Freakin' Friday

On Friday, I went for the first time on Grandpa’s morning walk with Samson. We picked up trash and chatted and met one of Grandpa’s friends, a nice lady named Laura with a cute little dog named Scamp (but Grandpa called it something like “Squawk”!). Grandpa had given her my blog address, and she was very complimentary of my writing skills...blush.

After the walk, we ate breakfast and Daniel showed Grandma and Grandpa some of his computer science achievements. Then Grandpa took me swimming. It was early in the morning, so I had hopes that the lanes would be long, but nope, they were short as ever. Still, there was a bit of excitement going on. Five or so ladies were doing aerobics in a roped-off area, and they were playing music, which was fun to listen to—especially the Chariots of Fire soundtrack! I think it must be a standard track for aerobics classes, as I’ve heard it more than once in the Orem Fitness Center pool. Anyway, it’s one of my favorite movies and I love the music, so I had no complaints. Actually, I did have a complaint—how was I supposed to swim and listen to the music all at once!?!?

Back at Grandma and Grandpa’s, I ate a sandwich for lunch and packed a sack dinner of sorts—it was a banana, apples, a sandwich for Daniel, crackers, and a few cookies, as I recall—to eat at the airport. Then I went upstairs and packed, cleaned up the room a bit, and just sat in the living room and talked with Gma and Gpa until the Hughes came to pick us up. We said good-bye and drove away.

The drive to the airport was all too short, and soon we were checking in our luggage, then hugging Aunt Shelly, Uncle Billy, and Andy good-bye, and then we were going through security, and then—poof! We were stuck in the Nashville airport for a boring 2-hour wait before our flight. I read my scriptures and started Fablehaven 4 and somehow the time passed. The flight was long but not too uncomfortable. We got a lot of interesting and varied snacks—animal crackers, cheese crackers, oreo crackers, and peanuts—and two rounds of drinks—extravagant for Southwest, really. There was also a cute guy on the plane who offered to help me put my suitcase up in the overhead bin and passed me in line at the bathroom, but—errmmmm, *blush*—that’s a bit of a tangent.

In Phoenix, we ate our food and I got on the Internet in the exact same spot as the last time we were in Phoenix, and the time went by fast. I was surprised by how suddenly it got dark outside. There was some confusion about our gate—it changed about 30 min before departure time—and it was about 8:35 pm by the time our plane started moving (we were supposed to leave at 8). However, the airplane wasn’t crowded at all. We sat towards the front of the plane and had no one in the third seat, and there were plenty of empty rows towards the back. Uncrowded flights are the best!

The flight went by pretty fast; we barely had time to finish our Sprite and peanuts! I was glad to get in Salt Lake City safely, and even happier to see Mom and Dad waiting for us at the end of the now-familiar walk through the airport. For the first time ever, our suitcases were waiting for us on the carousel when we got there. Despite being pretty tired, I managed to stay in a chatty mood all the way home, and was even hungry enough to eat some leftover chicken pot pie when we got there. It was great to see everyone again and fall asleep in my own bed at last. To top it off, I had a long dream involving characters and scenarios from Fablehaven. Ahhhhhhh!