Family Reunions

Every summer we look forward to my family coming out to Utah for family reunions. It's great having the summer off, because when they come, I can spend LOTS of time with them!

There is this place called Gardner Village that has a bunch of really neat little shops. My family picked me up one afternoon (Tyler was at work) and we went to Gardner Village and did a little bit of shopping and got some frozen hot chocolate (yum!).

We were also able to go to the conference center and listen to the Music and Spoken word. I love hearing the Tabernacle Choir sing. So beautiful! My Uncle Randy and Aunt Renee give tours at the conference center, so once we got done hearing the Tabernacle Choir, we asked to have a tour! It was really interesting to hear how the Conference Center was built and all of the neat stories. Here is one of my favorites we were told: When building the conference center, they wanted to use granite like they had used with the Salt Lake Temple. They needed to go up Big Cottonwood Canyon to get it and Brighton Ski Resort owns that road. Brighton worked out a deal: they could go get the granite up until the first snowfall. Then they had to be done. Well, the men who would go up the canyon to get the granite and haul it back down said they would go up and often find a piece of granite sitting there that happened to be the exact size they needed. They brought down the last piece of granite they needed the day before the first snowfall.

Pretty crazy, huh? Love that story.

One more story....then I'll get to the pictures :) My aunt was telling us about a statue of Christ that you see in the conference center. The sculptor was having a hard time getting the face right on the statue. Well one night, there was a strange light in his house and he saw someone in that light. He then sculpted the face he saw. The statue had to get approved by the Presidency before being put in the conference center. When President Hinckley saw it, he replied "Yes. That's him."

It was a neat experience...if you have never had a tour of the conference center, then you should! And I can recommend 2 awesome tour guides for you :)


The Hirschi family reunion (my mom's side) was up Big Cottonwood Canyon, which was AWESOME because it was close to us! I was able to go up in the morning and spend the day there...and still get to sleep in my bed and shower. Now THAT is my kind of camping! :) We mostly just hung out and caught up with family. We went on a little hike up to Donut Falls one day. Below are the pictures I took. It was fun!

My little sister Kristina and I

My mom and Kristina

Jessica, Me, Kristina

Me, Jessica, Dad, Mom, Kristina

Me and Jessica