I made a super quick trip to California on my own this weekend. Wendy decided she wanted to go to the temple to receive her endowments this weekend, even though she knew that a bunch of family were coming to Utah for Adam’s baby blessing two weeks earlier and that I am planning on bringing my family down three weeks from now. I was slightly frustrated that she would plan it right in between two other family events. Then, when we got word that Great Grandma Ruby wasn’t doing very well and wasn’t going to make it and we ended up in North Carolina for a week, I was more than ever, hoping that Wendy would change her mind and reschedule to make things a bit easier. But she wouldn’t and because the kids had already missed several days of school because we were on the east coast, I just couldn’t make myself load them all up in the van and take a road trip THIS weekend. I really didn’t want to drive through the night, because that was the only way we would have been able to make it work. So, being very sad that I couldn’t take my family with me, I hopped on a plane all by myself Friday night after my Girl Scout meeting. The good thing about flying alone this time, was that I actually got to read my book (The Neverending Story by Michael Ende). When we flew to North Carolina, and home again, we had all the kids and two of them were lap sitters, which meant that Kyle and I each had a kid in our lap for the whole flight, and reading a book meant trying to keep the book away from the lap child at the same time. 😛
The airplane that I was on this time, was a LOT smaller than the ones we were on to go to North Carolina. And even though I packed super light, and shoved my temple bag into my smallest suitcase so that I would only have one carry on and my purse, my carry on was still too big. The over head compartments in this plane were only big enough to hold backpacks, nothing bigger. And if you had a really big backpack stuffed to the gills, that wouldn’t have fit either. So they ended up checking my bag at the gate.
I arrived in California safely, and after collecting my suitcase I worked my way outside and called my dad. He found me and picked me up and we went to the house. It was rather late when we got there and so we just went to bed.
Saturday was rather insane. We woke up and got ready for the trip to the temple. Dad had bought muffins for breakfast, and after Wendy arrived, we were off to the temple. We got to the temple a little bit early, so before going inside, we went to check out the visitor’s center. A couple of sister missionaries showed us some of the neat things that are new in the visitor’s center, and then it was time to be getting Wendy inside the temple. The session was a 1:30pm session, but Wendy was supposed to be there at noon. Mom, being Wendy’s escort went with her, and Dad and I went to hang out in the cafeteria for a little bit.
After the session was over and Mom and Wendy and I were all back in our regular church clothes, we went out to find Dad. But we didn’t see him anywhere. He came out of the dressing room several minutes later saying that someone else was in his locker when he got there to change. Then we went out to the car, and after realizing that there wasn’t enough time to go get some dinner, we headed straight to my parent’s stake center for the adult session of their stake conference. President Francis, was being released as stake president this weekend and my parent’s didn’t want to miss it. My family has known President Francis for many years. He was the Bishop in my family’s ward when my family was baptized, 15 years ago. We finished up the evening by going to Mimi’s Cafe. I would have rather gone to The Whole Enchilada, but they weren’t open as late as Mimi’s was.
Sunday morning, we went to the general session of Stake conference, and I saw a bunch of people that are still in my parent’s ward after all these years. A lot of the people have changed, but some of the faces are still familiar. President Francis was released this morning. They announced that he has been called to be the mission president in the Rochester, New York mission, and so he is selling is chiropractor practice and they are selling their family home and he and his wife will be taking their kids to go live in New York.
This afternoon after church, I changed and got everything packed back up. I told mom that I planned on leaving my temple bag, since I will be back down in just three weeks and I will need it for that trip too. I had time to eat my leftovers from Mimi’s, and then Dad took me back to the airport. RIGHT as we were getting to my terminal, he was pulled over. I felt so bad, but I didn’t have time to stick around and find out why he had been pulled over, so I went into the airport to figure out how to get on my plane home. Later I saw that he had texted me that he had only been pulled over because there wasn’t a license plate on the front of the car. That cop must have been bored or something. I made it home safely, and Kyle and the kids met me at the airport to pick me up. And now I can get started on moving into my newly finished basement!