Sister Fest 2009

I've just returned from Sister Fest 2009, aka Apple Fest 2009.

I spent 6 days visiting my two sisters Briana and Candice in Salt Lake City.
It was great to see Salt Lake again, I really like that city, and I loved seeing their cute new house they are renting together.

The main goal of our weekend was to collect free apples, juice them, dry them, sauce, them, and eat them. I think we did well.

We harvested about 19 bags of apples of different varieties (gala/braeburn type, red delicious, golden delicious...) and we also harvested about 4 bags of walnuts while we were at it.

Salt Lake City and Provo, UT are goldmines of urban harvest. I loved that part of living there, and it makes visits very worthwhile...plus I was with my sisters!

Salt Lake City and Provo, UT are also goldmines of church history, obviously. It's funny to think I lived there for 5 years and never cared much about all the historical buildings, church history museums, family history libraries, and temples. During this trip to Salt Lake City, it worked out to go to the Salt Lake City Temple with my old friend Sara. We both had never been to that temple before.

A little history...
Construction was started in 1853 by the small group of distressed saints that had recently migrated from the East Coast by wagon and hand cart. They had nearly nothing, and the building was slow and difficult. Construction was finished in 1893. It's still the largest of the 130+ LDS temples around the world, and has almost all of the original decorations (hand carved wood railings and baseboards, stained glass, paintings, doorknobs, etc). Its a very historic building; we had a lot of fun exploring around.

Beside spending time with my sisters, it was wonderful to see old friends! You have no idea how much I miss living near good friends, being able to walk to friends' houses, have them over for dinner, babysitting with them...

We planned a Fall pot luck and invited those good friends I have been missing.


On the last day...it snowed!

And then we picked rose hips for rose hip syrup.

It was fun packing to see my sisters. I brought all my cutest things:

:)