A Colorado Thanksgiving - Of Turkey & Tissues

Well, I haven't posted in a while, but not much has been missed. I mean, somewhere in October I got rear-ended on the highway when the car behind me got slammed from behind by someone who didn't realize that traffic had stopped, so yeah, annoying and a bit freaky, but I drove away in one piece. A little whiplash here, a scratched-up bumper there, but a few weeks later it was like it never happened. Then we had a cozy Halloween with my parents and their Energizer doggy, then Clayton performed with his band of merry BYU Concert Choir men (and women), and...that's about it.

But of course, the Watts of the Wattsonian did take part in...

THANKSGIVING!!

Off we drove, to the faraway land of Grand Junction in the colorful Colorado desert, filled with towering mesas, rabbits, and coyotes who will eat your cat if it wanders alone at night. Really, it's a great place. My grandpa has a reclining chair that can un-recline and raise him up until he's standing on his feet. My grandma has a magical container of chocolate chip cookies that never runs out, despite our best efforts. Both grandparents schooled us in Jeopardy, and Grandma schooled us in Catch Phrase, a word game where you use words to get your team to say a certain word as fast as possible. She's the quickest I've ever seen. Seriously, college grads got nothin' on their grandparents. 

Thanksgiving itself was a bit of both "yum" and "yuck." Normally "tissues" are joked about in reference to one of the Watts, a family who is plagued by allergies. However, so that those of non-allergic genes can share some of their pain, we get colds. I was already ripping through a tissue box faster than Clayton before Thanksgiving, with the mornings and evenings bringing on the highest tissue piles beside our mattress (ga-ross!). Of course colds are more than a runny and stuffy nose, and after a couple days of a sore throat, I started losing my voice. I barely had enough vocal power left for Catch Phrase, and the next morning on Thanksgiving I woke with no voice, and not much appetite. I was a little sad. I don't recall ever eating so little turkey on Turkey Day. I felt better during the day, but my nose and headaches did knock me out here and there, and my voice still evaded me. On the bright side, I didn't have the flu, I was in good company with good food, and I didn't have to work. 

My family, going around the table left to right: Grandparents, handsomest man in the world, great-aunt & great-uncle, great parents,  & my sister-in-law & brother. I'm related to some awesome people.

These are my Grandma's kids: Tripper left, Casey right. They're eager for their Thanksgiving morsels. 

Mm, Clayton is so attractive. 

My awesome and cute great-aunt and uncle, Phil & Deany. I definitely want my marriage to be as happy as theirs when I'm their age. I'm not sure what age that is, exactly.

THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING

Black Friday was more like White Friday, because one of Clayton's sisters got married in Manti, Utah. Manti isn't conveniently located next to my grandparents' house, so we woke up early--which is almost like a sin when you're on vacation--and drove to their wedding. Well, Clayton drove, and his ill, nose-blowing wife slept. The weather was awesome and the wedding was lovely. Clayton and I took a brief sightseeing trip to Snow College afterward, which is right by Manti, and is my alma mater for my first year-and-a-half of college. This college only takes up about a block-and-a-half. It's a bit smaller than BYU.

The reception for their wedding was a fun shindig. The bride and her new husband both play the guitar and sing, so they and other musicians performed for their guests. Still under the influence of a viral infectious disease, I didn't make it through the entire evening. But it was good to spend time with Clayton's family and relatives. 

THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING

We slept in until 11:00am. I stayed in my pajamas for most of the day. We cleaned and organized (surprise!), went grocery shopping, cooked Totino's pizzas and snuggled during a movie. In summary, the week of awesomeness went thus: from my family to Clayton's family to our family. Family and turkey totally trump tissues.

Mom Being Da Bomb at the Utah State Fair

Several weeks ago this slacker of a blogger met up with her family at the Utah State Fair. This family included my parents, my brother Kyle, and his wife Rachel. My beloved Clayton couldn’t join us because he was at a choir rehearsal. He sings in the BYU Concert Choir, and he sings in an acapella old school Barbershop Club. I sing in the church congregation.

