Sunday
1. I finally took off with my calling as the communications co chair. We had a meeting to figure out a game plan and by the end I had a long list of things to do. Thankfully, I love my co chair and she rocks so life is good.
2. Ward Council. Half of the meeting was the bishopric giving me a hard time about a date I went on earlier that week. They came to my house to visit me and my roommates and heard that I was on a date. They were relentless. Besides that, I loved going to Ward Council and being in the know!
3. Interpreted per usual but there was also another deaf guy there. He was a super happy person with a fun personality. So he was fun to interpret for. And now I have a new friend too.
4. That evening was dinner with the family of course.
5. Game night. My friend Garrett had a game night. My roommates and all my old ward friends were there so my bucket was full! We played Quiplash and Smurf. 10/10 night!
6. I ended up staying up til 2 working on a ward calendar of everything coming up and getting "birthday" things ready. I got it all done and my bishop texted me and said he LOVED the calendar so it was definitely worth the late night.
Monday
Work was normal. As soon as I was done, I hurried over to my parents to use their printer and prep everything for the ward bulletin board. Mom was a saint and helped me out. Otherwise I wouldn't have been ready in time.
At 6, I met up with my co chair and we reworked it and finished right before FHE started.
For FHE we played foosball. Elise was cracking me up with how aggressive she was. As time passed, we all got pretty heated. It was a good time. Pretty sure we won too!
After FHE we decided ice cream was in order. So we got blizzards from Dairy Queen. Mine was gone by the time we got home.. We then ended the night watching "Hes Just Not That Into You". I got pretty worked up while watching it, and started hating men a little bit. I guess I'm glad not all guys in the church are like those losers.
Tuesday
Dad let me pick what we had for lunch, so you better believe I picked Costa Vida. It's one of his favorites too, so I'm sure it will become a "usual".
Right after work, I ran some errands, and then met up with some friends to do sealings in the temple. It was initially just Sarah, Cariann, Elise and I. But we realized we should probably bring men to even out the odds. Only Jason and Colten were brave enough to come along. It was a neat experience though. I'm slowly getting over my fear of doing sealings.
That evening was dance of course. My homegirl Ashley taught. She's my favorite. If she wasn't married, I'd definitely hang out with her all the time. But I digress. Dance was great- even though we missed out on a super fun night hike that our friends planned, knowing we couldn't go (eye roll).
When I got home from dance, I was starving. I tried to avoid going and getting take out, so I ended up eating half a carton of blueberries. When Elise got home, I gave in and we made a quick little trip to Del Taco and watched One Tree Hill.
Wednesday
I had the day off of work. First on my list was swimming. Elise, Madison, Al and myself went over to my neighbor's fancy pool. We went early enough so it wasn't blazing, but I got a little bit more of a tan line. :)
After swimming, Al and I got our fingers done for our "birthdays". Then treated ourselves to some Pei Wei. I ended up spending the whole day at my parents.
That evening, Sarah needed to get out of her house since mutual was there with EVERYONE. So we went to Coltens and watched Beauty and the Beast.
Thursday
My roommates and myself need a name so I don't have to always type it out. To be continued...but anyway, when we all got home, we watched the new dance show- World of Dance. Or something like that. My only complaint is that each episode should be longer!
Madison was having some car problems, so Chase and Chloe came to check it out. It was super fun to catch up with them again. I left the party a little early though to go to a Stake Relief Society Fitness class. It was an aerobic class, and I'm still sore 4 days later. It was way fun though!! I'm excited to go again!
My roommates went and saw the new shark movie with Mandy Moore. I tried to be responsible and stay home and pack. But I didn't even start packing til they got home. Oops.
Friday
PARTY CENTRAL.
One of the people on my dad's team, Britton, had a birthday!! So we celebrated! For lunch he requested a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix called Ritos. I of course volunteered to make the trek. I had a very easy work day. While eating, we also watched bloopers from Family Feud. Very professional. We then had butterfinger cake which I indulged in (even though I'm allergic) but it was so worth it.
I left a little early to get some final things ready for my trip and of course a stop at Soda Shop. Let me tell you about this trip. It's very random. A girl named Lexi just got home from her mission 3 weeks ago. She has grandparents that live in a small town called Pomerene. It's so tiny it's not even on the map. Just to give you a point of reference, it's right next to Benson and between Tucson and Sierra Vista. Anyway, Lexi wanted to take a trip to see them. On Tuesday I was awoken to a text from Torin asking if I wanted to go an adventure this weekend. I of course agreed.
As the week went on I found out we were staying in Tucson (which was not true), and would be shooting, fishing and going to the temple open house.
The party people included Lexi, Torin, Colten and MJ.
So anyway, we left Friday afternoon.
When we arrived at her grandparent's, she had taco salad ready for us. They sure hit the spot. We then played a game with grandma (grandpa is practically deaf so he was a little hard to talk to). We were warned she is "savage" at this game, and Lexi was not lying. She kicked our trash and was relentless. I think that was the highlight of the trip for me.
We eventually brought in all of our things, figured out the sleeping situation, and then hit the town (desert). We started out spotlighting/looking for animals. We found a bridge and stopped. I don't remember why we initially stopped/what we were doing. Side note: when we first pulled up, Torin jumped out and we drove off without him. I laughed so hard I cried.
