General Conference Weekend-April 2025

After raising a big family, it's still kind of weird being empty nesters.  I often get a little disconcerted when it's too quiet in the house,  and I'm glad our neighbors have kids who play outside a lot, because somehow that happy noise makes me feel a little more at home. And I do have to admit that I really enjoy living close enough to our college kids to get to see them on a regular basis.   Emma and Adam often come up for Sunday dinner and, unlike with our older two kids, we actually get to meet a lot of their college friends.   

 Adam started hosting friends here for General Conference weekend back when he was a freshman at BYU and I'm really happy that he's picked it back up after his mission. It was a lot of  work getting beds ready and bathrooms scrubbed for the big crowd to stay the weekend, but it's so fun once they get here, that we don't mind the work a bit! 

Over the course of the weekend, we had about 15 people who came and went, but there was a core group of about 6 that stayed the whole time.  I wish I'd thought to take pictures of everyone before they left, but there are several people not pictured here. 

During October General Conference, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen getting ready for meals with the group.  We wanted to try to  avoid that this year, so I did most of the kitchen prep in days leading up to their arrival.  That meant making several loaves of banana bread, making a few pans of honey-lime enchiladas, baking lots of cookies, and doing some chopping for another meal.   Everything ended up coming together very smoothly and we liked simplifying the work we did while everyone was here.  The food all got eaten up or sent home with people! 

I actually pulled myself together this year and created and printed a bunch of  General Conference activity packets for this conference.  I brought them around to several neighbors, but had a few left for the college kiddos to use if they so chose. 

A few of them were into them and several people tried my super hard word search...

I was really happy when my niece, McKenzie, and her roommate came up for one of the sessions.  She just got her mission call to Gilbert, Arizona, and we were really happy to see her again! 

Glen and I watched upstairs, so the youngsters could have their space in the theater room downstairs.  We didn't take many pics down there, but here's a glimpse...  It's a big room that can seat a lot of people and you can kind of see the side table full of snacks in the second picture.  Next time I'll get better pics!

After the last session, a few of them hiked up to Horsetail Falls and came back a bit muddy and wet.  

It was a full weekend.  A full house.  Full hearts.  Full tummies.   Full spirits.     Can't wait for October!  
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Click here to see General Conferences of years' past.   

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