... that we know how to party?

This weekend was crazy.

It started off with picking up my baby sis from the airport on Thursday night after her trip home for the JB concert (color me jealous).  Then we dropped her off at the bus station Friday morning, only to pick her right back up that night so that she could spend the weekend watching General Conference with us.  She even brought me cookies from Diddy Riese.  Love this girl :)

Cait was not the only one visiting us for conference.  Her roommate Lori joined us, as did Matt's sister (Renee), his cousin (Becca), her fiance (Quentin), and at various times, 2-4 of their friends.  We had a full house!  I loved it!  But alas... I am my mother's daughter: all I could think about was what we were going to eat and would there be enough food for everyone???

I started out with an extra large batch of enchiladas (Matt's favorite) on Friday, which was good cause our guests showed up hungry.  Then for the Saturday morning session I made the traditional Breakfast Casserole, the go-to breakfast at the Blickenstaff house when a lot of people show up.  It turned out pretty good for my first attempt!  Eeeeexcept for the fact that it didn't quite get done until 11:30... I was really just trying to get out of making everyone lunch.  That night, it was meatballs and rice, nice and easy.  I had gotten a big bag of meatballs at Costco and thrown them in the crock pot, only to start freaking out when none of our guests returned from the conference center to eat them.  Luckily for me, they showed up later that night and ate them all, so I did not end up having to eat the whole Costco bag myself.

Next morning was my very first attempt at my mother's cinnamon rolls!!!  I have always wanted to make them and I was super nervous.  I am NOT a baker.  But I really wanted them!  Unfortunately for me, the problems started right away.  First was the yeast: What if the water was too hot?  What if the water was too cold?  What if it didn't "activate?"  What does "activate" even mean?  What if I "killed" it after it "activated?"  I was a basket case.  And then I ran out of flour, of which I knew we didn't have any more.  So what did we do?  Oh, my husband just ground some wheat for me.  Seriously.  My MIL had some wheat and a grinder downstairs and my sweet husband had some fresh flour for me in three minutes.  Who does that?  My husband and the pioneers, that's who.  And maybe some Native Americans.  Anyway, I finally got the dough made and waited not-so-patiently for it to rise.  Matt even tried to hurry the process up with his body heat:

What a great husband.

After it finally rose, it was time to roll!

Cut with thread, just like Mama taught me.

Waiting for them to rise AGAIN.

Maybe a taaaaad too golden brown...

But still pretty delicious!  Topped with homemade frosting, with a tiny extra crunch from the fresh ground wheat.  Not the light, fluffy, soft rolls of pillowy goodness that my mom has perfected, but pretty good for my first attempt.  She probably would have been proud of the ground wheat too.  Unfortunately these too were not done until 12:30, so strike 2 for my breakfast attempts.  Oh well, they still got eaten.

Cait's roommate really wanted to go to go to the Conference Center for a session, and lucky for us Becca gave us 4 tickets to the Sunday afternoon session!  So we took our cinnamon rolls in the car and raced up to Salt Lake.

We attempted to get Renee a ticket too, but unfortunately that didn't work out (sorry Renee!) so she watched with the Nuttalls instead.  I was afraid we weren't even going to get in cause it was seriously PACKED.  But miracle of miracles, we got seats and Lori got to watch Conference live for the first time.

That's the face of a dream coming true.

And of course, the obligatory pic of the temple after the session.  Good times.

Afterward, we raced back home for a pot roast dinner, just the way my mama makes it: served over rice with lots of gravy.  Who eats their roast with rice, you might ask?  Asians, that's who.  What can I say, this weekend's food was a tribute to my mother.  She is the one who taught me to cook, after all.  And I haven't had any complaints yet.  Love you Mom!  And I love Conference!