vactioners, hikers, lovers

dear blog,

[i spent last weekend in st. george with becca, blake and jessica. becca and i decided on valentine's day that we should go somewhere for the weekend and when i talked to jessica about it, she said that she and blake had talked about going to visit her mom, so it was meant to be! we left on saturday night after i was done at the distribution center, and to read about day one of our trip, please be referred to blake's blog, and for day 3 feel free to read jessica's, and for a beautiful overview with loads of pictures: becca's]

on sunday morning i woke up to the comforting smell of bacon and the comforting feeling of jessica's cuddling. we all had a lovely breakfast of bacon and crispy waffles (yummm.) then in the middle of breakfast maryann's roommate sherri came in with a note and a long apology for everything she had said... ??? yeah, none of us knew what she was talking about. then maryann explained how there was a slight misunderstanding and sherri basically told her that she didn't want us to stay with them but only after we had arrived. so she wrote this note and apologized to us even though we didn't know about it, and it was AWKWARD.

after that we took turns showering and got ready for 1 p.m. church. we followed maryann to church at her 31+ singles ward in the next town over. it was....interesting. i'm not sure if i've ever been to a sacrament meeting that was anything like it before. for starters there were not a lot of people there and i think probably 50% of the people there were OLD... like they have grown-up grandchildren old. which was such an interesting dynamic for a single's ward. the first lady that spoke gave a lovely talk but becca and i stayed up a LITTLE too late cuddling and giggling and she started nodding off. so in order to keep becca awake we started drawing a picture together (i drew a shape and becca added to it and then we took turns adding to it) pretty soon blake added in and well, the end result was this:

SO WEIRD. blake had to think about one of his siblings dying so that he wouldn't burst into laughter during church. the second man who spoke in church looked like j. pierpont finch all grown up. and also, he was WEIRD. i'm not going to lie, i wasn't completely listening, but that was partially because it was so weird. and when he ended his talk he said "thank you for letting me speak." instead of amen... weird. then the bishop spoke and his talk was all about how they are restricting the age limit for the members of the single ward, so nobody over the age of 55 can attend. and because a lot of the ward is older than that, i think a lot of people were really disappointed. (maryanne's roommate was crying about it a lot.)

after sacrament meeting we went back to maryann's and started cooking up one of jessica's favorite meals, beef stew. one thing that i noticed  blake noticed was that maryann is really good at letting other people help. i thought she was a great hostess because she did her best to let us participate, which definitely put me at ease and made me feel useful. while beef stew was cooking, blake took a nap and the ladies played pandemic. beef stew was interesting, really different from what my mom makes, but i liked it... A LOT. after dins we went to dixie rock with the intent to watch the sunset, but we were a little late and got there during dusk so it was pretty chilly, but also cool, and we got to see the lights of the city which was pretty.

when we came back home we got a personal concert from jessica on the piano. then we were so lucky to regain the awkward company of stuart, and we all indulged in maryann's 4 layer chocolate cake. YUM! it was so rich. maryann makes wedding cakes, and i can definitely believe it! while we were eating cakes stuart talked to us about how he believes that friends are family and our group of friends is a "pod." like we were a group of friends in another life and that is why we are "family" now. and then jessica said, "like a pod of whales?" haha! anyways, later we played cards (idiot, 13 and egyptian ratscrew) and while we were playing maryann asked how old blake is and jessica told her he is 37 and maryann got a little too excited that he was within her age range. later we watched a movie (the bachelor) which was super-cheesy, but i still liked it.

the rest of the evening was spent chatting/joking/laughing/cuddling and again i think i stayed up a liiittle too late.

i really REALLY enjoyed this trip. i'm so so glad that i finally got to meet maryanne, and i feel a lot closer to jessica, becca and blake after going. also it was genuinely one of (if not THE most) fun trips i have ever been on.

love,
rochelle