time out for women

the first weekend of november, i was lucky enough to get to meet up with my mom and sisters for time out for women - phoenix. 

beth got down to phoenix first, so she, annie, and mom took a rainy hike friday morning before picking up julie at the airport.   i dropped the kids off at the clinic with ryan for an hour or so before his morning ended to get a head start on the drive and got down to mesa in time to do a little costco run with mom before dinner.  

there were a couple of speakers on friday night that were great.  a woman whose daughter was killed in the sandy hook shooting spoke about her experience following the events.  it was a pretty amazing talk.  

we got up early on saturday to get ready.  the shirt i'd brought was on sale front and center in one of the shops there, so i borrowed one from annie.  its much more fun to get ready in a bathroom full of girls.

we made smoothies and had muffins to eat on the road.

we had better seats for saturday and my friend trinity even sat right next to us.  the sound system wasn't quite balanced first thing, so they started with gentri singing and we could hardly understand them.  annie leaned over and said "see life in a vase?" about the song they were singing...."look fear in the face."  we got a good laugh about that and luckily they fixed the sound before the other gentri songs which were awesome.  

they had a little service project going on of coloring letter flash cards to help women learn english.  we did a set on friday night and another set on saturday.  i always like having something to keep my hands busy while i listen, so it was perfect.

we all got to stay for church on sunday and then had a couple of hours to eat and play games before we had to leave.  i took julie to the airport and then got home just in time for a meeting about splitting the wards and stakes up here in the white mountains.

i'm so lucky to have these great women in my life and we are so lucky to have supportive husbands who watched over our homes while we were away to spend this time together.  the only thing we could have wished was to have more time to just hang out away from time out for women!