Air shows, cabins and Church talks

Memorial Day weekend was so fun! I'm going to attempt to go through it without boring anyone to death while still hitting on the best points.

Thursday was my last day of work which meant Friday was the beginning of a wonderful weekend. I drove up early Friday morning to Syracuse to meet up with Meg and her family for a quick breakfast before we went to the air show at Hill Air Force Base. This was a fun new experience for me and I loved it! Also Meg and I were called to speak on Sunday with a high councilor from her home stake up in Syracuse.

Lindsey and Adriana - Photo taken by Megan McFarland

Thunderbirds

Photo by Diana McFarland

On Saturday Meg and I went and finished registering, went back to Syracuse, finished our talks for Sunday, had dinner with her family, went to Adriana's piano recital (she did a great job btw), and played a most wonderful game called "Don't eat Pete!" You set out a few M&M's and one person closes their eyes while everyone else decides which M&M is Pete. The person then proceeds to eat M&M's one at a time. When they reach for Pete everyone yells "Don't eat Pete!" It's a wonderful game.

Don't eat Pete

I ended up sleeping up in Syracuse Saturday night so Sunday morning I got up and showered and put some finishing touches on my talk. We then headed off to 11:00 church to give our talks. It was such an amazing experience. I love speaking so much, especially when I get to speak with Meg. She's a wonderful speaking and it's such a joy to listen to her. After church we got ready to head up to drop Lindsey off at Oakcrest girls camp for the week and then continue on to Meg's cabin. It was quite cold  up there. So cold that there was snow on the ground when we got there and tiny snow flurries. We made a great fire and roasted Meg's home-made marshmallows. These were also used in our hot chocolate. So good! 

Meg's Cabin Sunday night

The view off the back porch with snow 

flurry

Diana roasting one of Meg's chocolate-chip marshmallows

Monday we cleaned up the cabin and got it all ready for the summer. Later in the day we went on a walk up to a little waterfall. It was so beautiful up there. I loved it. I spent a lot of time just lazing around, napping, cuddled up to Megan, and reading. It was so relaxing. I also think it's noteworthy to mention that there was a crane up there right off the back porch sitting on her eggs. Pretty neat.

The crane on her nest

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Puck loving life at the cabin

Photo by Diana McFarland

The waterfall - picture by Diana McFarland

Horses and Aviators

So this weekend was the best weekend I've had in a long time! That's not to say that I haven't had good weekends, this last one was just especially amazing. I'm going to start at Saturday and move along from there. So Meg told me to keep my morning free because she had a surprise for me. I woke up at about 8:30 and got ready for the day (I made sure to wear my most cowboyesque stuff) and then I rather impatiently waited for 9:45 to come. I was very much looking forward to what ever it was that Meg had in the works. (I must say that by this point I had a pretty good guess about what it was but that's beside the point.) So she came to picke me up and we headed north to Ogden where we would meet up with her parents, little sister, and a family friend. When they drove up my suspicions were confirmed, we were going horseback riding! I was so excited because up to this point in my life, I'd never done this.
We made the journey up to a little place near Snow Basin. My excitement was mixed with a good strong dose of nervousness. I was worried I might make a total idiot of myself in front of her family. Getting on the horse was easier than I'd expected and once I was there my nerves started to calm down just a bit. I was riding a great horse named Missy (I should think that's spelled at least somewhat right...). As we headed off my nervousness disappeared. Meg had tried to tell me that it wouldn't be hard or scary and by this point I finally believed her. One of my favorite things was watching the personalities of the horses. For the first bit I was riding behind Meg's little sister and her horse, Opi, loved to stop every minute or two to get a mouthfull of grass. This would lead to short game of catch up where Opi would take of at a trot which meant Missy would do the same. I'm sure this helped to give me a rather sore seat these past two days...
It was so much fun to be out in the mountains, on a horse, with great company, doing something I've always wanted to do.
After horseback riding and a great lunch/dinner Meg and I started to make our way back to Salt Lake. On the way I realized that I still needed part of my costume so we stopped at Layton Hills Mall. We ended up in Macys and I found an awesome coat that would double as my costume so I forked out the money and got it. All in all it turned out to be an awesome costume thanks to all the help I got pulling it together.
Later that night we went to a crazy party, danced a bit, talked a bit, caught up with old friends a bit, and then watched a movie.
Sunday brought Stake Conference which was about as good as I can ever remember Stake Conference being. I was in the choir under the direction of my awesome cousin who, in my opinion, made us sound really good. Later that day was my family birthday dinner where we celebrated a total of four birthdays, mine included.

Life is good, what more can I say?