So we originally planned to leave for Utah on Sep. 13 at 10 am. As the week wore on and Ike bore down on Houston, we started to get a little nervous. Nervous enough that on Wednesday morning, Dan asked his boss if he could leave a day early and I changed our flight from Sat to Fri.
Then on Thursday morning, mandatory evacuations were issued for many coastal areas. We were not in an evacuation zone but during Hurricane Rita 3 years ago, evacuation orders led to thousands of people getting stranded in terrible freeway traffic. So I began to worry that we wouldn't be able to get to the airport on Friday. So I changed our flight to Thursday night, packed for Dan, and we got to the airport 6 hours early just to be safe. Thankfully Bush IAH airport is huge and we had plenty of shops to walk around in and lots of options for dinner. The time passed quickly and we got off just fine. Megan slept most of the flight.
Friday and Saturday we just hung around Bountiful, helped Dan's parents get ready for the farewell, and spent time with family. Saturday morning we did a 5K walk/run (for us it was a walk!) with Dan's home stake. Saturday afternoon we cheered on our Cougs to an awesome shutout. Sunday was Ben's farewell and he gave a great talk. He is quite the popular kid and there were more than 600 people in sacrament meeting. Many people (around 150-200) came over after the meeting for a little luncheon put on by Jane. She is amazing and graciously fed and chatted with the hordes of people who came to wish Ben well.
At the beginning of the walk--notice the temple in the background:
The temple was about the half way point:
Megan after church on Sunday:
Uncle Ben with the littlest grandkids, Alonzo and Megan
Monday we saw Heather and kids and recently almost-finished basement in Tooele, Maren, Brigham and new baby Benjamin and almost-finished upstairs in Riverton, and Josh, Lisa, and kids for dinner in West Jordan. It was a long but very fun day.
Megan, Jakey, and Tyler in Tooele
Maren, Brigham, Amber, Benjamin, Megan in Riverton
Tuesday, Jane and Ben joined us for a little drive up to Logan. We saw Ali's home and Amberly's new apartment and then we had lunch and went to the Logan zoo. The weather was so nice and Megan really enjoyed all the ducks. Ben was set apart Tuesday night and we really enjoyed being there for it.
Wednesday we went to breakfast with the family before going with Ken, Jane, Ali, and Alonzo to drop Ben off at the MTC. I didn't do that with Carrie or Shad so it was a neat experience. Ben was more excited than sad and Ken and Jane held up well. After he went in, we headed over to say hi to Stephanie and baby William (but did I take any pics there? of course I forgot). Dan and I spent the afternoon wandering around campus with Megan and met a big group of friends for dinner at the Brick Oven. It was fun to see so many people and spend some time in good ol' Provo. We had dessert with Nate and Steph and headed back to Bountiful.
Thursday we visited with my Grandfather and his wife. I loved watching my almost 88 year old Grandfather get on the floor to play with Megan. After that, we headed back to Bountiful, gathered our stuff, and went to the airport.
Megan got a chance to wear some outfits that are just too hot for Houston--this is one of my favorites. She quickly mastered tugging the hat off.
There was an empty seat on our flight back--it was so nice!
We were glad to know our apartment already had the power back on and were interested to see what Houston would look like when we got back. We'll post more on that later.
