Mother/Daughter Time

This past weekend I had the remarkable opportunity to be a chaperone for Youth Conference (which deserves a post all of it's own.) This year YC was held in Kirtland, Ohio. Naturally, I begged my mom and sisters to come up to see me. They were kind enough to oblige and met me Saturday afternoon. I was sooo wonderful to see them I almost cried when I gave my mom a "hello hug." Sometimes I just get really homesick and this short visit came at the perfect time.

I was able to drive back to the college dorms where the youth were staying with my family. We each picked our favorite song off the new Carried Underwood's CD and we all sang at the top of our lungs. SoOo much fun. We spent the afternoon trying to stay cool since it was so hot outside. The stake leaders invited them to the BBQ dinner that night so we were able to have dinner together. After dinner was the big quad stake dance for the youth. It was our CT stake plus three stakes from Ohio (one of which happened to be my home stake) so my 16 year old sister KT was a "legal" participant in the dance and was able to see a few friends from her stake.

Of course we had to have a photo shot. We had so much fun thinking of pictures to take and laughed almost the whole time... as you can probably tell. 

Katie and Liz hung out at the dance while my mom and I talked. I love talking to my mom. She is one of the few people who understand me 100%, see past my imperfections, listens to me without jumping to judge. I guess thats what moms do, but I feel like it's so much more than a typical mother/daughter relationship. It's more like she is my best friend who happens to be my mom. We are like kindred spirits, it wasn't a coincidence that we were put together to endure this life together, that I know for sure. I love her so much. Which is why when she said it was time for her to go I bawled my eyes out... for the rest of the night. I hate saying goodbye to my mom. But I was glad I had that time with her and my sisters. I can't wait till she comes to see me in 2 months. We are going to have so much fun!

I tried to pick KT up like I did Liz and they made me laugh so hard I dropped her and we both fell to the ground laughing. It was hilarious, I promise!

I love Elizabeth's face in this picture.

 

She is so gorgeous!

 

 

The girls dancing together away from the rest of the group.

 

 So Elizabeth is only 11 and shouldn't have been at the dance, but Katie wanted her to meet some of her friends from the stake so she took her over to introduce her to people. Then a slow song came on and naturally someone asked Katie to dance right away. As Elizabeth was leaving the dance floor a cute, barely 14,  teacher (from my ward) asked her to dance. She didn't know what to say and got embarrassed really fast. Katie saw the whole thing happen. Not wanting the boy from my ward to feel embarrassed she said she would dance with him and Liz danced with the boy Katie was dancing with. My mom and I saw her dancing illegally with someone and swopped in to document her first dance. lol. It was pretty funny, she thinks shes a guy magnet now... and in reality she totally will be ;-)