An exciting couple of weeks

So for this blog post I wanted to try out the Email-to-Blog feature that blogger has. Just as a warning that the formatting might be off.

The doctors appointment went well. He stuck me with a few needles and cleared me to go. I must say that church is very thorough when it comes to the health their prospective missionaries. I can't blame them for that though since I'll be away from regular check ups for two years. I'll be turning in my papers to the bishop soon so he can take a gander at them before they go to the stake president. Other than that, nothing else concerning my mission has happened.

BUT we did go to Utah for the blessing of Jed and Adrianne's daughter Juliet. AND I got to stand in the circle for it.

It was lots of fun to be able to hang out with my siblings for a couple of days. Jed and I climbed up the side of a mountain to a cave that he found earlier. The whole cave was barely wide enough to climb in sideways and went back only a few hundred feet. Although there were a couple of spots where you have to climb up and over a section to keep going back. Towards the end of the cave there is about 30 or 40 foot climb and I'll admit I was a bit of a chicken to climb it at first but eventually I worked up the courage to make the climb. There was never really anything to worry about since the space between the walls was pretty narrow and someone put a climbing rope in to help out any daring spelunkers. Jed wanted me to try to fit through a hole at the back of the cave, just to see what was back there but neither of us could fit. After we came out of the cave we wanted to see the view from the ridge just a few yards from the mouth of the cave. It was a beautiful view and I wish I would have taken a picture but thats alright.

Instead of climbing back down the way we came up, we decided to keep going down. It turned out to be a bit steeper than we thought to the point where we were free-climbing for certain spots. Of course Mr. Long-Limbs Jed could reach the footholds easier than me. I, however, looked like a starfish trying to hold on to the rocks. Jed is a little more, daring than I am and leaped a few feet to a ledge but lost his footing and fell seven or eight to some loose rocks. I decided to take the sure footing route down a crevice in the rocks. Each of us only got a few scratches for our adventures which wasn't bad considering it looks like a cliff from the base of the mountain.

The blessing that Sunday went well. Jed did an awesome job blessing Juliet. The rest of the testimony meeting reminded me a lot of my home ward. My dad and I would whisper to each other names of who we thought the speaker reminded us of. Afterwards we went to Jed and Adrianne's little apartment where 50 or so people gathered for chili and to catch up with each other. We had a great time chatting with cousins, friends, family, and in-laws.

Later that night Carly and I went up to Bridal Falls and Sundance just because we were bored and wanted to go for a drive. I loved being able to climb up to the falls and look out at the sunset and the pretty scenery. All of this stuff was within about a 30 minute drive which to me seemed really awesome and made me excited to go to school at BYU.

The next day dad and I flew home because we had to get back to work. OF COURSE I find my lost knives at the AIRPORT. I had forgotten about a couple of pocket knives in my bag, so they ended up in the trash or whatever TSA officials do with them. I didn't want to spend twice as much in postage as the knives were worth. Anyway, dad and I are one of last 15 people to board and all the seats EXCEPT the center seats are taken. So I ended up sitting in the row in front of dad. The plane landed in Denver as sort of a connecting flight. (we stayed on the same plane back to Kansas) So naturally I move a row back and take the center seat to be more comfortable for the remaining flight. (I tend to tilt sideways when I sit too close to dad) As the plane fills up, this very large gentleman asks if he can squeeze into the center seat. So I just moved over to the center seat since it would just be weird to have a stranger sitting between dad and I. After we get buckled in and situated "comfortably" dad and I just look at each with the look that says "Did he really have to sit there?" The flight was rather uneventful which is kind of a good thing. We didn't have any checked bags so we didn't have to wait in the airport at all before April came to pick us up.

All in all, it was a pretty good trip but going back to visit family always makes me want to just pack up and move there but we are in Kansas for a reason and my mission is coming up fast so there is no point in changing everything at the last minute.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment.