i'm the tax man

i love conference weekend! the edification that goes on is miraculous, and this Conference was no acception. we definitely did, as President Monson said, have "a smorgasbord today of faith and love and coucil." my favorite talks were Elder Bednar's talk on missionary work (that one hit home!!) and Elder Ballard's talk about mothers, and, of course, President Monson's messages! i love our prophet, Thomas S. Monson, so much! he has always been one of my favorite speakers, he is so eloquent and i love his allusions to great works of literature and poetry, and now i get to sing We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet with him in mind! i missed President Hinckley acutely, but i am so grateful for this gospel and for continuing revelation! yay for conference!

this weekend was a wonderful one. on saturday afternoon klayton and i took avery to the park for a picnic dinner and some playtime. it was pretty cold (GO AWAY, WINTER!!) so we didn't stay too long, but avery still loved it. i definitely think that we will live outside once it gets warm out. avery loves to swing at the park and see all of the dogs there - she even makes a break for the front door every time it opens! haha. klayton and i brought our usual summer picnic of french cheese, a baguette, and martinelli's to the park just to further boycott winter. i love picnicing with klayton this way because he smells the cheese and he makes lots of mmm and ooo sounds as he eats - he loves my cooking, but he lusts after stinky french cheese. haha. it was a beautiful outing...

then we did our taxes!! i know, i know, we are romantic devils. :) filing taxes is such a pain, but i'm really excited to get our return! we also started planning a trip to southern california later this month (the Fullerton/Anahiem area) for a visit with our close friends, zach and liz briggs and their baby boy, ian. the first year that klayton and i were married we made a cross-country road trip to visit zach and liz in Michigan, where they lived at the time. that trip holds some of our fondest memories! this time we are making a road trip of it with some friends from this area and i can't wait! we are going to hit a Dodger game (my favorite thing in the entire world! when i was a kid, i thought that i would live in a snow-white-style cottage in the hills outside of Dodger Stadium [in downtown LA! yipes!] and that i would be buried under home plate in Dodger Stadium! haha), go to Disneyland (zach works there as the voice of the surfer turtle dude in a Finding Nemo attraction!), and enjoy the california sunshine.