Labor Day

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend. My mom, my two sisters, and I have been talking about doing a girls' weekend for years. This year we decided to make it a reality. We met up in Pleasant Grove, which is halfway for all of us (except for Shelley, as she was hosting). We stayed up late, shared so much, had adventures, and played games.

Mom and I left right after school on Friday. We stopped to eat in Pocatello and ended up getting to Shelley's around 9:00. We missed all the bad traffic and made good time. I had a weird thing happen while I was driving though. We were just about to Salt Lake, and suddenly my eyes went all blurry. It was like I wasn't wearing my contacts! So scary, but thankfully it passed fairly quickly. 

On Saturday morning, we went to a session at the Mount Timpanogos temple. I have severe anxiety, and going to the temple is a huge trigger for me. Since my hysterectomy, I can't always tell when I need to go to the bathroom. Being in a place where I can't really get up and leave, and where I'm wearing all white isn't ideal for that. It's been so hard to go. I can't do it on my own. But I decided that I was going to try. It really helped to have my mom and sisters with me. It was still hard, and I fought off a panic attack partway through, but I did it. I made it. It was a nice experience.

Then we went to lunch at an old favorite (Kneaders) and headed to Midway for Swiss Days. We've leaned pretty heavily into our Swiss heritage and wanted to go experience Swiss Days. Midway is so charming! It's very easy to see why our ancestors decided to settle there when they immigrated to the US. It looks almost identical to our ancestral hometown of Balgach, canton of St. Gallen. Even the mountains surrounding it are reminiscent of the Alps. There are several homes there that my great great grandfather built. Last summer, my dad and I got to tour the biggest one as part of a family reunion. It was really special. We did learn that the style of these homes isn't Swiss - it's English!

Swiss Days wasn't all that Swiss. It was a little disappointing that there wasn't more Switzerland involved, but we had a nice time anyway. We did find a really sweet little shop with Christmas decorations from Germany. We all ended up with several purchases. I'm excited to get my tree out so that I can display my new things! We were hoping to have a knockwurst sandwich, which is very Swiss, but they sold out before we got to the line. I ended up having a Navajo taco (although they called it a Swiss taco - not a thing) and the others had a barbecue dinner. We were all pretty disappointed, to be honest. Oh well.

We visited a really charming bookshop that I'd like to go back to the next time I'm in Utah. It reminded me of my favorite bookshop, The King's English, in Salt Lake. Shelley hasn't ever been there, so that's in the plans as well. I love fun bookshops! This one wasn't in an old house, so it didn't have all the little secret rooms and passages as TKE, but it was still fun. I saw a couple books that I'm interested in reading.

When we got back to Shelley's, we watched Pride & Prejudice (Keira Knightley version, which we all love) and stayed up way too late again. We went to church the next morning, although I only stayed for sacrament meeting. I was sick the whole time. Still am. I only made it in to work one day this week! I hate being sick. 

Anyway, we fixed dinner together and went down to Springville to see if we could find an ancestor's grave. We couldn't. There was no record of it in the cemetery. We drove up Hobble Creek Canyon. It's starting to change colors, and it's gorgeous! Then we went back and played a super fun game. You sing a line of a song, which is recorded in an app. Then you play it backwards and the next person tries to sing the backwards part. Then you play it again and you see if you got close to the original. We had some recognizable words, but everything else was pretty jumbled. It was so fun! We laughed so hard.

Monday morning, we went and got pedicures together and then headed home. It was so much fun and I'm glad we did it. We'd like to make this an annual tradition. We all needed it and loved spending the time together.