I don’t know too much about the State Fair, other than it happens every year, you can check out a bunch of cows, people try to sell you things you don’t need, and there is divine Dippin’ Dots ice cream. But this year, there were two very special things about the fair.

The Haunted House

Mom totally won an award for this creation of hers at the State Fair. My mom has a passion for Halloween, and she’s always wanted to make a haunted house dollhouse. “Dollhouse” seems too girly to be in a phrase with “haunted house,” but really, that’s what this project started out as—a white, pink and girly Fisher dollhouse. Over the years Mom had collected tiny Halloweeny things from the D.I. and other places. But then, on one inspirational and probably sunny morning when the birds were singing, the time came to become the master builder on a tiny and creepy scale. Mom painted every inch of the girlyness away. She added flooring of various kinds, wallpaper, and her own little electrical system. She added chandeliers, framed pictures, furniture, and then the monsters, each with their own room and theme.

The funnest part for me through all this was getting to touch everything. I’ve touched literally everything in that little house, and I actually mean literally in the way it’s supposed to be used. Every time she added something new, I zeroed in on it and had to touch it.

Occupants: Dracula, a Witch, the Mummy, Werewolf, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein and his monster, and a bunch of ghouls, ghosts, spiders, rats, bats, skeletons, the Grim Reaper...it's a monster mash.

Oh, there was a point to all this awesomeness. Mom entered her artwork into the State Fair. It was a hit! Children and adults everywhere (especially the children) were mesmerized by this haunted creation. She won the People’s Choice award, which is a big deal, because there are like a zillion categories for every artwork, so everyone had an award of some kind. But not the People’s Choice! Go Mom! It’s more than just the award too that’s uber cool. We were about as interested in the people who goggled at her Haunted House as they were in the house. It was happy and fascinating to see the delight that her masterpiece brought to their faces.

Behold the artist and her creation

 

Behold the admirers of her creation

The artwork that probably would have been the People’s Choice if Mom’s house hadn’t been there is this big guy, made completely out of car parts:

There was also this one creation, a board covered with more toys than you can imagine and coated in silver paint. The goal was to find Waldo, who apparently has some color and can be seen if you look at the board from a certain side. Naturally, this produced some funny reactions in people. Adults and children of all ages lined up by this strange thing, squinting their eyes and tilting their heads, and murmuring “Alright, where is he?” It’s so funny what art brings out in people.

The Lemurs

Thanks to my friend Sarah Lay, I found out that for 5 dollars, I could hold a lemur! I love animals, especially furry ones. I got to hold two babies! They were clinging to each other in a way that they could roll up into one big ball. They’re pretty little creatures, with really big yellow eyes.

This is what my family did while I got to hold the little guys:

Dad still had his boot to support his recovering ankle, and had been on his feet for a big chunk of the day. The boot was at last taking its toll on his heel, but he was a trooper to the very end.

Death of a Buick Battery

To be honest, out of all the car problems that I could have, the one that is usually the most obvious to see and easiest to fix is a dead battery. What’s tricky is that when the battery keels over when I don’t tell it to, my car doesn’t start, and I’m usually not within walking distance of a place that just happens to have a replacement. (Wouldn’t that be convenient?) What begins as an easy problem instantly becomes one of the most dreaded: the car is stranded.

Moral 1 of this story: Pizza and lightning don’t mix

At the end of a typical day, I drive 30 minutes from work to pick up my handsome hubby from campus. Then we hunt for food. We catch our meal at home most of the time, but there are those days when I just crave nice, cheap, low-quality Little Caesar’s pizza. So a few days ago, we gave in to my craving.

The entrance to Little Caesar’s happens to be the entrance to, like, everything on that side of Provo (not really), so I dropped Clayton off and escaped the driving madness, parking a ways from the entrance facing a storm. It hadn’t started raining yet, and the lightning show was beautiful. I’m addicted to lightning when I’m under a safe shelter. Clayton came back with pizza, and I was so hungry and dying that we ate it then and there in the car. We chowed down and watched the lightning bolts whizz across the sky. Mmm, romantic.

