More People Than Portland

Day 154 - Salt Lake City, UT - Sunny Mid 40's:

This morning we woke up early as we had planned to have an Easter brunch with Jon, Larissa, Roy and Jen. Larissa and I worked on the egg dishes while Ben went to the grocery store to get fruit for a salad. Larissa also made potatoes and biscuits. Once Roy and Jen arrived the meal was topped off with perfectly cooked bacon! It was GREAT. We had a nice time relaxing and again enjoying each others company. Unfortunately our "family" time ended too soon because Swain had to head to work and Jen needed to get home to study!!

Once everyone headed out Ben and I got dressed and made our way into town. This time he dropped me off at the hotel (the company I work for has one here in Salt Lake) so that I could go for a run while he took the car to get a much needed oil change. The timing worked well because by the time he was on his way back to get me I was all done. While at Sears he also picked up the parts he needed to change our brake pads. While he was doing this at the apartment I worked on Mexican Roll-Ups while Larissa studied. Around the time he finished the brakes dinner was ready! We enjoyed our dinner and then hung out on the couch watching The Interpreter. If you've never seen this movie let me be clear...IT IS WEIRD. It's a great movie but it's different than ANY other Matt Damon movie I've ever seen. As the movie finished up Swaino arrived home from work. We chatted on the couch for a bit and he helped Ben get all his stuff together for skiing. Due to his schedule he wasn't able to ski with Ben the next day and so he let Ben take all of his gear so he wouldn't have to rent!! After getting everything organized we all headed to BED!

Day 153 - Salt Lake City, UT - Sunny Mid 40's:

For the first time in a while we got to sleep in today and it was much needed. Once we were awake Larissa made us an EXCELLENT breakfast of pancakes and bacon. It was nice to have some good home cooking again.

Once we got ourselves together we all headed up to a hiking trail not too far from their apartment. It was a bit muddy as they had recently had snow and it was melting in the sunshine. From the trail you could see all of Salt Lake City, the University of Utah, and the incredibly amazing mountains. Being up there allowed us to see how crazy the city is...it is completely surrounded by mountains. It just sits down below.

After our hike Jon (he'll often be referred to as Swain) headed to work. His schedule is a bit of a bummer because he has to leave at 2pm and doesn't get home until 11:30pm. Once he headed out, we stayed around the apartment with Larissa chatting and catching up on email. We didn't stay around too long because we wanted to explore downtown. Man did we pick the weekend to be here. Turns out this is one of two weekends for the Latter Day Saints BIG conference. Let me clarify BIG. There were over 80,000 people in town just for the conference.

We didn't let that deter us as we walked around Temple Square. It is a beautiful space full of gorgeous architecture and lovely landscaping. While we were walking we got the TREAT of hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. If you have never heard these men and women sing you are missing out because they are amazing. We learned that they are not able to try out until age twenty-five and once they are in they can stay for twenty years before they have to re-audition...they can continue to be a member until age sixty-five when they are retired. Other than age the only other requirement is that they live within 100 miles of Salt Lake as they need to be available for their commitments. They do performances every Sunday in the Tabernacle. These are free to the public and are NOT church services but inspirational shows. We actually got to go into the Tabernacle which was a nice treat as it is an amazing acoustic building. We stayed in the Temple Square for while just wandering and exploring before eventually making our way out! We walked around town trying to find where the Olympic Medals were handed out...we did find it but did not realize this until we were long gone!!

We made our way back to the Swains after our nice afternoon walk to relax before dinner. Once dinner time arrived we headed to Fiddler's Elbow to watch the Duke West Virginia game. We were also hoping to catch Roy at work in hopes of surprising him. We didn't end up seeing him as he had already headed home but we did get to see a great game! Having missed Roy at work we decided to head over and surprise him and Jen at home. It was quite fun!! We spent the next few hours at their apartment enjoying friendly faces and good company. Swain actually came over after he got out of work which was a nice surprise. We hung out for a bit before making our way back to the Swains for some much needed sleep!