"Welcome to Utah, set your clock back 50 years." - Ed Abbey

We just returned home from over 10 days in the Beehive State. Here's the critical information:

The High Points

• Watching all three of Owen's great-grandparents light up when they saw him
  
• The drive down alone with Ryan and the ride home with Owen and Ryan. Road trips make for wonderful conversations, they really do

Freaking huge sky. Lovely drive (both times).

• Watching my dad play with Owen on the floor of Donna's living room
• Relaxed chatting and playing with Chris and Karen at their house, which feels like a second home
• Dinner at Fresco on my mom's 60th birthday (an annual tradition)
• Couples only, no kids allowed dinner with Mick and Tracy
• Tomato soup at Stoneground with James, Chad, and Ethan (and splitting a roll and a beer with Chad like we're some old couple who's trying to cut down on carbs)
• Hanging out up Big Cottonwood Canyon, which also feels like a second home

• The lightening storm that we saw as we pulled into Boise at 11:00 pm
• Seeing Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal perform at Red Butte Garden

The Low Points

• Forgetting my Nikon (all photos from my iPhone)
• Having to go to the doctor for my foot and getting a day boot, a night boot, and a recommendation to stay off it until it feels better

• Karen slicing her finger with scissors and needing stitches

This is Karen's finger post-incident. The entire
week, we kept chanting, "Karen's #1! Karen's #1!"

• Seeing people Ryan and I unfriended some time ago at an outdoor concert (and not unfriended in the Facebook way, the actual unfriending balls to the wall way --eek!)
• Owen getting a topical Strep/Staff infection (not sure b/c they didn't culture) in his ear and trying to find a pediatrician STAT
• Walking out of my mom's house for the last time (closing in Oct.). She has been in that house for the last 10 years --- that's the longest time she's lived in any one house since I've been born, so needless to say I feel some attachment to it

This is my closet door at my mom's house. I love it.

• Canceling out trip to Moab because of my foot
  

Realizations

• Black coffee brings out the flavor of Cool Ranch Doritos much like a nice Oregon Pinot does for Copper River Salmon
• One of the reasons I hate Utah is because there are mini televisions at every filling station
• One of the reasons I hate Utah is because they play Fox News on said mini televisions
• The sky looks so freaking big in Idaho and Utah and the high desert landscape will always melt my heart
• I want to chalk up, jam my hands into a crack, and climb. Enough of this lazy grad-school-come-baby-come-first-heinous-stressful-job-as-a-lawyer shit
• Joe Biden would never let James and Ryan touch him like that, even though they'd like to

• Owen is a super little rocker who rolled with the flow the entire trip. I want to take Owen camping, and I think he's ready and will love every second of it

On the way home, Owen was reading and babbling.
When he was suddenly quiet, we took a look and found
that he had fallen asleep under his book. Before we
removed it, we snapped a little photo. Freaking cute.