During this time it started to sprinkle. The engine was off, but I kept the key turned in the ignition to roll the lovely power windows up and down. I was nearly done stuffing my face when I realized I had left the key turned for some time, and it was running the AC. I took the key out and expressed a little concern about the battery being drained, but my fear was quickly reassured by Clayton, who said there was no way the battery could die so fast from the AC running for so little a time.

You see, he thought the battery was somewhat new. But lo and behold..

Moral 2 of this story: When two cars meet and there are sparks, this does not mean love

Rain plopped on us right as we changed drivers; I slid from the driver’s seat to the passenger’s seat, dry as a beat, while my poor husband ran outside around the car and got soaked. Then he turned the key and we realized we had a problem. This wasn’t the first car to die on me, so I knew that the battery might slowly recharge. However, as the rain pounded the windows and mocked us, we started to feel the absence of the AC; and “slowly” was just not fast enough. We called Clayton’s sister’s fiance to come to the rescue. Then my husband boldly faced the rain to look under the hood.

Thankfully, there’s this thing called “jump starting,” where we scare the car so badly that it jumps to life. The driver of the car that was facing us walked by with her pizza, observed my husband under the hood, and kindly asked if we could use a jump. Heck yes! and she asked, did we have jumper cables? Oh yeah! My parents bought me jumper cables as a gift, I believe, when I had my 1998 Kia Sephia, who I ingeniously named “Sephia.” (The Buick is named Caesar.) Sephia had no automatic anything whatsoever except power steering. That meant she didn’t turn her lights off automatically, and sometimes, just to get a good laugh and make me suffer, that car didn’t beep to let me know the lights were still on as I walked away to take a three-hour test. Well, I showed her, and scared her quite a bit to jump her back to life.

I sat dry yet again in the car as Clayton attached the cables to the vehicles, though the rain had taken pity by now and thinned to a drizzle. Then I saw sparks. Sparkly, but freaky; I’ve never seen sparks when a car was being jump started...ever. That got me out of the car, and I asked if the cables were on the wrong nodes of the batteries. There was lots of uncertainty going around, so I just went back inside and tried to start the thing. Not a peep from the engine, which was less sound than we’d gotten out of it during our futile attempts to start it before.

At one point, I saw Clayton thanking her, and she drove off. When I came out, he said that her battery wasn’t marked. What’s positive, what’s negative? What’s right, what’s wrong? What’s really natural flavoring, what’s artificial? Nobody knows.

Another guy had appeared to see the sparks, and after she drove away he came and helped. It took several tries, actually; Caesar just doesn’t scare easy. Clayton’s sister and fiance arrived in time to see Caesar come alive. There were thank-you’s all around, and then everyone finally left the parking lot of Little Caesar’s.

Moral 3 of this story: Once you’re free, just go home and enjoy life

By now Clayton was convinced that the battery was not new. I wanted to go to Walmart to buy a new one, since that’s where I’ve always gone, but he reminded me that AutoZone tests batteries for free, so why not make sure? We started to look up AutoZone on Clayton’s phone GPS, but I remembered having seen an AutoZone, like, every day since school started when I drive Clayton to and from campus. This was on the other side of town from Little Caesar’s, but finally, we got there and the huge signs plastered all over the windows that said Free Battery Testing and Charging! Free Check-Engine Light Diagnostic! Free Vehicle Repair Guide! gave me so much hope, and...

Their battery tester was broken.

Lousy lying signs.

We searched for another AutoZone in town, and of course--ironically--this other place was within walking distance of where the car had died. Go figure. Well, this time they had a battery tester that lived up to their signs, and it proclaimed the battery worthy of being replaced. Tired, but thankfully not hungry, we drove to the other, other, other side of town to Walmart, pulled up to their Auto Center...

And they were closed.

Lesson learned, we called it a day and drove alllll the way back home, finally, to collapse into each other’s arms, stare into each other’s eyes, and live to fight another day.

The Utahn in Minnesota

It took a marriage for it to happen, but I finally traveled farther east than Grand Junction, Colorado, and farther north than Pocatello, Idaho. For a few days I escaped my arid desert box of the West into the green, lush land of the North.

