No Matter What

So - this has turned out to be one of the craziest weeks ever. It all started last week with a sweet visit to Idaho, then one day of classes, followed by a drive down to Clearfield to go to dinner with Mer and Cory and crew, and catching the 9:45 flight out of SLC to get to AZ at 11:45. We got picked up just a few minutes later by a shuttle driver who had good intentions and a super thick accent. We dropped off the lady who was riding with us, and he turned to us and asked, "You know where you live, right?" His GPS wasn't updated and he had no idea where we were going. Mom was pretty sure she was going to get hate-crimed, and had a look of sheer terror on her face for the ensuing 30 minutes until we arrived safely at Louisa's house at around 1:30 am. We had a really fun time there - lots of time to play with the kids and a really amazingly delicious thanksgiving dinner. I'm glad I got to go. Thanks again Louisa! And happy Birthday! I didn't get to call her today because of how crazy life got between FHE and work - so I hope a sick blog shoutout will make up for it. :) Here are my pictures from the trip

From 11-27-08 This is one of the flowers that was growing in Louisa's neighborhood that I snapped while we were on a walk. From 11-27-08 Here's the Thanksgiving Day spread. Delicious. From 11-27-08 Here's Tyler at dinner after he had gotten enough food on his shirt to merit taking it off. Not to mention the sick hair-do... From 11-27-08 Tyler putting the last touches on the nativity scene. It was way fun to get to put up Christmas while the temperature outside merited the use of the AC inside. From 11-27-08 The Fontanini nativity. From AZ From Mom Found this on mom's camera. Knew it needed to be on the blog. He didn't come to AZ with us, but this picture did. From 11-28-08 Another picture of the nativity. From 11-28-08 More of the lights. From 11-28-08 The temple at night. From 11-28-08 I couldn't get any good pictures of the floating lights themselves, so here they are just included in the picture instead of being the focus. Pretty cool, I thought.

From 11-27-08 These represent about half of the rolls that we made. The best thing ever. From 11-27-08 Little Kara enjoying her dinner. From 11-27-08 Tyler again. He was rocking some sweet hair all week. From 11-27-08 Kara wasn't too sure what to think of me. From 11-27-08 Audrey's newest pet. From 11-28-08 We got to go to the initial igniting of the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple. This was part of the nativity there. From 11-28-08 The lights around the temple. From 11-28-08 View across the reflection pond towards the visitors center. From 11-28-08 More lights.

The trip was way relaxing - just the thing I needed before hitting "dead week" here at school and the impending doom that next week's three finals hold for me. Prayers are welcome. And money. And love. Good luck to all in the same boat.