it's time to come on out.

The first Friday in October, I picked Leslie up from the airport for General Conference weekend. Like other times we had visitors, I had a mental checklist of things I hoped she would experience, including:

• Good weather. Well, after a week of glorious weather here and cold weather in Utah, the weather swapped so our weekend was pretty cold and windy! So we didn't spend much time outside, especially Saturday. But we still got to go on a nice walk Sunday and go to a cider mill Monday, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

• Good night's sleep. Finally, the truth came out -- sleeping on the futon was "a little more comfortable than sleeping on the floor." Everyone else who's slept there was just being tactful, or really tired.
  
• Good food. I had dropped Joseph off at a friend's house while I was picking Leslie up, and on our way to her house I ran into a Muslim neighbor of mine who was getting ready for their holy weekend. "It's kind of our holy weekend too," Leslie said, though I don't think he heard her. Anyway, we sort of forgot about the Hajj until we were driving to a Syrian place for lunch the next day. As we were pulling in, I said, "Wouldn't it be funny if this were closed for their holy weekend?" And then it was. But with a little bit more searching, we managed to find some falafels and shawarma for her to try. So I suppose it was a success.



Here is some other food at the ward conference brunch. I think it was also good.

• Good foliage. When Leslie came for Thanksgiving two years ago, I felt so bad that she had come after all the leaves had fallen. This year I was determined that she would get to see vivid colors. Since the leaves had already started changing by the beginning of August, I was afraid that General Conference was going to be too late. But then September was warm, so most of the trees were still green. To steer her mind away from this disappointment, I was sure to point out each and every tree that had non-green leaves. I'm sure she appreciated it.

There's one back there.

There are some more.

• Good games with good sports. I think the games were fun (Dominion, Skip-Bo, and Scrabble Apple), but there might have been a few sore losers. Or just one sore loser. Who was not Kevin or Leslie. Haha. Oops.
  
• Good nephew time. I think we succeeded here. Dance parties, tower building, story after story after story, cider mills, more tower building at the library . . . this was the real reason she came, right?

I love this one

• Good General Conference. It was great. Of course.

Whether or not my mental checklist came to fruition, we sure had a good time! Thanks for coming back to visit!

title inspiration: "Level Up," Vienna Teng (all of Leslie's blog titles are from Vienna Teng. And this song is about Detroit. So it totally works . . . right?)