As this journey was a big step for this little Utahn, I’ll spare no details, which means a lengthy but intriguing post to follow.

Minnesota—Before I was Enlightened

Clayton was my first buddy from the land of way too many lakes. Before him, I only cared for Minnesota’s existence because of my favorite sci-fi TV show, Stargate SG-1. Both the lead actor, Richard Dean Anderson, and his quick-witted character Colonel Jack O’Neill, are from Minnesota. O’Neill, like most Minnesotans I’ve met, is very passionate about the place. Whenever he’s not saving the world from aliens, he’s at his cozy little cabin, fishing on a Minnesotan lake that has no fish. (For most of the series.)

Being my favorite TV show, I just have to quote O’Neill, just a tiny bit:

Referring to their alien enemies:

“You know what the Goa'uld really want from us? Minnesota, that's what. For the fishing, mostly.”

 “Land of sky-blue waters, loofas, ya sure ya betcha', snookums, mosquitoes, home of the loon.”

I never caught everything he said in this line, but even Clayton doesn’t recognize some of the terms like “snookum and “loofa.” Maybe those were misquoted, but the rest of the stuff is right on. Especially the mosquitoes.

After Stargate, I met Clayton and his team of awesome Minnesotans, and now these people are everywhere. When we went there a couple weeks ago, for our much belated Open House to celebrate being married again, it was about time I saw the place for myself.

Minnesota from the Airplane

Ironically, the most defining features of Minnesota’s landscape are trees and lakes, but you can’t see the scope of both at the same time. On the ground, it takes a native to know where the secret passageways are that lead through the endless walls of trees to some hidden lake. Trees hide lakes, houses, parks, and probably even Minneapolis itself. The highway system to get from Coon Rapids where Clayton’s family lives, to the main city, is the most bizarre I have ever traveled on. It’s not a matter of one I-15 with one exit to take; it’s exit after exit after exit, with the highways splitting from each other in every direction all the time and winding around trees and lakes and ducks and HOLY COW! I didn’t drive most of the time, but I know that without a GPS I would have gone crazy and driven my car into a lake. (If I could even find one.) I blame the trees and lakes for all that winding nonsense.

In the air, trees are nothing but flat green squares, and there’s a zillion lakes. They say Minnesota is the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” and only from a plane could I see that they’re completely not kidding. Clayton remarked that it actually made sense to colonize a place like this, as opposed to Utah. I didn’t have to think about it long. Poor Utah, he’s right. Water’s definitely not a problem up north. They like their water, too—I couldn’t help but ask if they ever filled in a lake to have more land. Clayton looked at me like I was crazy.

In the fading light of dusk our plane glided over hundreds of glimmering lakes. Before we landed, I couldn’t help but notice how flat the landscape was. I felt the opposite of suffocated, like, too open. Too infinite. Everywhere I could see, the land rolled on and on and on and on…they have their luxurious lakes, but we have our majestic mountains.  

Behold Minneapolis!
Flat, green, and every blue spot you see on the ground is probably a lake.

 Minnesota with the Watts

Clayton’s family lives in one of those houses surrounded by trees and squirrels. All I had to do was look out the kitchen window to see one of the furry critters scurry by. The trees offer a ton of shade that I wish I could have taken back to Utah with me. I mean, of course Utah does have trees, especially in the northern cities. But Minnesota trees could eat those trees for breakfast.

The Watts backyard

Still the Watts backyard

In addition to trees and squirrels, Clayton’s family lives on a lake. It’s funny because so does mine; probably one of the few to claim that in Utah. There are some differences though…like, his lake is natural, allows speedboats and tubing, and the people on the lake have garages right by the shore for their boats. My lake strikes out on all of those.

