Conference Weekend in Our House

We started our weekend on Friday, with a trip to Chicago. We visited with Dave (my brother) & Joyce, and David Phillip (my nephew) & Cassie, & their charming daughter:

Sorry this is a tad blurry...

Dave was working, so the rest of us drove up to Hyde Park and met him for lunch at Piccolo Mondo. We enjoyed eating and talking (once we finally managed to park our several cars). Had dessert back at Dave & Joyce's place, then bid all adieu and headed home (after kisses from the young miss!).

My friend gave me a lovely plant, to celebrate my birthday:

I do love daffodils!

We have friends whose 17-month-old grandson has an aggressive and rare form of cancer. (You can read about Emmett here.) Emmett's family wants to string together 1000 origami cranes for him, so we folded some while watching General Conference:

There was some knitting during General Conference:

There was also some sleeping during General Conference:

Jim & I celebrated my birthday today. Jim is always generous, and his gifts typically include jewelry (e.g. the gorgeous earrings he gave me) and yarn (several yummy new yarns to add to my stash). He also gave me David Bednar's book, Increase in Learning, which promises to be a good read.

Best of all was the opportunity to relax and enjoy General Conference. I am really grateful to be able to sit at home and watch all sessions. (I confess that attending at church was always problematic for me; most people prefer to dim the lights - supposedly it's easier to view the screen that way - but I tended to fall asleep....!) My favorite talk was Elder Hallstrom's, The Gospel and the Church. I appreciated the way he articulated the difference between being active in church and being active in the gospel - and I see ways I can improve the latter, in my life.

I have a list of other talks that I'm eager to review, where something was said that particularly caught my ear, or my heart. I look forward to studying them, as suggested in this recent Ensign article.

A small miracle occurred in between sessions on Saturday. I'd been sick all week with a cold - starting with a sore throat last Sunday, moving into hoarseness and then no voice at all, completely with stuffy head and coughing and general yuckiness. We considered cancelling our trip to Chicago, but went ahead with it (I just tried not to breathe on anyone). After the first session yesterday, I took a nap, and when I woke - I felt better! I still had the cold, but I had turned a corner, and no longer felt like death warmed over. So nice!!!

Here is one more beagle picture (because a blog can't have too many beagle pictures):

Begging for sausage