Surprise Visit

One day Paige and I were missing fall colors and lamenting it's still 100 degrees in October. The next day we took off driving to Utah on a whim. We're both jobless, so we can just pick up and leave like that. We didn't tell Leah we were coming, but soon after we arrived we met her at the airport and surprised her coming back from her Minneapolis dietitian conference. Haha, I wish we'd taken a picture of her just standing with her friends and staring at us in the airport, confused, before she registered what was going on and then ran to hug us. She had to go to her college classes and jobs and volunteering, but we saw her when she was available, and then she came and stayed with us at my parents’ house during the weekend.

We found fall colors. And relaxed on my parents' deck, reading books in beautiful weather.

We wandered Gardner's Village which was decorated for Halloween, and I cuddled this new baby again.

I got to visit with my aunt who I never see. My uncle (her husband) died last month and I couldn't go to the funeral because it was during Carson's home MTC, but I did watch it online and feel too far away from family...as always. It was nice to spend time with her and go to her house which I haven't been to in over 20 years. 

And then my cousin Tim (other side of the family) came to town from Florida, and it was so fun to visit. Last time I saw him, Dan and I were at the airport gate saying goodbye to him as he left on his mission almost 30 years ago. My family sees him more as he travels for work, but I've never lived where people come visit. Tim was one of Dan's roommates after Dan's mission, so I video-called Dan and they talked and caught up.

Paige and I gladly held our favorite baby at Costco while his mom shopped. We're already missing him a lot.

And we took care of him at a restaurant. It was very hard for us to drive back to Arizona and leave him behind. We want to keep him.

More relaxing and reading. 

We hiked to this bridge with Leah.

We went to my niece's mission farewell talk and party. Here are the older cousins that came.

Paige and I drove up a canyon to see fall colors with my mom, took a night walk around Provo with Leah, shopped lots of home stores and searched for pillows and furniture and rugs for our new house, thrifted, watched movies with my mom every night, ate at delicious restaurants with family members, and so on. But then after more than a week in Utah, we found out the temperatures were dropping to the forties the next day and there was rain and snow coming, so we said goodbye to family and to Leah at her work and reluctantly drove back to Arizona. 

And here we are at 98 degrees again every day, wishing we were still in Utah.