For example, no lake in Utah looks like this:

Or this:

We are approaching the Watts backyard

I did enjoy being with the Watts for more reasons than their shady green land. Although we did relish that part:

The Watts are awesome people. They’re all musical, and sing and play at least 2 or more instruments. They love games. In one sitting Clayton and I played Boggle, Settlers of Catan, and the card game 7-Up. Meanwhile everyone else, and a group of young single adults, played Killer Bunnies, Ticket to Ride, Mao, and others. Gaming is a great time. I mean, Clayton and I can entertain ourselves perfectly playing nothing but Battleship. Who could ask for more?

MALL OF AMERICA

Any true tourist in the vicinity of Minneapolis has to see the Mall of America. My dad was excited already when we passed the power tools in Sears, but that was nothing compared to the indoor amusement park or the giant Lego statues.

The view as I was eating my pizza

The pirate, globe, chopper and big dude are all made of Legos

Sort of intimidating, isn't it?

Everything costs money in this world, so we chose the least expensive entertainment that the mall had to offer: minigolf. I guess minigolf tries to give the golfer a theme they don’t usually see, like Hawaii or the jungle; in this case, the theme was mountains. Must be how Minnesotans fulfill their mountain quota for the year.  

The golfers were me, Clayton, and my parents. My father, injured in a motorcycle accident some weeks earlier, was in a wheelchair. That didn’t stop him from golfing.

That also didn’t stop him from winning.

I was somewhat ashamed of myself for losing to a man who hopped on one foot across each hole.

OPEN HOUSE

We came to Minnesota to celebrate being married again. We held it in a church gym. It was a casual and friendly occasion, where I got to meet people who had known Clayton a lot longer than me and eagerly validated my choice of a husband. Plus he got to dress snazzier than usual. So did I, but in my opinion he’s much nicer to stare at.

I got also got to hear people sing, people from Clayton’s ward from church and his family. His parents played the guitar and sang, and his sister and her fiancé sang together. After some prodding, we all finally got Clayton to sing a solo. His voice, ahh, his voice makes me melt! He’s more comfortable in choirs, but he can fly solo very nicely too. I love singing next to him in church and listen to him cycle through all the parts. My favorite is when he sings the low, rumbling bass.

After the Open House Clayton and I escaped to a fast-food restaurant. It wasn’t a true escape, since we borrowed both the car and money and had to return them. When we came back to the gym, my dad was balancing on one foot and crutches and shooting free-throws with one hand. I couldn’t resist, and took my turn after him. I made it on the third try, though my shot looks pretty ugly. Then Clayton, his parents, my mom, and eventually Clayton’s brother all took a turn. Basketball has a contagious nature about it, and soon we split into teams—me, my mom, and Clayton’s mom against the two dads and the brothers. We played a game.

In our suits and dresses.

I had to take off my heels, so I lost another two inches against the mighty Watts giants. But for some reason I was shooting well anyway—maybe I had this giddy false idea that I could fly after I took those heels off—and in any event, it was a blast to play with everyone. The men were nice to me, being tiny and all, and the women were nice to my hobbling father. I didn’t steal from him until he stole from me!

It wasn’t until after our game that we tried to figure out if our clothes would be easy to wash. In most cases, not really. Ah well, the memory was well worth it.

THE LAST DAY

Before going to the airport, Clayton’s mom was kind enough to take us to Sculpture Park, along with his youngest brother. We had some fun there:

I'd hate to meet the guy who uses this spoon for breakfast

A glass fish

 Then we boarded the plane and flew home. I said, Good-bye, Minnesota. Only Minnesota didn’t say good-bye to me until several days later, after all the mosquito bites vanished. I counted at least 12 bites on my left leg, and 5 bites on my apparently less desirable right leg. I’ve never been such mosquito fodder in my life.

Despite the mosquitoes, the trip was awesome. The lakes, trees, and Watts of Minnesota were totally wonderful to experience.

Motorcycle Mishap

I’m sure there’s a law of physics somewhere that decrees a motorcycle’s doom when its tires strike oil on the road. Here’s the scary thing: if this law states that your motorcycle will slide on oil and launch you over the handlebars, there’s nothing you can do about it. Humanity is powerless against the laws of physics.

