I'm signed up for Flights from Home, a subscription service that reports flight deals from Salt Lake City. One day I saw a deal for $100 round trip to Atlanta, and on a whim I texted my high school girlfriends suggesting a visit to our friend Haley in Augusta, which is right on the border of GA and SC.  We had a red-eye flight across the country, and then our trip began. 

The first day, Haley took us to Redcliffe Plantation. The grounds were once owned by a wealthy cotton farmer who owned hundreds of slaves in his lifetime. We visited the tiny slave quarters, which stood in the solemnly in the shadows of the large mansion.  The grounds were green with ancient trees and the grassy fields where children were once expected to pick 100 lbs of cotton a day. Then we drove through some of the quaint Southern neighborhoods and took a walk around a marshland home to turtles, lilypads, cranes and alligators. For dinner we enjoyed golden BBQ and then crashed on the pullout bed to watch a movie. 

The next day we went kayaking down the Savannah River. We were on the water for two hours, sometimes splashing each other or racing, sometimes holding the three kayaks together and floating lazily along. After the river we stopped at Aldi, a grocery store I visited many-a-time on my mission, to get pretzels and chocolate. Later in the afternoon we visited the grounds of Haley and McKay's future home.  Right then and there I decided I want to move to the South! 

The last day, we had to leave early for the airport.  We had an eight hour layover in Denver.

The first night, my mom was hosting a wedding reception at the house.  I walked in my parents' master bedroom and started to cry when I saw a candle flickering on the table.  There were going to be many candles at this reception, but that was not the only trigger.  The smell of the pizza grill reminded me of the house fire, and when the wedding guests sent the couple off with sparklers, I made sure the sparklers were doused. I found it was better for me to stay busy, so I helped the caterers most of the night. 

That weekend, I tried to focus on writing my essays and found that I couldn't. I caved and asked one of my professors for an extension. A few hours after the fire I had asked one of my friends to inform the department about the fire, so everyone was very willing to help out.  But there were some things that couldn't be cancelled or postpone, like speech therapy sessions, and I found myself to be a nervous wreck.  When I finally turned in my last essay, I could turn my focus to my final, but again I found it impossible to focus while I studied.  Worse, I found out that Dallin's professor had flunked multiple people in his graduating class, and if Dallin just made one too many mistakes on a very difficult project, he would not be able to graduate as planned. I took my final the next morning and immediately emailed my professor when it ended. I knew I had not passed with the required 80%. He had offered me an extension, but I had so badly wanted to get school over with so I could focus on finding housing. Turns out I got a 69% and had to retake it the next week. My grade dropped to an 85%, the lowest grade of my entire college career. When I retook the exam, I got a 105%, thought my 85% does not change.

Luckily, I did find an apartment. As I type, I still don't have the keys because the landlord pushed back our move-in date by a week, which means that I will be spending the week in a hotel.  I can't complain, especially if it has a pool. Dallin will remain in Arizona with the cat until we can move in.

My weeks in Arizona felt like a blur. It was so stressful dealing with school on top of the aftermath of a housefire. I wanted to have quality time with my siblings, but when I wasn't doing schoolwork or working to find an apartment, I was sleeping. I felt like a zombie, disconnected and without energy. 

However, there were a few fun things while we were home. Cousins Paige and Nguyen had their wedding reception (they got married in December and had wanted to celebrate with his family whenever the U.S. and Vietnam opened up their borders for travel, but the borders are still closed due to COVID). Dallin and I were part of the wedding party, and it felt so so good to put on a beautiful dress and doll myself up.  In addition, we went boating a few times with the family, and we got to see Olivia get set apart as a missionary. She is doing home MTC for 6 weeks.