June Ladies Trip

This summer, I went on one ladies trip a month (and we had one family vacation each month as well). For years, I've been wanting to go to the Manti Pageant. Unfortunately, the past two years when I've really tried hard to go, something came up and I was unable to. But when it was announced last fall that the Church would no longer be hosting pageants after this summer, I knew then that I DEFINITELY needed to make it work this year as it was my last chance!

I did a temple trip with my mom a few summers ago, and I asked Amanda if she'd be willing to join me on another temple trip that would include us going to the Manti Pageant. Thankfully, she made it work with her schedule, and I'm so glad, because we had a fabulous time!!

I drove down to Utah on Thursday, June 13. I stopped in Ogden (where Amanda and Ryan live). I drove down in the Dodge Truck that Amanda's brother and dad had owned, since she and Ryan just bought it from her mom in Salmon. It was a sweet ride! We went out to dinner together at a Thai place that evening.

After dinner, I borrowed their car to drive to SLC and back, so that I could go see the play "Matilda" at the Hale Center Theater with my sister Tabbi. I'm a huge fan of Roald Dahl, but I'd never seen the musical version of this story before, so I was really excited. Hale did a fantastic job with the production, of course! It was a fun night and I  enjoyed the play. Some of the youth were hard to understand at a few points due to their accents, but I thought it was a cute show, and I was so glad I got to see it!

The weather got worse the further south I drove!

 

This scene really spoke to my soul

 

Tabbi and I talked for a while afterwards, and she showed me her new car, and then I drove back to Ogden to spend the night at the Berube's.

On Friday morning, Amanda cut and colored my hair, and then we left for our temple trip. Our first stop was the Salt Lake City temple. They will be closing this winter for renovations for a few years, so I wanted to make sure to go there one last time before then. This was Amanda's first time going there, and my first time doing a session there. We both enjoyed the live session immensely! We had a glorious experience there!

Our next stop was the Draper temple. Neither one of us had been there before. We took some of Amanda's family names, and got 3 ladies' work done each within 2 days, which was so cool. The Draper temple was pretty, and being up on the hill, we got a great view of the valley below! We ate at the temple cafeteria there, which was a good choice.

Then we drove south to Manti. Since I'd never been to it before, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know how they did entrance tickets, and I was worried if we were too late that it would be sold out and we would've gone all that way for nothing, so we showed up a couple hours early. There was still decent parking, and we got seats in the first 10 rows, so I felt pretty good about it. We marked our seats and then walked down the street a few blocks to a food court of sorts set up along the sidewalks. As we waited in line to get rice bowls and chocolate-dipped strawberries, Amanda recognized the gal right behind us, and then when we sat at a picnic table, I recognized the lady who I just sat down by! What a small world! We liked the people we sat by during the pageant, and had so much fun getting to know them before the pageant started at dusk. The pageant was so beautiful! I'm so glad we went! We both really liked it, and I was so grateful to be there during its last year.

Over 10,000 people were in attendance!!

We drove to Nephi for the night and stayed at an awful Motel 6 there. There was a pube on the bathroom counter, the people in the room next to us smoked weed all night and our room reaked and I got a headache from it, and they overcharged me for the room and I had to talk to multiple people before they gave me back the difference. Josh and I tried Motel 6 when we were first married, and didn't have a good experience--20 years later, and not much has improved.

Along our drive back to Ogden, we stopped at 3 more temples: Payson, Provo, and Provo City Center. Neither of us had been to either of those 3 before. Payson was HUGE, Provo was beautiful with the roses, and the Provo City Center temple was my absolute favorite with all of its stained glass window art and ornate wood throughout the interior. We did sealings at the Provo City Center temple of the 3 ladies that we'd each had, and it was a lovely experience to complete. We ate lunch at the Provo temple, and then stopped at the BYU Creamery for some ice cream afterwards, which was divine on such a hot day.

All the stained glass was incredible!

When we got to Ogden, I took Brady's car and headed back to Salmon that night. The Berube's were leaving on a family vacation to Oregon the next day, and Brady and Regan were going to be in Salmon a week later after their family vacation to Oregon, so it was the best scenario to take his car back so he could have it then.

Spending time with Amanda was wonderful. Watching a play and a pageant was uplifting. Attending the temples with my bestie was bliss. It was a wonderful ladies trip!