Tuesday, July 31^st

On this sunshiny morning, Clayton and I were on our way to the Jordan River temple where my mom’s stepmom, baptized just over a year ago into the LDS church, was going through the temple for her first time. Totally awesome! We were nearly there when my Daddy called. I was driving, so Clayton answered, and soon I heard him say unnerving things like “Ohh, man” and “Are you okay?” and repeatedly “Okay, we’ll tell her.” What the…? Confused and concerned, I tried to picture what might have happened. An accident? Dad’s voice sounded too normal for someone in dire condition. Lost in thought, I missed our next turn.

Clayton “hung up” the cell and I made him regurgitate the conversation back to me. Well, Dad’s motorcycle slipped on oil on his way to the temple; he wasn’t going very fast; he had a gash in his ankle; and he was in an ambulance. It was a little shocking. Things like ambulances and motorcycle crashes usually suggest far worse results than a gash in the ankle, and Dad seemed alright. I spoke my thoughts aloud, reflecting especially on the fact that Dad would be alone in a hospital for more than two hours. That idea didn’t sit well with either of us, and before we got out of the car we decided to visit him.

But first we had to tell Mom.

In the temple, cell phones are off or on silent. Mom had gotten there earlier with Grandma and was already inside. I showed the temple workers my recommend for the sole purpose of retrieving Mom. After a worker left to get her I realized I’d mentioned only that Dad was in an accident. I feared that Mom would think he was seriously hurt or worse. Soon as she arrived, I burst out “He’s okay, Mom! He’s okay!” and the worker said, “I didn’t tell her anything.” Oh.

I gave her the details. The worker asked if Mom was going to stay, and she said quietly, “I probably…should.” Mom would be a big support for Grandma, and plus I could go to Dad. She was torn, but chose to stay. Clayton and I tried to imagine what it would be like to picture your spouse injured in a hospital for two hours without you there. But we felt she couldn’t have been in a more peaceful place to wait to see him than the temple.

At the Hospital

After wandering around lost among 2 buildings of the wrong hospital and 9 buildings of the right one (and I in my 3-inch heels), we finally found Dad. He called right before we found him, wondering if someone was coming to see him, and lit up when we stepped into his room. It was hard to miss the wide and bleeding laceration on his left ankle. His foot was covered in dry blood. We hugged and he told his tale, of how he took an exit from Salt Lake City onto I-15 that he’d never taken before on his bike. He was stopped at a red light before the on-ramp; then the light went green, he turned, and suddenly he and his bike went separate ways.

The first blessing in all this was that he wasn’t going very fast, maybe 10-15 mph, as he was informed from the second blessing in all this—the ambulance sitting across from him at the light who saw it all happen. They estimated his speed, and also said that he’d flown over his handlebars. He had no idea about that. When your body flies, there’s no up and down. Just adrenaline and a panicky sensation that comes from your body moving too fast in directions that your brain didn’t tell it to move. HazMat arrived quickly and speculated that it might be a diesel spill. Dad stood up, aware of a pain in his calf, and thought he’d be able to get his bike up. Of course the medics asked if he was alright. He was, until he noticed the blood seeping out of his shoe. Things got a little different after that.

What hit me the most was when my Daddy told us how it felt, the swinging of his motorcycle’s back end, the sudden launching of his body through the air. He was still shaken, and it brought tears to both our eyes. The left side of his helmet was scratched up. For a helmet, it didn’t look so bad. But then you have to imagine your head sliding on the ground fast enough for it to get that scratched, and that’s plum scary. Then you have to imagine psychos who ride motorcycles without helmets in the first place, whose faces would not have fared as well as the helmet when grated against the ground. Fortunately, Dad is no psycho. In fact, his feet were normally protected too with boots, but on this fateful ride, he wore his Sunday shoes instead.

All this…at no more than 15 mph. Makes it seem a little ridiculous that his ankle got so mangled, but that’s how it goes. Powerless against physics. My thoughts wandered to what might have happened if he was going faster, and I choked up. This was a time when I turned to my beliefs, my religion. Believing that when I lost a loved one, I would see them again when I died. The ultimate and only comfort when loved ones are lost.

