Annual Awards Banquet - Salt Lake

Jordan River Temple

Early (5:45 am) Thursday morning, Eric and I flew to Salt Lake. Every year around this time the Utah office that he's signed on with for Penn Mutual has their annual awards banquet. There are meetings on Friday and the awards dinner on Friday night. Eric has clients in the Salt Lake area, so we usually go a day early for appointments. This time around, though, Eric had an appointment with the mountains on Thursday. He and a friend, Bryan, went skiing Thursday morning. While he was skiing, I went to a new temple I hadn't been to, the Jordan River Temple. I enjoyed going there and seeing another temple. I was amazed by the size of it, although it wasn't too much bigger than the Mesa one. After the temple, I went to get a massage. I found a massage school in downtown, where I booked two appointments. I had a hot stone massage Thursday afternoon.

After the massage, I headed to Bryan's house to pick up Eric. We then went to his dad's house in Lehi. Eric met with his dad, and 3 of his half brothers. Krysti had arranged all the meetings. She also put together a dinner. I enjoyed just hanging out and visiting with everyone while Eric met with everyone else. Kevin's kids taught me a new game, Play Nine, which I have now ordered for my kids.

Icicles hanging from a church in the Avenues

 Friday morning came. Eric and I went to breakfast before his meetings started. Once his meetings started, I went to Orson Gygi, one of my must-go-to-places-when-in-Utah. I found some fun things for the Cousins Valentine's party I'll be doing in February. After shopping, I went back to the massage clinic where I had one of the best massages I've ever had, a Yoga Thai Massage. It was a combination of yoga poses, stretching, and massage. It was heavenly. After my massage, I went to the hotel and joined Eric for lunch. After lunch, Eric and I met up with Jim and Krysti at City Creek, the new mall which we hadn't been to yet. It was nice to walk around the shops and visit with Jim and Krysti.

Fountain at City Creek

Eric and I got ready for the evening. We went to the ballroom where the banquet was to be held. We got our pictures taken, and then picked up our nametags. It took me a little bit, but I finally read all of Eric's ribbons on his nametag. I was expecting to see Royal Blue qualifier. However, I was incredibly surprised to see Golden Eagle below Royal Blue!! This meant Eric had qualified for BOTH the Hawaii trip AND the Sicily trip. I was so excited to find that out. I was also amazed that Eric had qualified. He had always said it's basically impossible to qualify for both trips, so I never had expected that. Woohoo!!!

The evening ended up being very nice. Saturday morning we ate breakfast and then flew back home.

A big thank you to Sharon and Dayna for babysitting the kiddos.