Women's Day

My stake (church group) has an annual "Women's Day" where all the ladies get together for classes that are educational and/or inspirational and then have a yummy lunch together.  It's a great tradition (especially for those who live to far away for BYU's Women's Conference) and this year's was a hit.

 I went to a parenting class was called "Strategic Parenting" and was based heavily on a book call The Parenting Breakthrough. It was all about preparing your children for adulthood and having set objectives for what each child should be capable of at a certain age.  It was a great class, but my favorite part of Women's Day was learning how to do flood icing on sugar cookies.   I don't know why, but I have this obsession with sugar cookies.  Even though I don't like how they taste, I LOVE making and decorating them but I'm usually too ashamed to give out my messy creations.  Still, I've been hauling around a giant jar of cookie cutters (half of which have never been used) thinking I'll someday know how to make the darling Martha Stewart-esque cookies.  Well friends, that day has arrived.

And a closer look: 

Flood cookies are great. They're darling but don't require much artistic abilities.  Such a shame these were thrown in the trash.  Chris can't eat them, I don't like them, and you can't give away Christmas cookies in September.

Retreat!

A couple of months ago Chris got an unexpected email inviting us on an all expenses paid retreat with the consulting firm he used to work for.  Apparently it's a recruiting tactic to get people to return once they finish school.   I'd heard so much about the famous "McKinsey Retreats" but had never been to one.  Needles to say, we accepted the invite.

So last weekend we flew to Phoenix to leave Esther with her wonderful grandmother and we went to Cancun. (Esther was happy but I was a teary mess).

The retreat was at the Fairmont Mayakoba which was about an hour south of Cancun...and was AMAZING! It was 45 acres and definitely the nicest beach resort I have ever seen. One of my favorite parts was riding the (BMW) bikes around, sipping virgin pina coladas, and as much guacamole as I could eat.  We got to choose one activity per day.  We chose to go zip-lining (way fun!) and a visit to the spa for a massage.  Let me just say Chris and I agreed that a eucalyptus steam room needs to become a regular part of our family.

The McKinsey Retreat lived up to my expectations.  It's only downside was that it was a McKinsey Retreat...so Chris had to go the professional development meetings for the first half of the day.   We decided we would have return later on our own.  Nonetheless, we had a lovely time.

Mayakoba =Marvelous

This place was enormous. You had to take bikes, a golf cart, or a boat to get around.

Someday we'll figure out how to get both our heads in the same picture.