A Side Note on Passing Out

I learned about myself that I don’t get queasy from the sight of blood. Or needles. Or needles with blood. If Dad was in pain, I would not have been able to watch. But laying there on his stomach, speaking with me calmly with his foot propped up, I was able to watch them pry the injury apart, clean it with saline, and sew the tendon up.

Clayton, however, had left long before then. After the needle took Dad’s blood, actually. Dad had borrowed my health insurance card, and as he was giving it back to me, I noticed that Clayton was leaned forward in the seat beside me, face in his hands. I was about to ask if he was alright, when his breathing changed, like he was snoring. I put my hands on his back and said his name, but no response. He’d passed out. The nurse guy came over, sat him up, and rubbed his chest, all the while saying his name until he woke up. Poor Clayton felt sick and clammy, and escaped to the lobby to sleep it off.

Apparently passing out is no fun, but I find it to be such a phenomenon. Such crazy physical changes that happen for no conscious reason. What a day to reflect on how special, and how fragile, our bodies are. Anyway, they stitched Dad up, bandaged him, and Mom took him home. He’s doing great. He feels sorest from the crutches.

No pictures for this post...not because none were taken, but because I’m sure not everyone wants to see what a bloodied, cut-open ankle looks like. 

Crossing the Desert in a Modern Wagon

This Pioneer Day weekend I just had to look at my car and say, “I’m glad you don’t poop or smell funny.” If I had to cross the desert in a wagon pulled by horses or oxen (if I was lucky) to see our families, they’d be lucky to see me once every twenty years.

First stop for the 4-day weekend: a Stansbury Park wedding reception

With our wonderful modern wagon that can power itself faster than the 2 mph of a poor ox, Stansbury Park, Utah is but an hour drive from Provo. Stansbury is the little golfing and lake community nestled only 30 minutes from Salt Lake City. On Saturday, there in a windy backyard on the lake (the “fake lake” as Clayton’s Minnesotan family says), Clayton and I got to see a human pyramid of men in suits, topped with the little bride, all wearing fake black mustaches. All, yes. (The fake mustache on the father of the bride was gray.) We left before the couple drove away in their “Just Married” canoe, but were glad we attended.

Second stop: a Kaysville birthday party for Grandpa

After the reception we traveled in our wagon to Kaysville, a much bigger community north of Salt Lake City. Grandpa Watts’ birthday was on Sunday, and I’m pretty sure his spice cake had nowhere enough candles for the occasion. But then, cakes for the elderly can set houses on fire if they’re properly candled, so all for the best. He was sung to by his wife, us, Clayton’s sister and her hubby, another sister and her boyfriend, and an aunt and uncle. Of course, we just had to play games, being Watts and all; I’m pretty sure if you look up “games” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of all of the Watts. We played Funglish (a very fun word game), and Spoons (a deadly battle-for-the-spoons game). Clayton and I also played Uno with our oldest niece, and she schooled us in all her legit, almost 3-year-old glory. Then we Skyped the rest of Clayton’s family in Minnesota: his parents, 2 sisters and 2 brothers, and a rabbit. The rabbit didn’t say much, but if he did I’m sure he’d say there’s never a dull moment with the Watts.

Third and last stop: a Beaver 24^th of July

On Monday morning we crossed the desert three hours south to tiny Beaver, home of my Glenn grandparents, an uncle, and a lot of cows. I’ve been visiting this speck of Utah since I was born. My fondness for camping and fishing developed in what we call the Beaver Mountains, which I just found out actually do have a real name, the Tushar Mountain Range. My parents and I simply had to awe Clayton with its greatness, so we went for a muddy ride. “Mountains are where Utahns go to get a taste of Minnesota,” I said, even though I’ve never been to Minnesota, but I suspect when I do go there, the mountains will have saved me from going into shock at the sight of so many trees.

Doesn’t look like Utah, does it?

Mountains! Rainbow! Husband! Perfect. 

Pioneers are a big deal to Beaver citizens, and they show it on the 24^th of July. The day begins with fireworks at 6:00 in the morning: the special “boom” fireworks that fire off in various places throughout the town and wake every household who has their windows open. Then there’s a 5k race that my family does when we’re feeling in shape. (So not this year.)