We ended up taking pictures most of the night. Lexi is a photographer and Colten loves taking pictures of the nature, so they were a great duo. I just reaped the benefits.
We also played with "long exposure".
I failed at staying still for the 30 seconds, but they still turned out okay.
Aren't these crazy?? They look so fake.
Behind the scenes.
The first batch of pictures we wore a head lamp to accent the stars. Then we ended up having someone stand next to the camera, shine the flashlight on the model for a millisecond, then turn it off. It was quite the process.
Then we lit steel wool on fire. We stood on the bridge to get away from the desert a little bit.
When Lexi was finished, Torin frantically called us over...
A spark flew off the bridge and caught a bush on fire.
Luckily Lexi had some water in her car, so everyone frantically poured it over the edge.
Then Colten peed off the side of the bridge and it did the trick. Haha.
It was pretty crazy. We could have started a forest fire...
This is the lucky bush that doesn't look much like a bush now. Haha.
We still continued the steel wool but moved off the bridge of course.
We all ended up laying on the street too. The stars were out of this world. It was insane how well we could see them. Beautiful.
Side note: I bring a jacket whenever I travel regardless of how hot it is there (it is almost always freezing in the house if nothing else). I always get made fun of, but in the end, everyone is snuggling up to me. This was one of those nights.
We finally were ready to leave and all got in the car...Until the moon came out and they had to take pictures. We didn't get home til 1:30 ish. Her grandma realized we weren't back and was so worried. We all felt really bad.
Lexi and I ended up sharing a bed. We of course had pillow talk (even though we met just that day) and stayed up til at least 2.
Saturday
We woke up at 6 to try to beat the heat (cheers to 4 hours of sleep). We didn't end up leaving the house til 7 by the time all the guns were ready and everything. We took a little trek to a wash to shoot the guns. Lexi got a little lost and took us over a barbed wire fence (which MJ ended up a nice scratch on his leg from).
We eventually found it and set up other people's targets they left.
Crazy loud without ear plugs....
Also so thrilling and fun.
I convinced Colten to set up the hammock and I think it was one of the best decisions we made the whole trip. I almost fell asleep in it at least twice.
Thanks for taking a picture of me Colten. ^^
We had a competition of who could shoot 3 balloons the fastest. I'm pretty sure Colten won. In the mean time, I was the designated balloon holder. Hahaha.
We forgot ear plugs and Colten was a gem.
We ended our shooting with blowing up Tannerite.
The tannerite was under it all.
This is a screenshot from the video, but it was pretty thrilling and loud.
When we were leaving, we saw a "family friend". They invited us to go fishing with them. So we walked over to the little pond. I was pretty dehydrated, so I was cool just sitting on the bench with the kids as opposed to paddling out in the water. The boys did come back and pick me up though.
The family friend had a little boy that was 2ish. He was extremely shy. It was my goal to have him like me by the time we left. Guess who was my BFF when we left.. :)
The walk back took 5ever. I think we all drank a galloon of water when we got home.
We then freshened up, ate tostadas (Colten's initiation to AZ), and got ready for the temple.
Colten said he could fish tail, and Torin said he could braid. I had them both try on my hair. Little did they know I was just in it to get my hair played with.
I'm actually pretty impressed. I guess I shouldn't be though because Colten used to have long hair.
We eventually left grandma's and drove to Tucson. The haterz just couldn't quit bashing it. My loyalty came twice as hard though ;)
We didn't have tickets to the open house, but we super cheated the system. We ended up going into the church because Torin had to use the bathroom. Then ended up in the gym (skipping the line outside). We then realized her ward was there right then, so we joined them on the bus and there were just enough seats for us all (we got real lucky).
I absolutely loved everything about the temple.
I loved the blue accent, unique chandeliers, blue dome, desert landscape, beautiful landscape pictures, and just EVERYTHING. I'm so excited to go back when it's dedicated.
Little rant. I hate how everyone in the valley thinks they are above Tucson. I'm fine with the teasing, but I hate when people actually think they are better because they live in the valley. I had some people like that on the bus... peasants (mostly kidding).
Also all weekend I intentionally wore red and blue or UofA attire. I had to wear it where it was appreciated :)
Oh another side note... My skirt has had a zipper malfunction before. I had an iffy feeling about wearing it, but it zipped up fine when I tried it on the day before. Well while riding the bus my skirt opened where it was zipped up. I knew I'd have to unzip it/take it off to fix it. It was just minimally open, so I put my shirt over it. Well while walking through (and me constantly trying to fix it) it become much more open. thankfully I had another shirt tucked into it. By the time I got home, it was practically open, so I just tied my handy jacket around my waist. Too funny...
We were ready to come home, so we got drinks from QT and then hit the road.
I stopped by my parents to eat, then drove home. I unpacked, did laundry, showered and was ready to blog only to find the wifi wasn't working. So I fell asleep at 10:30 and it was glorious!!!
The Tucson Temple is everything. I loved it!! Also I can not retweet your comments enough. People thinking Tucson sucks honestly hurts my heart so much. Like y'all have never even been there, and don't hate because I love it.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha I love you. I guess in "their" defense, I hated Tucson until I lived there. They just haven't been blessed to experience it :)
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