Mike and I had a nice lunch with Nick and Kaylee (tacos!) and then we headed over to Gayela's house (just me and Mike ) to pick up Gayela and Mom to drive up to Ogden for Ilene's wedding.  Ilene is Mike's first cousin.  She has such a nice, big fun family and we've seen more of them in the past several years.  Her husband recently died (4 years ago?) and she found a new love and we were invited to share their special day with them. So we did!

Ilene belongs to Berenice's brother Reece (deceased) and Donna (pictured above with Berenice). Ilene and her first husband had about 6 children and some grandkids, too, although they may not have been born at the time Kent passed away.  Anyway, Ilene's new husband Dennis is a fine gentleman and they seem incredibly happy. He, also, has grown children and cute grandchildren who participated in the ceremony.  It was short and sweet.

We enjoyed a nice Chinese Buffet dinner in a nearby restaurant just after the ceremony, then, back at the reception was cheesecake!  And dancing!  Mike and I actually danced one dance.  We tried a second, faster one but his knees said, "Nope. Don't do that." So we left. ha.

Gayela, Berenice, Donna, Halena

Mike and his sister, Gayela.

Mike and his cousin Donavan Chadburn

Berenice dancing with a mysterious man.  I think he's just a friend from the bride's ward.

Mike and I spent the night again with Nick and Kaylee.  Their Sunday church meetings didn't start until  11 a.m. but they were nice and fixed us some lovely pumpkin waffles for breakfast before we headed over to pick up Mike's Mom for church.  We'd initially planned to travel back to Ogden for Ilene's son's mission farewell sacrament meeting, but decided we'd visited with quite a lot of people all afternoon and into the evening, so we went to Sacrament meeting with Gayela in her 9:00 ward and then headed home to Cedar City.  It was a fun weekend! 

We made it home almost in time to attend the last 10 minutes of our church meetings (but we just drove on past on our way to our house), and Berenice did make it in time for her Relief Society meeting so she went to that.  I wish we could have gone to OUR ward's Sacrament meeting, as there were all sorts of changes in our ward that week.  We have a new primary presidency and lots of new teachers.

Also, that evening former Utah Governor Michael Leavitt was the speaker at a special inter-faith devotional/symposium about Religious Freedom.  It was held in the Centrum on SUU's campus and Mike and I attended that in the evening.   I'm really glad we went.  It was amazing and enlightening.  "People of Faith"  everywhere in America need to keep their eyes open and their mouths as well else our right to practice our religion shall be quietly swept away if we remain silent!  Beware.  Text  "ICARE" to 535-898 for some links to some super videos made by people of faith about how important this is.  I care. Do you?