Then the parade. This year my relatives were in the parade: my grandpa, his brother and wife, and my dad and two of his brothers rode in a 1947 Jeep that my uncle restored. Every grandchild remembers this Jeep, for during our day, it sat in my grandpa’s backyard by the creek, daring us to touch its old and decaying frame. Observe:

Old and decaying...

New and sizzlin'

Ah, men. 

My grandpa, dad, and three uncles checking out the sizzlin' Jeep

Go Glenns! 

They were squished. My dad couldn't feel below his right knee after this.

Oh, the price of fame. 

A totally cool thing about Beaver parades is the stuff they throw. Besides the rain of candy, which is no mild sprinkling, they toss anything from small Frisbees, plastic glasses, cheese curds, and the occasional screwdriver. At the house, my young cousin proudly showed the screwdriver to my uncle who said, “Oh look, a screw…driver! A screwdriver?” Oh yeah.

The night ended in color with fireworks, which were originally cancelled due to scorching heat and then in danger of too much rain, but survived to dazzle Beaver. 

3 cities in 4 days…not bad. Thank you to all our families, and our modern wagon.

A Blog Unleashed

Time to unleash my inner blog! …which may be more like my inner blog tiptoeing out of me than an unleashed explosion. I’m not normally one to talk about myself and my very ordinary life, but I thought heck, since a blog is a totally legit place to do such a thing, why not?

Here’s the quick bio on me and my hubby, Clayton:

• I am very short, he is very tall.
• I study English, he studies Computer Engineering.
• I eat poorly, he eats healthy (but I’m improving in a desperate effort to not doom my future kids to a near veggie-less diet).
• I freckle mercilessly in the sun, he tans beautifully.
• I’m prone to “freak-out” moments, he hasn’t freaked out in the 9 months of dating, engagement and marriage that I’ve known him.

Ours is actually not a marriage of opposites; we’re different enough to keep life fresh, random and full of opportunities to grow, but we have a lot in common and, though we may vary in degree of passion, enjoy many of the same interests.

A quick bio on just me, the blogger:

• I hairspray my bangs everyday because I prefer a style that parts my bangs over a cowlick right in the middle f my forehead, and my cowlick and I are forever locked in a battle of where those bangs should go.
• I put mustard on my scrambled eggs.
• Why mustard? Genetics—my daddy and his mother do it too. I don’t blame genetics for my actions, but I do blame them for my taste buds.
• I don’t fear heights, but I fear tight spaces and the creeping things of the earth, like spiders. Once upon a time as a wee child, I used my hand as a playground for Daddy Long-Legs. But over the years, spiders snuck up on me just too many times, and now they approach me at their own peril.
• I’m too scared to get close enough to kill spiders. What a problem! I foresee myself asking a 5-year-old son someday, “Can you kill that spider for Mommy?” Of course, he probably wouldn’t mind.

Can I sew, cut or style hair, or cook delicious meals that my husband can smell a mile away? No. I probably couldn’t have gotten a husband in the olden days. I’m not the girliest of my gender, but I am distracted by girly things like lights and colorful and shiny things. I was probably a cat in another lifetime.

I find my interests in a plethora of activities: I like to read, write, play the piano, play video games-card games-any games, watch movies or TV, listen to music, camp, hike, fish, snowmobile, 4-wheel, go-kart, drive fast cars, ride fast rides, exercise, play sports, and visit friends and family.

There’s never enough time or money for me to do these activities often, but I still enjoy them all. Of course, most activities are quadrupled in awesomeness when I do them with Clayton.

Last of all, biggety-boom, I’m an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Mormons. My religion has helped shape my beliefs and values, so my comments throughout this blog of life may include thanks for blessings or a prayer for help from time to time.

Okay blog, I unleash you. No idea what’ll happen. Except that maybe Clayton and I will actually start taking pictures of our adventures from here on out.

Here we are as snazzy newlyweds

Also one of my favorite activities