71 Toes: MFME

My Mom and sisters came to visit the desert a couple weeks ago.

Oh how I adore these women. It's like Christmas morning when we get together...serious therapy for my soul.

Let's just pretend that my mother was actually placed better in that picture up there...she needs to be front and center...or let's just imagine we're carrying her on our shoulders or something in deep gratitude for who she is, what she represents, what she's taught us over the years, how much we adore her and how she works to orchestrate getting us together from all over the place each year.

This "MFME" dealio (that stands for "mothers and future mothers of eyrealm") ideally happens with the sister-in-laws too but they each had some pretty big conflicts this spring. When we get together we discuss books and thoughts and ideas and food. We talk a lot about food. We're weird that way (and in a lot of other ways too...).

My sister Charity did a great write-up of this over HERE, and my sister Saydi wrote up the details over HERE but for record's sake here's my perspective:

Saydi and her daughter Hazel arrived first. They are in the midst of some serous snow in Boston so they came early and left late to thaw out their bones a little bit.

Much to Claire's delight I picked her up from school early and we went into the big city for a mother/daughter lunch and checked into our hotel early to swim and bask in the sun.

Saydi and I did a little synchronized swimming with our girls ("add-ons") after some long poolside discussions and I'm pretty sure they thought they think we are now rock stars :) Ha!

That night Charity came. My kids hadn't seen her since before she was married (back HERE), so it was an extra joyous reunion.

The first night we stayed at a hotel and talked all night and then all day. We discussed our deep-rooted desires, the "word" we are all working on in some way or another (ENJOY). Each of us seems to want to go against the current in life in many ways and we tried to dissect why as we marched around the lazy river the wrong way to push ourselves and get exercise. Hmmmm...kind of ironic.

We took the most gorgeous hike. It's taken me some years to get used to minimal "seasons" and the beauty of the desert but boy it's grown on me, and I love to share it.

I'm not sure how three of us ended up in skirts for the hike but there we were, comfy and cool in the gorgeous desert.

I'll let the pictures tell the story on the hike. (Saydi took those first two beauties and some of these are from Saren too.)

We could hardly bear to peel ourselves away it was so gorgeous as the sun sunk down behind those saguaros creating the most beautiful silhouettes we could never quite capture on our iPhones.

We joined up with the beautiful younger ladies for church the next day:

These two had had quite the time at our house while we were gone...nothing like getting cousins together.

I love cooking with my sisters. Claire had the brilliant idea to set up this time-laps video while we cooked and I love it. Love that it shows a little snippet into how we work together.

My sisters and mom are all great cooks. I love to glean from their know-how in the kitchen.

And of course I had to put my camera to use...

We took a little trip to the temple to discuss a beautiful talk my mom had sent us before we gathered.

But it was suddenly so darn chilly we relocated to a little warmer spot:

The article we discussed was all about "Grace" and it is HERE (or you can watch it HERE). So many treasures and things to think about there.

We visited my brother and had lunch with him the next day.

And one by one those amazing ladies I get to be related to had to trickle out back to their own lives.

Luckily we got Saydi and Hazel for a little extra bonus time so we could do the FHE-in-our-pjs-to-go get-frozen-yogurt-together deal.

...and Sayds and I fit in one more gorgeous hike.

We almost made it to the very top. It was against everything in us to not make it all the way when it was this close:

But we were in a time crunch to get back to the little girls and the airport so we enjoyed our little perch near the top before we turned around.

And continued our velvety conversations back down.

So hard to say goodbye, but we all left feeling so empowered and bonded and filled with love. And more grateful than ever for each other.