What a trip! Or…What the @#%% is in my hot tub water?

We left Thursday for St. George to pick up Brett’s car; we brought it down in May some time to store in Larry and Ann’s Garage because we didn’t have room at our house and we figured Ann and Larry could use it while they were staying there. Things have changed and we needed to bring it home. We brought Nate and his friend Marcus Renlund with us so they could drive the car home.

It was a fun mini vacation! And we enjoyed having the boys hang out with us. They were great!

Thursday we stopped at McDonald’s for lunch. (Burger) we got into Washington that night and had In & Out (Another Burger) and then we made it into St. George and went to bed.

Friday we planned to meet up with my parents for lunch at Café Rio but decided to drive out to Diamond Valley to surprise them first and see what they’ve been working on lately 

(what the heck, we weren’t in any hurry.) 

So the guys checked out Jerald’s super cool 50’s vintage boat while Mom and I wandered the garden and talked. After about 30 minutes we headed down the volcano dotted mountain back to St. George to eat. 

When we got to Café Rio we realized that 1pm was STILL not late enough to miss the lunch rush! I didn’t think Jerald would live long enough to get to the front of the line to place his order so we headed to Nate and Marc’s restaurant choice…Iceberg…a burger joint…because I

just haven’t had enough greasy burger in my diet lately! So as flies swarmed around my sweeties head I ate my foot long HOTDOG… still greasy, but not a (burger)! It was good to see my Parents again, if only for an hour or so. (I’ll see mom next month at Stacy and Jeff’s when the baby is born. Yea! It’s not me giving birth! (I digress)

The boys left after that to hang with Drew, who was also in town with his family so Mike and I went back to the house for a nap. The boys came home and I made dinner. (You can only eat out so much honestly!) By the way, if you ever want to embarrass your teen, sing really loud with the music playing in the grocery store. It’s the  best!

Saturday, we had breakfast at Denny’s before heading to snow canyon.

Denny’s…I don’t even know where to begin. It’s Denny’s. While we waited for a table this young family came in. The mother needing a smoke before breakfast and she made some kind of threatening comment to one of her children using the F word…I missed it, Mike didn’t. Ignorance is bliss.

We were seated and our waitress Susan came to take our drink order. Drinks came back and

she took our food order. Sounds boring huh? Yeah…wait. While she was gone Mark noticed

that his Sprite didn’t taste like Sprite. So she brought his new drink and said, “I tasted it myself, this glass is good!” um…WHAT?! Did she drink out of Mark's glass? 

Mark Likes Susan. 

He said he was going to tip her well. 

OK. Our meal came and I noticed that I didn’t get bacon AND sausage, just bacon. Mark had sausage and didn’t order it! When I asked Susan about it she said what any good mom would say as she waved her hand around, “just switch the meats.” And she walked away…and laughter ensued. 

So we “switched our meats” and ate our meals and I tied a few cherry stems with my tongue. Then I got a really good look at Nate’s breakfast. I have pictured it here. Razzdango Soda, (he liked saying that…a lot) 4 Large pancakes, 2 slices of toast and a plate of hash browns. I think Susan may have had a thing for Nate because, look at the mountain of butter on the side of that kids cakes! Or, maybe she wished him some clogged arteries, we may never know. 

He ate it all…MAJOR CARB OVERLOAD. I was concerned…concerned that he may drift into a coma soon. I’m happy to say, he’s still alive or this could have been a very different post.

Fat and full we headed toward Snow Canyon. 

We got a little lost so we went to the Tuacahn Amphitheatre first. The boys were not impressed, so Mike took a much welcomed potty break and we moved on. 

In hindsight we are grateful that our route was switched, for as we drove we received a phone call that we almost didn’t answer, because the phone number was strange…it was very long. Nate and Mark begged us to answer it and Mike and I were so grateful that I did. 

It was our missionary, Brett. 

Brett and his new companion were hit by a car on Friday night. They spent 9 hours in a hospital waiting room…in Spain. They were walking home Friday night and crossed the street. One lane of traffic stopped for them, one did not. The car (just a fiat, in Brett’s words) hit his companion first, his head busting the windshield, his body then hitting Brett which twisted Brett’s ankle as they flew away from the car. (READ HIS LETTER) As I’m listening to this I’m trying not to cry…Brett and Mike are laughing… because it could have been so much worse. The mission Pres. and his WIFE (her letter) just happened to be in town (in the farthest reaches of the mission) for Zone Conference and were with our boy. We felt so good knowing he had them there to take care of him. Pres. DuVall got on the phone and told us that the boys would be fine….pretty bruised up but fine. He reminded us that the angels were with these boys that night. They walked away from the accident.  

They walked away. 

It could have been so bad. But they were saved. They have work to do. So we hung up with thank you’s and I love you’s and went on our way. 

Snow Canyon was pretty; we didn’t get out but took a lot of pictures out the window. 

We went back to the house, packed up and Mike and I headed to Mesquite for the night.

The hotel room was nice, with a Jacuzzi in the main part of the room. We drove around the town for an hour or so, went into two of the 4 casinos in Mesquite to check out our dinner options and came to the same conclusion… subway, eaten in the hotel room would be the best choice that night! 

So, we’re sitting in the Jacuzzi, watching TV. HELLOOOOO! It almost makes me want my own hot tub at home…almost. We finally poured ourselves out of the tub and began to drain it when I notice something…floating…WAIT…lots of something!… floating in the tub! 

Black flakes large and small…floating and whirling around in the same water my unclothed body was just in…for at least a half hour! 

All I could do was laugh…at that point what more could I do but head to the local Wal-Mart and buy (you might want to go to your Happy place for this) Feminine Internal Cleanser. Uhuh…you know what I’m talkin’ about. There was no way I wasn’t going to try to get ride of whatever that was in the tub that MIGHT have found its way into

 unacceptable territory! 

The poor guy at the front desk of the hotel had to hear all about it because the female manager was at home at this point. He was so sweet about it….poor thing…I probably ruined him for life! (That’s what I do best though) He called the manager at home and I told her the story again at what point I told her what I thought she should do about it (give me the room for free)  to which she just acted as if this wasn’t an issue. Maybe she doesn’t mind black floating things all up in her business…I don’t know. 

Anyway…I think I’m going to live, although Mike was a bit shaken up over it, more so then the whole Brett getting hit by a car thing. Go figure. 

Patti didn’t give us the room for free but she did take off about a third of the cost. That’ll have to do. I wish I had taken a picture of the complimentary breakfast. They had small pancake shaped eggs (I think they were fake) sausage, and chewy French toast with cheap syrup.

 I laughed again. 

I’m writing as Mike drives home and I must say, this weekend was so much fun… fun with my sweetheart and fun with the boys. (Morgan was busy having her own fun with the Girl Scouts in Kanab.)  Lots of laughter and relaxation. Great idea Bud; turning a boring trip to pick up a car into a mini VACA we’ll never forget!