RootsTech 2018

RootsTech is the world's largest family history conference.  It is held at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City in the winter.  This was our third year going as a family.  My fifth year attending.  RootsTech is always a blast and this year was no exception.  

We flew into Salt Lake City and stayed at the Holiday Inn right across the street.  It works perfect for us! We cross the street in the morning and then enjoy the spirit and camaraderie that is RootsTech all day long! 

This year we were on the twelfth floor and had a pretty view of the valley and city lights. 

RootsTech sponsored a Photo-Story contest this year.  And I decided to enter.  We could enter one photo for each of four themes, Heritage, Belong Connect, Family

This is a story about surprising some of my grandchildren with chocolate cake for breakfast one year during a visit. 

This is a about my feelings of seeing an empty wheelchair with Evan playing in the water in Morro Bay. 

Christmas trees and lights are my favorite and I shared a story about my mom loved Christmas too! I am happy I entered, it was fun to see my pictures on display!!   The pictures are going to be placed on display at Family Discovery Centers throughout the United States.

During the day we attended inspiring keynote addresses and listen to classes on all kinds of different subjects from using DNA in family history history, finding Catholic records,  how to store and share digital records and photos etc.

I had never heard of Natalia LaFourcade before.  She is a famous Latin American singer. She has a beautiful voice and an intriguing family history story.  You can watch her keynote address here.

One of the fun classes we attended was about the reality show Relative Race.  We are fans! It was fun to see two of the teams and we even were able to try out one of the challenges in the expo hall. 

 For this challenge you had to build a tower at least three feet tall that stands at least for five seconds and includes all the pieces that you can see there.  The round pieces baffled me at first!  It was hard but I finally did it!!

My favorite keynote address this year was Scott Hamilton, the ice skater.  He was adopted as a baby and was very ill as a child, but persevered and become a much beloved Olympian Ice Skater. He has such a great positive and happy attitude! You can watch his keynote address here.

 

Of course what would RootsTech be, without getting together with our family.

John's family meet us Wednesday night at Bucco di Beppo's one of my favorite Italian restaurants.

Then the very next night, we went again. This time to meet with David's family and Sarah's family.

It was so fun to see everyone!

We celebrated Joanna's birthday a few days early!!

We have the best family!  It snowed Sunday morning making it difficult for us to get out with Evan.  Our families brought us dinner in the late afternoon and we converged on the breakfast room (with permission of course).  We enjoyed eating, playing games and talking together.

Choo Choo!! This is a train game.

Daniel and Joanna entertaining each other.

John and little Owen.

Leah taught us a new card game her friend made up. It was pretty fun!

Just chatting!

A trip up the elevator!!

Love both these smily faces.  Owen is our youngest grandchild and Spencer is our oldest!

I am not sure how she did it, but Sariah came color coordinated with the furniture!!

We had time Monday before our flight to walk to over to Temple Square.

I love all the spires reaching for heaven.

Evan could not resist throwing a snowball at this dad!  What a surprise!!

On our way to back to finish packing up at the hotel we spied these workers taking down the awesome RootsTech sign.  I hope those guys have good life insurance, looks like a scary job.  Goodbye RootsTech until next year!