Downtown and Fun With Friends

I had made plans to go Downtown Salt Lake City
on Monday to meet up with a friend
and also because it had been YEARS since I had been there!

The day before was a beautiful day,
so imagine my disappointment when I wake up
to find it is pouring down rain!

The majority of my day involved walking around downtown!
Not much fun doing that when it's raining!
I was also bummed because I had planned on
taking tons of pictures of downtown and at Temple Square.
A rainy, overcast sky doesn't make as nice of a background
as the lovely blue sky there was just 24 hours before.

Still, I pressed forward with my plans.

My sister Trisha and I took a bus to a TRAX station
and we took TRAX to get downtown.

When we got there, we walked over to
the Joseph Smith Memorial Building
where we had planned to meet up.

A few minutes later, my friend Deanna arrived
along with her darling 3 year old daughter, Emma.
It had been about three years since I last saw them
at a baby shower for Emma!

We took the elevator up to see if we wanted to
have lunch at the restaurant there.

Nothing really caught our eye, so we decided to
check out somewhere else for lunch.

But before we left, we had to take advantage
of the marvelous view up there and take a few pictures.

Me and D

Sisters

I remembered that we got off right in front of JB's Restaurant
and that it would probably have a good variety of meals,
as well as kid friendly. So we ended up going there for lunch.
It was fun catching up on each others' lives and reminiscing
about the "good old days" back in Concord.
Unfortunately, Emma's naptime was approaching,
so we weren't able to visit for as long as we'd have liked,
but it was still wonderful to be able to get together
even for the brief time we did.

One of my favorite parts of our visit was when Deanna
was telling me how she was showing her mom
pictures on my Facebook page of my super cute,
absolutely adorable, smoochy sweet nephew, Benjamin.
Her response to these photos made me smile.
"Is that the baby? The one with the curly blonde hair?"
[Referring to Benjamin's mommy, my sister, Katrina.]
Deanna told her that it was.
"Isn't she only like fifteen years old?" [No, she's almost 27!]
Oh, dear sweet Sister Flud, I feel the same way!
[Only for me it's five, not fifteen.]

Since it was still raining, my sister and I decided to
check out the [new-to-us] City Creek Center.

We both agreed that it was a nice mall.
Although not so nice when we were trying
to locate the restrooms and when we found one
it was only a restroom for one...
and there was a guy inside!
OOPS!!!

After looking around there for a while
[and finding some bargain goodies at Deseret Book],
we made our way over to Temple Square.

It was still raining, but we made the best of it and tried to get some nice photos.
However, I didn't get to take as many photos with my camera
because my batteries died on me and my back-up batteries
apparently weren't charged enough either. Grrr!!!
So the majority of the photos were taken with Trisha's camera,
some of which she took and some that I took.

After pulling ourselves away from the peace and beauty of Temple Square
we made a quick stop at the Family History Center.
We just looked around a bit and I hoped we might bump into the Seables,
who are serving a mission there, but sadly, we didn't see them.
Then we went inside the Church History Museum
and walked around there for a little bit.
It didn't seem like it had changed too much since I was last there.

We headed back to TRAX to head back to Grandma's.
But we went to a couple more stores first.
And I'm glad we did because I found a couple pairs of cute shoes!
[I've been needing some more shoes for a while now and
it's getting harder to find ones that I like, that fit my feet and my budget!

The following day, I was able to meet up with my friend Kristen
and her youngest little cutie, Walker.

We were going to have lunch together, but we weren't sure where to go.
I knew of an area that had a number of different restaurants,
so we headed that direction.
When we got there, we decided on Texas Roadhouse.
[I thought it was appropriate, with me currently living in Texas and all.]
We sat in the car and talked for a while first,
mainly because Walker was still sleeping.
So when he got up, we made our way to the restaurant
only to discover the doors were locked!!!
They were closed!
Apparently, they only serve lunch Friday-Sunday!

So I mentioned that there was a place across the street
that served sandwiches and soups and stuff, so we went there.

 [Oh yeah, they also serve delicious enormous ice cream sundaes there, too!]

We had a good time catching up and watching Walker interact
with a baby girl who was sitting across from us.

Of course, I couldn't leave Leatherby's without any ice cream!
So I ordered a sundae to go as well as some pistachio ice cream
for my sister, since it's her favorite kind and sometimes hard to find.

Before we said our goodbyes, we got a quick self-pic of us.

Hope it won't be another four years until we see each other again!