My Summer Vacation -by Lori
The plane flying to Houston left at precisely 3:15 as it was scheduled. It may have been the first time I've ever been on a plane that left on time. Thank you, Continental. However, I was without a watch so the flight was painful. I never knew when we were going to touch down. In Houston I connected to the plane headed for Salt Lake City. It left precisely on time, too. Again, thank you, Continental. And again, I was without a watch (though I searched in the airport stores to no avail) and could not stand not knowing how far into the flight I was. Nevertheless, three hours later I was walking down the corridor to the baggage claim where I was greeted by the wonderful Jonathan and Sarah. We went to Jonathan's best friend's house and drank girly sherbety mixed drinks until we were giggly. Then we went home (Sarah drove, no drunk driving involved), and I tiredly crawled into my newly cleaned and organized guest room.
Thursday I woke up to a blinking clock. The power had gone out. Once again I did not know the time. Gah! I got out of bed and prowled around the house until I found a working clock. 7:00. I reset my clock and went back to sleep until 9.
At 9, I got up and played with their dog, Calvin. Then Sarah awoke and we all sat around and ate toast with her mom. Then at some point Jonathan got up, we all at some point got ready, and then we headed off for Park City (where the Winter Olympics were held a couple years ago.) We stopped at a cliff and gazed at the scenery. Tried to climb up to the top but my weanie lungs couldn't handle the altitude change (and my weanie legs and feet in flipflops didn't like the climb). We drove on into Park City and had lunch. This was the first of my terrible diet I adopted while on vacation. I had a "Pickaxe" burger-- slab of beef with monterrey jack, grilled onions, and avocado on a tasty powdery bun. And a whole lot of fries. Approximately 18 Points I reckon. We walked around a bit and then drove to Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. (I guess it's downtown... I don't actually know.) I didn't take a picture, but here is one I found online:
Here we learned all about how much Mormons love families.
On the way home we stopped by the London Market where we purchased Irn Brus and Yorkies and other British snack items. We stopped by the church as well so I could call my darling Scott. Talking to Scott was the highlight of the days spent in Utah. As much as I adore the Hayses, they are no match for my Scott time. Scott agreed to shave his (too) long sideburns for the wedding. He's excellent.
(Jonathan and Sarah's pastor in Scotland also is giving us a car! But more on that later. This interrupts my essay. But it certainly worth mentioning and thanking the pastor profusely for!)
That evening we were late for dinner but came back to Sarah's family's house for chicken and rice that we almost missed out on. It was very tasty. Sarah's dad is a mean barbequer (as I was soon to find out.) The shiraz was also quite nice. After dinner, Sarah and Jonathan and Sarah's sister and brother-in-law (Anna and Steven) and I got out the Scattergories and the gin. We played an increasingly funnier-as-it-went game. What is sticky and starts with O? I don't know, but Jonathan sure laughed really hard. What is round and starts with N? Nipples, of course. That was an obvious one, at least to me and Sarah. What will you find at a beach that starts with a T? I'll give you one guess. If you guessed titties, you were right! (I sure hope this post gets lots of hits. It should.)
After Scattergories (and a couple gin and cranberry juices) Anna and Steven left and Sarah's younger brother and two younger cousins joined us for a game of Cranium. We split into teams and Jonathan and I kicked serious ass, despite that fact that we were far more sloshed than the other gamesters. I usually am not that much of a drinker--I've been drunk maybe 3 times in my life. I usually know my limit and I stick to it. But it must have been the atmosphere and the laughter and the fact that gin tastes so good that somewhere I passed the threshold and just kept going. I think I drank maybe half the bottle (though granted, I spilled two glasses...) Most of the occurrances are probably "you'd have to be there" funnies so I won't subject you to it. But believe me, it was great.
Well as all good times have their consequences, I awoke the next morning with a serious headache. That serious headache turned to a serious stomachache. That serious stomachache turned into puking in the downstairs bathroom. After that I felt much better and the three of us headed off to Wingers for some delicious and fattening lunch.
The following events were less pleasant so we will skip to dinner. For dinner, Sarah's wonderful dad grilled steaks. My stomach may not have felt the greatest, but who can pass up steak? We then went to the video store to rent a video and the experience was your typical video store experience-- after much wandering around, many half-hearted suggestions, many suggestions to rent videos with ridiculous titles or scandalous pictures, we ended up taking home a favorite among us all-- Love Actually. We picked up a few pints of ice cream as well and watched the movie with Sarah's very cool mom.
The next morning Sarah went with her mom to run the Utah homeschooling convention or something, and I accompanied Jonathan to a yard sale he was committed to. Not much to say about that except Jonathan sold a guitar for $400, had a digital camera stolen, and I ate two chocolate doughnuts. Oh and I found a breast-feeding book in his collection and bought it from him for a quarter. I nearly bought The Prayer of Jabez for Teens, but then I remembered that I hate all that Prayer of Jabez crap so I didn't. I urged Jonathan not to sell such heresy, but money and greed... you know how it goes. (Ha, I kid, I kid.) To tell someone else's joke that um, won't be funny being read on a blog but that keeps me giggling even now... a man looking through the books asked why so many religious books- is someone a theology student? Jonathan admitted, "Yes, I am a theology student, which is why all the religious books. And I am selling these books because I'm a theology student." Oh, I laughed. I cannot tease anyone for the dodgy books they owned in their early Christian days. I have a couple of those dodgy books myself. (Though I had the decency to toss them, not sell them. Heh.) The man ended up buying Jonathan's entire "Left Behind" series. Ah... the secret pasts of theologians... I wonder what secrets our great Reformers had stacked away on a bookshelf once upon a time?
Following the yard sale, we stopped by a couple music stores to check out fiddles. Sarah has been wanting to play. We had no luck and went home. We ate pork ribs. We drank wine.
Jonthan got on eBay and found Sarah a beautiful Francesco Cervini fiddle at a great price. We sang along to music being played in the living room. I went to bed. It had been a lovely day.
Sarah and I got up at 4 the next morning to head back to the airport for my flight at 6. I had gotten a watch while in Utah so the flight home wasn't nearly so miserable. My dad met me at the airport, and the vacation was over.
The End.
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