The Weekend So Long Ago

Ahhh...

Can you say premonition? Well maybe, close-call?

As Jenni and I were driving down to lovely Davis County last weekend, my dream of a post ago almost became a reality. One second, Jenni was pointing out colorful bug guts on my window, the next second brake lights were flashing in front of me. I slam on my breaks!! -and my clutch amazingly at the same tome. My fight-or-flight response turns all the way up as it began telling me, "Melissa you're gonna slam into that car in front of you, swerve off into the dividing island between North and South bound traffic. Don't hit the car! Run away." But I kept stopping that all most too powerful reflex by reminding myself that swerving would not be a smart move; probably a far worse outcome would occur if I did so then if I rammed into the car in front of me. (After the intense few seconds, Jenni and I both relayed thoughts of flipping over into oncoming traffic if I had swerved.) It would have been bad! I magnificently stopped my car in time. It is a really good thing the freeway wasn't backed up, because with the amount of rubber that left my tires to permanently attach itself to the road and the amount of "smoke" from my intense breaking, we would have been hit. We would probably still be suffering from the whiplash!

Wow, can you say: WELCOME TO YOUR TRIP!

The weekend was great, minus that hair-raising couple of minutes. (By the way, it took a good 10 to 15 minutes for my heart rate to get back down to normal.) The trip was a go-with-the-flow-ordeal. No stress, no concrete schedule to keep. It was blissful.

We had been planning this weekend since the first time we went out to eat at Olive Garden, oh so long ago. It's been anticipatingly highlighted in my calendar! The plan was simple: drive to Salt Lake, do a session at the SLC Temple, watch the Joseph Smith movie, sleep at my house in Centerville, come back home. Simple. 

Even though it stayed simple in nature, it was far from bland.

The trip was supposed to start at 1:30. But thanks to Jenni's new and amazing calling, we had to push that time back a half hour or so. Since I had nothing to do but wait for Jenni to change at 1:30, I kept stuffing things in my car. What should have been a rather simple trip with a change of clothes, turned out being the trip I'd bring 1/2 my belongings home with me! My car was stuffed full! (Right about now, I wish I had kept my space heater. But who in their right mind would think it would snow on April 24th all day long. No one!)

Finally we were exiting the Logan city boundaries at about 2:15. Jenni and I took the scenic route through West Logan which we hadn't realized existed before that day. This occurred because we, well I (the driver), decided to get off jammed Main Street and try to make a quicker exit through the suburbs. (Right now, and during the ordeal, I wonder if it really was quicker. Ah, I guess we will never know!)

But finally, we left Logan and started our grandiose adventure down to Salt Lake City.

We were listening to crazy music and singing right along with it. My car didn't like some of the music choices and he showed his dislike by huffin and puffin his way up Sardine Canyon. Drama queen of a car, I'm telling you! He was performing the story of "the little engine that couldn't". Crazy, spoiled car!! (You got to love his breaking skills though!!)

Well we finally found some music Charlie (my car) could be cool listening to, and we finally made it out of the canyon!

Jenni and I long ago started the tradition of stopping at the Sonic in Brigham City every time we drove through it. We were not going to change that tradition that weekend. We pulled in and ordered. Then we sat! and sat. and sat. and sat. and sat!!!! Then we got so bored of waiting for our two large drinks that we scrambled around in my teeny car to try to document the tradition by taking a picture, somehow capturing Sonic in the background.
As you can tell that plan didn't go so well! You can kind of see Sonic menus in the background, but it would have been so cool if we had our DRINKS!

After that picture taking extravaganza, Jenni received a phone call from Stephan (who if I haven't told you decided to bum his way into this weekend so he could hang with Jenni. How adorable!!)
Well as we sat and sat, the children's hymn "And the Pioneer Children Walked and Walked" kept playing over and over in my head except with different words of course. "And the Pretty Women Sat and Sat and Sat". I could take it no longer, I hopped out of my car, and buzzed the Sonic workers and asked if they had forgotten us because we had been waiting for our drinks for a solid twenty minutes now. They had forgotten us, and rushed those drinks out to us! (Mind you we still had to pay for the drinks! If Dairy Queen had skipped an order, I am pretty sure the workers would have given them tokens galore while apologizing profusely.)

The drinks were well worth it though, as my car had been soaking up the warm heat for a good twenty minutes. The drinks were very refreshing.

We were then on our way again. By this time, we had quickly, and unstressfully changed our plans because there was no way we were going to be making the 5 o'clock session at the temple due to the perfectionist drink maker at Sonic who had to take 20 minutes to perfect our Cherry and Strawberry Limeades. It was beautiful how with-the-flow we were! It was almost artistic! 

It was between Sonic and Centerville, my dream almost came true. After the moment, we wish we could have taken a picture of our "I'm gonna die." faces, but we decided it would have been rather difficult and we had more important things on our minds, like survival. My car professionally stamped his signature all over Southbound I-15 with black tire rubber, saving our lives I might add. ( I guess he really liked the song we were listening to at that moment.)

Alive and kicking, we drove into my driveway where my dad had magnificently spread lunch out for us. Those hamburgers were delicious, and because of the going-with-the-flow attitude we had, we didn't have to scarf them down!! Yummy. We also ate Jalapeno, and Hawaiian BBQ chips (so proud of Jenni for loving Jalapeno chips by the way! so proud) and some chilled root beer. Lunch was superb. Thank you Daddy!!

