So yesterday, I got up fairly early and lounged around a bit and then got dressed up a bit and rode along with the family to the Mount Timpanogos Temple (LDS). Since I wasn't allowed inside, I wondered around, took lots of pictures and what not...One of them, that I just found kind of funny, was a big Gold's Gym H2 vehicle in the parking lot. And I thought, the way Gold's Gym advertising usually targets your vanity and an H2 is just excessive and a sign of needless extravagance...It just struck me as funny in the parking lot...

Anyways, after wandering around for a while, I finally sat down and started to Text message Brandon (Shannon wasn't home from work for her lunch break yet). And through those text messages, I realized that for a religion that touts families so much, it seems really divisive...But on the other hand I do support their right to have sacred and holy places that us normal people can't go...I don't know...I just felt like I was missing out on something.

Afterwards we headed over to the Rose Room at Thanksgiving Point for a family luncheon. It was...interesting I guess. My brother-in-law Brent (Cara's) told me that it was one of the Wordperfect guy's thanks for being so successful...So that's interesting I guess. The Lunch was OK. The salad wasn't properly mixed (but still good) All the additional components were on the top and not throughout the salad, and so myself, being one of the last. The Potatoes were pretty good, but the the chicken was a bit overdone (not like burnt, but just a bit less tender and juicy then it could have been). But for a free lunch, it was pretty good. Alissa and uh...her...uh...I forget his name...husband I guess, introduced everyone in the room and then treated us all to a couple of musical numbers, which were both loving and sung and played very well... They had cheesecake for dessert...which was...well the crust was good and the blackberry and whipped cream was good...but the cheesecake part just seemed a bit off to me...like it had sat out too long or the cream cheese was about to turn or something...I don't know, but it didn't taste right.

Afterwards, we headed back to Cara and Brent's to get ready for the wedding reception that was hosted at their house. I went up to Camden's room (where I was sharing the room with Joseph) and just got some quiet time to myself and then after taking a little nap (I had a late night chatting with Joseph and Cara), headed downstairs to help setup. I helped make a nice cheese, cracker and tomato tray. It turned out pretty nice, I liked the way I did it. It wasn't want I originally wanted to do (which was kind of a flower theme in my head) because I realized that if I did that I wouldn't have much on the tray at all. I ended up with little rotating piles of cheese (7 per stack, just seemed like a good number). With the cheese around the platter on the outside, the crackers in a nice circle on the inside and the middle filled up with tomatoes. I helped out a bit more where I could here and there, and then we were ready...

It was a nice spread, from mints to nuts to sandwiches, hummus and cheese and crackers. People came in and out of the house for most of th night. By the end of then night something like 100 people had gone through the house. I took a break or three to just get some quiet time and to talk to Shannon and after the night was done, we all chilled out a bit and then most people started going to bed. I stayed up chatting with mom, Joseph and Hyrum. It was interesting.

The next morning (Saturday), I got up bright and early and started making breakfast. I wasn't able to get the bread I wanted (a French bread with too many ingredients), and forgot to buy butter (my sister had a surprising lack of it, but has plenty of vegetable oil based spreads) and the vanilla was kinda crappy (had corn syrup in it as a sweetener, none they had at Albertson's were acceptable as far as I'm concerned). But it all worked out. I made bacon, sausage and cinnamon encrusted French toast for about 2 hours or so. Fed 6 kids and 10 (including myself) adults, which is by far the largest group that I've cooked for. It turned out good...some of the toast in the middle didn't have the amount of cinnamon that I intended to have on them, but over all it was pretty good for small little toasts. I got good complements, the best, I think was Brent who said (even though he's fairly proud of his French toast), "I think this is even better then the French toast I make" (or something close to that).

So I didn't eat much for breakfast. I had some sausage and bacon and the ends of the French bread that were too small or hard to cut for the and a couple samples of the toast.

For lunch, Cara and Brent got a babysitter for the kids and we headed to Tucanos Brazilian Grill. While we were waiting for a table, I wondered around a bit and ended up buying Shannon some chocolates at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory...and now that I have the internet I have seen their stores before. I did buy myself and Joseph a chocolate soda which tasted something like bad chocolate syrup...so not very pleasant. So the grill is all you can eat... So they have a salad bar, but that's not what is important, although I did have a pickled egg of some sort (which was pretty good), but the meat was cooked on skewers and they would bring them around, ask if you wanted any and cut you off a slice or portion of the meat and then move on. They also had grilled pineapple (fantastic), vegetables (pretty good) and fish (this lunch it was mango cod) (pretty good). So the highlights for me were the Picalho (Garlic Parmesan Beef), Peru (Turkey Wrapped in Bacon) and these wonderful battered fried bananas. I don't think I've ever eaten so much meat in my life in one sitting...so many varieties of meat...so many things to try. Anyways it's night time, and pretty late and I've had no desire to eat yet...so it's still in there I guess.

Mom took me to the airport...She was going to meet up with a cousin of hers in SLC, so we headed up there. She dropped me off, and I checked in...

Easy enough. Called Shannon, told her I was on time, and the plane was on time...or so I thought. Oh no, it was a bit late getting to our gate. No big deal...we all loaded on the plane.

And waited.

and Waited...

AND WAITED.

It got a bit obnoxious. they claimed it had something to do with luggage, but that just sounded like a load of crap. So we took off. things were going fine and then when we landed they told us that people should pay attention to who needs to make connecting flights and let them off first. When we touched down, I had about 15 minutes between our landing time and when my connecting flight was supposed to be in the air. Now I wasn't sure I heard it, but I thought I heard them say that the Des Moines flight had already left the gate...and it had. I headed up to the counter, asked and then proceeded to get a ticket to stay in the Courtyard by Marriott. So I told the person at the counter that I didn't need my bag, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that yes, I would need it. So I ended up going to the luggage services place. In front of me was a couple of Canadians who apparently had a bag lost and tried to get a search started, but they had to go (they were in a tour group of some sort). So they were in a rush...but as soon as they left...one rep said to the other that if they're going to leave, don't do anything about it...like people don't have things to do...but they were nice enough to me. They said that they'd have my luggage found and put on the first luggage return...so I sat there. Called Shannon, call Chris (to tell him that I probably couldn't host movie night and make the dinner I planned), called my mom. I heard an announcement about luggage from my flight, so I figured I'd go check it out and in walking down there, I saw my suitcase...not where they said it be...but I found it. They check my request and gave me my bag, I headed out to get picked up by the shuttle and out here to the hotel.

Check in was easy and I've been chilling out up here for a while.

I'd rather be at home...but it's better then being in the airport waiting I guess...

I miss Shannon.