a road trip

Today was lovely. It was the first real day of summer for me, because there was absolutely nowhere I had to be. No seminary (bitter-sweet), no babysitting, no classes. It was bliss. I woke up naturally at 7:00 and my dad invited me to come along with him to West Plains. After Stake Conference this week, President Jones' wife accidentally left her phone at the church, so daddy volunteered to drive it down.

Wait! Speaking of Stake Conference, I need to write about what I felt during the conference. It was lovely. I especially enjoyed Brother Truman's talk, our stake patriarch, even though he lightly reprimanded me for mistaking his title in the bulletin. :) It was all in good fun. He literally was an answer to my prayers, and I felt the spirit immensely during his talk.

As we were driving, we listened to some tapes and Minsy napped. I also cracked open President Hinckley's biography (which is pretty stinkin' funny, by the way). By the time we got to the Jones' house, Minsy and I were ready for a stretch.

But just as soon as we had gotten there, we were back on the road again, this time heading to my dad's hometown. My great-grandpa was just about to head off to Europe to see where he got shot during D-Day, so we just stopped by to give him a hug. I love my grandpa, and I love how funny and resilient he is! What an incredible hero!

After we sent grandpa off, dad took me to his stomping grounds, and showed me the route he took to get to Seminary each day. If I thought I had to sacrifice to get to Seminary, it was nothing compared to what my dad had to do. Even with modern conveniences, the road was bumpy and curvy and treacherous. But my dad rode it every day in a VW Bug that couldn't go over 35. Crazy.

We stopped on the way to eat a buffet, but it really is not worth remembering. It was hilarious to seem some obviously Asian tourists at the buffet though. I was so amazed that anyone would want to stop by and check out a crummy little American town. I wonder if they would find it odd that I long to visit their neck of the woods?

We returned home and Minsy was in a great mood, so my dad encouraged me to take her to the park and wear her out. She loves the slides and seeing all of the kids running around. The only hiccup we had was when I tried to push her on the swing. Apparently that is a big no-no in her book. When I tried to get her in, she would seize up and start screaming, so you could imagine that I got the message pretty quickly.

Back home, I started up my regular routine. Cleaning, mopping, folding, reading, running. It's gotten pretty familiar to me, and I can complete the whole round in about an hour. Then, because mom is working on financial fun stuff, we had a tuna-fish sandwich picnic in the front yard.

Today was good.