Down and Back : Arizona Style

Can the Young family sit still for even one weekend? I motion that we cannot!

The first weekend in June brought with it a quick trip down to Arizona to see our brother Tim be married to the love of his life, Janalie (who, by the way, is GORGEOUS!).

It sure was a quick trip in deed! One 12 hour trip down on Friday and another 10 hour trip on the way back up, Sunday. Still, it was all worth it as we were able to sit in the sealing room of the Mesa Arizona LDS temple and witness the wedding and sealing for time and all eternity of this beautiful couple, Tim and Janalie.

Here's how the trip went down. Matthew and I started out at about 8 early Friday morning, hoping to make the trip in record time. A few hours onto the 89 highway and we realized this was bound to be a LONG trip. With 1 lane roads for miles and very few passing lanes, we repeatedly found ourselves behind semis and RVs averaging 10 mph well below the speed limit. These trips sure teach you much about patience....and gratitude for the 5-line interstate freeways!

A stop at good ol' Wendy's in Kanab for lunch surely made the trip a lot more enjoyable. I got some great food and some even greater photos of Matthew doing the "success baby" pose. I hope you enjoy this just as much as I do:

Matthew as the "success" baby. We really like Frosty's too. Can you tell?

We were back on the road in a jiffy, stuck behind even more slow drivers. Matthew sure did a wonderful job at passing on those long one-lane roads, which was a really great accomplishment I'd say!

Of course, the drive was not all bad. The scenery was absolutely amazing! I loved driving by Lake Powell and eagerly looking out into the great expanse of water thinking, "Maybe I'll be able to see the Heatons down there on their house boat!". Unfortunately, it's a VERY large lake, so any boats I did spot most likely weren't the Heatons. :)

2/3 the way through our trip, pulling into a gas station to fill up, and our poor Wendy car (Wendy is the name of our car--mostly because that's our favorite fast food restaurant!) would not drink any more gas. We were a little less than a quarter of a tank full, but she was not taking in any more than 1/2 a gallon of gas. Weird. We decided to keep driving a bit more.

Camp Verde was our next stop for gas. Again, Wendy did not seem very eager to fill up, a problem we have encountered before, but not so often as today. Matthew began checking out the car for signs of some kind of problem and to both our dismay, there was a gas leak out the bottom of our car. Bummer. But, luckily enough we were pointed in the direction of an auto place, and within 10 minutes we had someone checking out of car.

An hour, 4 games of Peggle and a round of Settler's of Catan later, we had our Wendy back good an new! The fuel hose had been punctured in more than 4 spots and was in need of being replaced. Luckily, the hose is not a very expensive part, so we were on our way soon after without having to burn too big a hole in our pockets.

Off to Mesa we drove, with know further problems.

The rest of the story is told better in picture since, as we know, a picture speaks a thousand words.

The weekend was spectacular! A wedding....hanging out with family....LONG car rides with my husband full of great discussion and wonderful music!

This trip was sure full of almonds, but the chocolate is so sweet! Congratulations to the bride and groom.