Home Again

I had a wonderful time in Idaho. Lo and family were awesome. Lo's daughter, A., was such a cutie!! She can tell a story like you wouldn't believe. It was actually hard to believe some of the stories, too (like when she said they brought a jaguar to her school and someone had to fight the jaguar. Do you know who they picked? A.! And she is the youngest in the whole school!! That was quite a story right there.). KeeJay said he wanted to come home with me. I asked him if he thought he'd fit in my (overstuffed) suitcase, and he smiled and said, "Yes!!" Parker did really well on the plane, bothing coming and going. He stayed pretty happy the whole trip, but you could tell he was excited to be home with his daddy and brothers.

I did miss Aiden and Dallin a lot. I know they missed me, and the hugs and cuddles I got from them when I got home were wonderful. Aiden was quite emotional on Sunday in church without me there, but he's getting back to normal now. Yesterday he didn't want to go to school. I made him go anyway. His teacher told me he was pretty good, but kept saying how tired he was and he needed a nap. At one point he started asking them to call me because his "lips hurt". I said, "Okay, Napolean! Just because you were born in Preston doesn't mean you have to act out the movie!" What's really funny is that I don't think Aiden has actually seen the movie. The lips hurting business was just something he came up with. Crazy kid.

One of the best parts of my trip was being able to go to my old ward in Preston. It felt like coming home. Everyone was so excited to see me and soooooo many people asked if we had moved back. They were pretty disappointed when I said no. I sat with a family that we often sat near, and it was just like old times. The mom and I sat next to each other in Relief Society, too, and we just whispered together like we did 3 years ago. It was so fun. I enjoyed seeing some of my young women again. They are all so grown up now! One in particular (who is part of the family I was sitting with) really just surprised me. When I was you YW leader, I knew she had a testimony of the Church and everything. I had heard her bear her testimoney at Girl's Camp and she would make really good comments in class on Sundays. This week though, I could see something so different. She is a freshman at BYU and you can see the excitement about what she is learning (not just in her secular classes, but in her religion classes, too). She just glowed from head to foot. She bore her testimony during sacrament meeting, and shared comments and observations during Relief Society. Her testimoney of the Church has grown by leaps and bounds. I couldn't be more proud of her! It really does sound so cliche', but she has truely grown into a beautiful young lady.

Lo and I took her family to Rexburg on Saturday and we went to our old stomping grounds at the Snow Building (the Fine Arts building). This picture is of Laural and me with Eliza R. Snow. Eliza took care of us while we were there as students, so we just HAD to see her again! :) All of you alumni would be soooo surprised at the changes in the Snow building! They have recently added 3600 square feet to the building. There is a very large rehearsal room (it's niiiiiiiice!), new instrument lockers, new bathrooms, a percussion "suite" (small ensemble rehearsal room, storage rooms, and Bro. Taylor's new office), new classrooms and practice rooms, a black box theatre, costume shop, ticket booth, and I can't remember what else for the theatre department (sorry Lura. But you know us musicians tended to ignore you theatre freaks as much as possible. heh). It was really cool to see the new stuff in the building as well as the old stuff.

We drove up on the hill and saw the Rexburg Temple. It's still being built, but when it's done it is just going to be gorgeous!! I think I was expecting to see one of the regular "small" temple designs, but the architecture is nothing like that.

The wierdest thing about being in Rexburg was when I got out of the car into the wind and snow. Now, I remembered that it was super cold there during the winter. I remembered that it was windy. There were many reasons why the town was nicknamed "Iceburg" by the students. However, my memory had faltered. I stepped out of the van and I'm telling you, the cold wind reached up and bit me. It was soooo cold! I can't even describe it! I said to Laural, "How did we live in this climate and walk everywhere??? This is miserable!" I loved my time at Ricks College, and I still try to encourage everyone I know to attend BYU-Idaho, but my goodness, I don't know if I could ever live in that winter again!

I had a great time with Laural. She's not my BFF for nothing! We had a whole afternoon of eating and shopping in Logan where we got to have lots of girl talk. Oh! And of course we stopped at the Pepperidge Farms factory and bought big bags of "seconds" from the Thrift Store. Mmmmmm, Milanos. Anyway, I miss hanging out with Lo. I hope you can come visit us soon!! And I really hope we are able to come up there this summer, too. It was not enough time. It never is.

THANKS FOR THE FUN AND RELAXING VACATION, LO! YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!!