Diamonds and Shopping

I just returned home from Utah. It was a fun filled weekend. My dad bought tickets to Neil Diamond for Friday Night. The concert was great, (I've never seen so many middle-age women at a concert!!) Neil, for being 68 years old, did great. We had a blast, Kelly Rees and I stood up and danced to a few songs--it was great. We all wore fur coats to the concert, it was fun. I didn't realize how many songs Neil Diamond had written. His band was also fantastic, very talented. I laughed when Devin, my 12 year old brother, told my mom--they are all old--even the dancers!! It was a once in a life time opportunity and we had a blast. Saturday was also awesome. Dad had planned an all day shopping trip for the girls and even mapped out three separate boutiques we should visit. Then he handed each one of us one hundred dollars to spend on ourselves!! What an amazing Dad and a great Christmas gift. The men stayed home and babysat and the women went all day shopping. We made it to the Rockloft, Gardener Village, and the Layton Mall. It was a blast and I found some good deals. Dad and everyone else met us that evening at the Mall so we could do our annual Christmas gift shop-a-thon. It's really fun: we exchange names and then we meet at a shopping place. We are then given a time frame and a fifteen dollar limit. It's fun and I hope we keep the tradition up. My kids and I had a great weekend. The kids got pulled being the Ranger with a tube and had a blast and Reagan giggled for the first time. The one low point of the weekend was that Trent wasn't there. He had stayed for his Grandfather's funeral, which he said went well. Trent was where he needed to be and I felt like I was where I needed to be too.I felt terrible about not being there, but I'd talked to Trent and his Dad and decided I needed to go and be with my family. Family is so important, it's everything! I feel extremely blessed to have such a great one.