Southern Utah Extravaganza!

 Don't let that blue sky in the corner fool you - it rained for three days straight! And it was WONDERFUL!! I am going to tell you the story of the last week of my life. You see, my last post left off with me attending conference on Saturday morning and....whatever else happened Saturday. That's where this story begins!

Sunday morning, I travelled to my grandparents' house in Payson to watch conference with family. It was quite nice. The home-cooked lunch didn't hurt any either :) I didn't get to see my aunt and cousins til about 5:30 p.m. though, and when I went to their house, they were getting ready to visit their other grandma in the nursing home which she now lives. Alright, I'll go too. Unfortunately, just ten minutes after getting there, Malcolm (my best cousin's husband) tells Anelise (my best cousin) that they have to head back to Cedar City now. "Nooooo!", says I. "Why don't you come with us??", says Malcolm. So I did. Bahaha! Ok it took a little more persuasion and thought (on my part) before I decided to go, but I did end up going! They would be returning next weekend anyway....why not?? So I got to spend the week hanging out with my best cousin and her husband. Some might think that would be awkward. Some would be right. Just kidding! It really wasn't that bad. Anelise only worked on Tuesday and Friday, so we just got to play the rest of the time! Great fun! As you can clearly see from the badminton picture below :)

 Now, I just have a few sights to mention and stories to tell. First of all, Anelise and I drove around southern Utah for 3 hours on Thursday trying to get to Alton. We had hiked to the Red Cliffs (which was beautiful!) with Malcolm in St. George, and we were going to go to Malcolm's parents' house and quad around their podunk little hometown called Alton. However, we took a wrong turn and ended up in Arizona! The happiest surprise of all!! I told Anelise to turn around so we could take a pic with the Welcome to Arizona sign, but she ended up flipping a U in front of a cop and we got pulled over. Bahaha! He was nice though and only gave her a warning. My favorite part though was when he said "have you ever been pulled over in Arizona before?" and the welcome to Utah sign was like 500 ft from where we were stopped. Give me a break, popo! Whatev. Anyway, on our scenic route to Alton, I saw a place called Doggy Dude Ranch. I just really thought that was worth mentioning. I also saw a man bicycling. What's so special about that, you may ask? Well, this man had a long beard that was rubber-banded right under his chin and then again a few inches under that. CLASSY.

And now, my favorite story: Anelise works for Lifetouch, so she travels to different schools and takes the kids' pictures for the yearbook and whatnot. The school we went to on Friday was the smallest little place, that just happened to be an hour and a half away from Cedar City, and the gym in which she took the pictures was just quite puzzling to me indeed. All around the walls were these huge bold words that were obviously supposed to be qualities that the elementary kids are to be working towards. However, the tense of the words was constantly varied in the most confusing way! I will list the words for you now: "Sportsmanship, Effort, Considerate, Trustworthy, Happy, Respect, Honesty, Friendly, Integrity, Attitude, Kindness, Perseverance". Am I the only one who doesn't get it?!? Should "respect" not be "respectful"? And where does "sportsmanship" and "effort" come into play?? Don't worry, though, they had classy pictures like the one below to help their students become model citizens. I just couldn't leave that place without noting these things.

We did finally make it to Alton, just Anelise and I, and it was so much fun! That whole week was just perfect. I got to be lazy (what else is new?), spend more time with Anelise than I have in years, enjoy the cool weather, and watch at least two movies per day :) What more could you want??

Thanks for tuning in, folks! See ya next time!