As we drove into Salt Lake, we could barely see anything. There was so much wind blowing dirt and who knows what else all over the place. Taking pictures on Temple Square was a hoot. Holding our skirts down, keeping Jenni's hair out of my mouth, keeping Stephan's tie from slapping him in the face. The wind was crazy!!

We entered the temple and were blown away with the size and beauty of that building!! It was gorgeous. Those couple of hours were stupendous and breathtaking!!! (I will only say one thing: rotten egg)- you had to be there! 

We left the temple spiritually uplifted and feeling like we could fly. We went and got our cameras from my car to document the trip... actually there was a secret motive for bringing my camera. Along with wanting to document the trip, and get pictures to put on my blog, I have been asked by several people for a picture of this mysterious Stephan! Well, here he is in all his glory, you inquisitive people:

(he's the one on the left just in case you needed to be told)

He came in a white shirt and tie. Jenni and I don't really know why. We were both secretly grateful though because we would have been really jealous of his casual attire, for we were still wearing skirts and pantyhose!

We tried to take some pictures, but the sun had irritatingly gone down, and the wind was still strongly kicking. As you might tell,

See how the reflection pool is wavy... not normal!

After the failed attempt of documenting our time on Temple Square, Stephan and I introduced Jenni to one of the greatest movies ever: Joseph Smith: the Prophet of the Restoration.

(we thought, maybe, we could take a better picture inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, 

but our wind blown hair shot down that wonderful thought.)

As we sat in our chairs, we noticed (and then was pointed out to us by a volunteer) what highly looked like a body bag. Creepy!! It was actually though a black garbage bag covered chair on which someone had thrown up on. The volunteer kindly mentioned we might like to move because of a possible smell. Jenni and I had just suffered through rotten egg smell, so the smell of throw up never reached our senses! The body bag looking thing kept our attention though until the powerful cinematography pulled our eyes away and we were introduced into the beautiful countryside of New England!

The church did an excellent job in producing and directing that movie. I have seen it many a time, but by the end, I say weeping! That movie is gorgeous, powerful, full of the Spirit, and a testimony of the divinity of the Prophet Joseph Smith's call to restore the true gospel of Christ on the Earth. It magnificently showed the spirit and testimony of that man as he suffered through so much for the truth he knew! It made me want to be a little bit better. Joseph Smith is one of the heroes in my life, and the movie visually and spiritually reminded me why!

I am so glad that I got to share that movie with Jenni. The movie made me so excited to get out to Albania and preach this divine gospel of Christ that I know is true!! So excited!!

But I digress.

The weekend did not end there though we did part ways with Stephan! We walked to the parking garage with him, which would make Kaylon proud. (It was dark, and we girls were walking through a dark dangerous city!) Stephan didn't really have a choice though, because he was parked in the same garage. While we walked, we did use Stephan as a camera man again to take a couple of pictures at the Conference Center.

(as you can tell it was getting really dark)

We finally made our way to our cars where Jenni and Stephan said goodbye. They took a good 10 to 15 minutes to do so! Their lengthy goodbye might have been due to the amount of traveling time what each of them said took to get to each other. They were standing a good 7 feet away from each other! Odd!!! I rectified the situation by telling them they were both crazy! Then Stephan was leaving with no hug. (Maybe they didn't want to hug in front of me, you know keeping the amount of PDA (public displayed affection) down to a minimum, but I would have none of that.) I once again told them they were crazy, and Stephan had better give her a hug! Jenni still hangs out with me, so I don't think she found the crazy-calling offensive at all!

Even though we had eaten just a few hours before, as we sat in my car we realized we were starving. The night was far from over so we had to have a feast. We drove through Taco Bell. We met the most amazing young man at that drive-thru. He was amazing because within seconds he was completely in love with both of us. Flirting up a storm with stories of giving one mild sauce, one hot sauce, and lots of fire sauce to someone. Odd!- but hilarious.

We finally made it to my house even after watching this guy tease us by putting one mild sauce, one hot sauce, and one fire sauce into our bag. Can you say, WOW! (This whole sauce subject came up when he asked us what kind of sauce we wanted and because of the time and lack of brain activity, we couldn't decide. That will be the last time I will not be decisive!)

 (Have i said how utterly freezing I am!) Intermission time: take a look at this picture.

This is Old Main Hill on April 24th. That is snow!-just in case you were wondering what that white stuff is.

Okay back to Centerville. We got situated and started watching another one of the greatest movies, "Persuasion". Beautiful movie. I am ashamed to say though, I fell asleep! It was late and I was exhausted. I woke up at one in the morning with a really odd feeling though. It felt like the whole world was awake. Everyone was awake and trying to talk to me. My brother wanted me to get off the mattress, my mom was wondering if I was making Jenni comfortable. I was completely confused!!

Needless to say, we went to bed soon after that. True as we sat in the dark, we randomly talked about stuff for awhile desperately trying to fight back sleep. Sleep conquered and the rest is history.

The rest of the weekend was a blast. My car showed attitude. It did not want to have to stop super fast again, so it wouldn't go faster than 75 miles an hour without giving me an arm massage with vibrating immensely. 

Even with my car having an attitude though, we made it back to Logan in an hour and 15 minutes. Yes, 1 hour and 15 minutes! Thank you world. I have no idea what every one is saying about the length of that drive being more like 2-3 hours! Crazy! (Stephan your car must be a senior-senior citizen!)

But that was our weekend trip. Food (other than tuna), spiritual uplift, family bonding, crazy singing, near death experience, Stephan, car with an attitude! It was great!

And if you got to the end of this blog post, kudos to you!