I love my sweet mama. The past 2 weeks have kind of thrown me for a loop, so I was grateful that she was willing to hop on a plane just like that.  The older I get, the better of friends we become, and I realize there are a lot of things we have in common {for starters, I am starting to develop her unfortunate inability to sleep in}.
We picked her up on Saturday night and then headed straight for an all-you-can-eat Mongolian restaurant. Ah yes, I forgot to mention that Adam has been called to serve a mission in Mongolia in January! We couldn't be more excited, although we advise Mom against doing Internet research where she learns things like "they have rabies and the Bubonic Plague," "it gets to -40 degrees Celsius,"  and "they drink fermented horse milk."
Sunday we visited a random early ward and then hit the road.  We drove through Provo Canyon up to Midway and Jungfrau Hill, then twisted our way towards Park City and back towards Donut Falls.  The leaves are just starting to turn color.  In the city, a flea market lined the streets, and Mom was so excited to find her beloved Spanish candy that she has been looking for ever since our Barcelona trip. Other excitements included taking a hike in flip-flops and Adam doing bizarre things like telling us to "punch that leaf! No, harder!" hugging/shaking trees and scaling logs that were propped up at dangerous angles.
That night we visited Becca and Taylor before picking up Katie from the airport at 11.  The next day, after school but before the other kids got home, Mom was so kind as to stock up our pantries. Usually I hate too much time spent shopping, but now I was so happy to just hang out with her! The next two days we squeezed in as much time as we could with her, but it went too fast anyway.
I am mostly just grateful that I have a mom willing to stay up late for me and offer a shoulder to cry on with some really sound advice.  Sometimes it's easy to forget that she used to be my age, and it was weird/comforting to learn how well she understands the things I go through based off her own experience!  I sure love her, and I can't wait for her to come back!

 Nothing steals the breath quite like the vivacious colors of the American southwest:  the rusty red rocks provide shocking contrast to the azure waters which carve their ways.  The sun beats down, 100 degrees at least, but I'm a desert child and feel right at home in the dry heat.

 Our first spontaneous pull-off was Montezuma's Castle, 1000-year-old ruins of Native American cliff dwellings. We spent several hours driving through gorgeous wastelands, talking about everything and nothing till we reached Horseshoe Bend near the Grand Canyon.   After a short hike to an incredible view of the Colorado, I had the bonus of chatting in German with a friendly tourist couple!
From Page, we had a few options of roads to take and still hadn't made up our minds.  We kind of randomly chose an interesting-enough-sounding location on our map and then off we were!  Eventually we reached a rolling field of sandstone, abandoning the path entirely to explore a garden of natural gargoyles. Rocks balanced precariously atop one another to create an illusion of unreality in the real world.

Destinee and the Boston gang back together

Boston 1999ish

 {Speaking of college, I ended the semester with a 3.85 GPA!}   

Rachel's best friend Katie returned from the mish and moved in downstairs from us

 Monday rolled around way too fast, but for me the fun had only just begun.  We left Rachel and Katie to their spring classes and hit the road for 12 hours of western wilderness and deep conversation.  I tried to show off my German pop music, but I don't think Mom or Marla were all that impressed.