It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

It was the best of times...

On Saturday Matt and I went to Vernal, Utah to go to the temple since it was Austin's first time through. (we brought Sydney and Ashley too.) It was so wonderful to be in the temple with so much family, my mom and dad, Austin, Matt, Ward, Heather,and I were all there, along with the Larsen's and the Green's. I'd never been inside the Vernal Temple except for the Baptistery. It is absolutely beautiful. The craftsmanship of the wood work is exceptional, as well as the stained glass. I cannot even begin to describe the wonderful feeling that it was to be in the celestial room of the temple with my family. As we were standing there I had a thought come to me that that was exactly what it would be like when I die. I'll cross over and go through the veil and have all my family waiting there for me. I've always been afraid to die, it's just such an unknown. But after that realization, I'm not so afraid any more. It's not a time to be sad, it's a time to acknowledge a life well lived and think of how happy that person must be to be reunited with their loved ones. Alas, I'm getting off topic.

We went to Cafe Rio after we were done at the temple, since it's the only good place to eat in Vernal. (And no Matt, Golden Coral does not have good food. Ever. End of story.) While we were there Mom and Austin informed us that they had bought steaks and salmon, and if we came home with them, they would feed us. Plus, they argued, we were already half way home. Of course I was all on board, I'm never one to turn down good food, especially if I don't have to cook it, and I'm even more unlikely to turn down a trip home! Syd and Ash were pretty easy to convince. Now Austin only had to convince Matt. The hardest part of that was the fact that Matt had left his Russian homework back in Provo, and really needed to get it done. But when we presented the idea of not telling his mom and dad that we were coming home and just walking into the house on them, he was game for going home too.

It was the worst of times...

As we were leaving Vernal, we went on a road that had some kind of repaving project going on. We hit a bump, apparently not going slow enough, and after that we heard a strange clicking sound coming from the front driver's side wheel, we looked at it when we stopped for gas, but didn't see anything wrong, so we started on our way home. Some where between Vernal and Rangely, our car started shaking like we had a flat tire. So we stopped to fix it, thinking this was really a pain. But when we got out, the tire was fine. So we kept going a little ways further and it was still shaking and something was obviously wrong. Matt started looking at the tire closer and we realized that there were 2 lugnuts missing on the tire! Matt could see in the tire where the bolts that hold the tire on to the car had been sheared off. Lucky for us, we still had cell service and could call my mom and dad to come back and help us. The boys got the car to the point that it was driveable. (Turns out the remaining 3 lugnuts were only hand tight! YIKES!) Matt and Austin drove in the car and I rode in the car with my mom and dad. We made it home, but much too late for the promised steaks and salmon. BUT we did get them on Sunday before we went home, no worries on that part! We also did end up scaring Lorna pretty bad when we walked into the house and said "Hi Mom!" She was not expecting us at all! Poor Matt spent all Sunday afternoon fixing the car so that we could make it back to Provo for our classes on Monday. He and Dad saved the day though by getting the car fixed! I'm so proud of my boy! I wish I'd gotten a picture of him working on the car, he was so cute covered in grease and break fluid :) We eventualy made it back to Provo after having an adventure filled weekend, all ready to start out the week with a map quiz we had forgotten until we got home at 11:30 Sunday night. Oh well, it wasn't too bad.