Tracie's World

As of June 7th, the parentals have now completed their mission to Mississippi, so my sister and brother-in-law that live in the Houston area offered to host everyone for a little bit of a family reunion. The Elder and Sister drove over from MS., and most of the rest of us all flew in to meet up with them. My sister's place was Reunion Central, and was our jumping off point for all sorts of fun activities that week, as well as where we all gathered for meals, and sometimes lodging. Pretty much anywhere you go in Houston can be quite a drive. So we spent a lot of time in the car. But did we ever have fun! We went downtown and up to the top of the Chase Tower, we went on a Port of Houston boat tour, went on a wild animal safari at the Bayou Wildlife Park, went swimming in Galveston, ate at Bubba Gump's, had terrific Texas BBQ, and went to Space Center Houston. It was a whirlwind. More pictures to hopefully follow, but here's one with me and some of the kiddoes, taken at th...

Went last evening to see a play with my pals Cyndee and Robin. They are both big theater buffs, and I've been wanting to do more of that. The play was called "The Last Five Years", and sounded like it could be interesting. It's a musical and is the story of a couple's relationship and eventual breakup, told from both sides. The wife sings about it from the end to the beginning, and the husband sings about it from the beginning to the end.   It was put on my the Theater Department at the U of U, and the two young actors really sang and acted their hearts out. The word that kept coming to my mind was that it was very "earnest". Like they really believed they were playing in something profound. And I think if you were to ask the playwright, he'd probably think he'd done something very profound as well. If I was still in my 20's, I might have felt that way, too. But I'm not, and it all just ended up being quite depressing and left me ...

I woke up yesterday morning with a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to take a little temple tour, starting with the Provo temple. Why the Provo temple, I have no idea. But I got myself out the door and made my way to Provo. There was a time when I couldn't think of living anywhere but Provo, but since moving to Salt Lake, that has kind of reversed, and I very rarely go down there anymore. I hit town and made my way to the MTC and to Temple View Drive. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I drove around the temple several times, wondering what it was that made me want to drive all this way. I turned into a parking lot across the street, where I found a young couple and their baby who were trying to take a selfie with the temple in the background. I pulled over and offered to help them out, if they wouldn't mind returning the favor. They were happy to oblige. Other than that, no major "Aha" moments or anything. I still have no idea why I wanted to drive down there....

I worked from home on Friday, and after the work day was over, I went to get in the car to go out and run a few errands. I turned the ignition, and...NADA. Ruh-roh. Exhibiting all the signs of a dead battery, I whipped out my handy dandy AAA Card, and called to request assistance. The rep on the phone was very nice, took all my details, and told me someone would be out within 30 minutes. Sat down on the stoop to wait it out, and about 20 minutes later, help arrived in the form of McNeil's Auto Service. Out jumped an extremely tattooed and pierced fellow, who turned out to be one of the nicest guys ever. He tested my battery, which only had 39 amps in it. Apparently you need more than this? Who knew? Anyhoo, he looked at the aged wonder, said it wasn't worth trying to get it going, and kindly told me it was time for a new one. He happened to have one on the truck, and in the course of about 15 minutes had the old battery out and the new one in. It ended up costing a pretty...