Wyoming

August is not really my favorite month. It's always been the sign that summer is over, and the beginning of 'real life' getting started all over again. It is especially not my favorite this year, because I'm not going to school this semester. Sometimes it's a little rough watching all my friends get back into the college schedule and life and feeling very much left behind. It's like when your older siblings were old enough to go to school and you weren't yet, so you watched sadly as the bus drove away and you had to stay at home and make macaroni necklaces. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not bashing on the absolute art of a good macaroni necklace, if I could get away with making those all day now I probably would.
It's perhaps a little disheartening feeling like I'm getting left behind, but life is still ok. President Uchtdorf said, 'Being grateful in times of distress does not mean that we are pleased with our circumstances. It does mean that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our present day challenges. This is not a gratitude of the lips but of the soul. It is a gratitude that heals the heart and expands the mind' (you may read the full talk here )
I'm not pleased with current circumstances, but that's alright. Things are not perfect or ideal, but I'm still incredibly lucky and blessed. Life, no matter how bad or less than ideal it is, in itself is worth being grateful for.
So, I am trying my very best to be an advocate of square shoulders and positive thinking. (reference here) And anyhow, come September and October I will be able to go on endlessly about the cool fall weather and prime hunting season and bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils. Autumn, oh my heart!

Now let's end this silly emotional vomit nonsense and get down to business.

When I was a little girl, my dad and some of his friends had a horse business of sorts. I remember that he would leave and drive to Wyoming and when he came back we'd have a new horse. And secretly, I think all of us kids wanted to see this sale, the twins especially. So for a 'senior trip' of sorts, Megan, Marissa, my dad and I drove to Laramie Wyoming to go to the Come to the Source sale. It was so fun to get away and have a little adventure! I've always harbored a real love for Wyoming, I think it's a really beautiful place. I love how the land is almost rolling, it's completely flat for miles and out of nowhere dips and comes up into hills and buttes. Not to mention the Elk mountains are breathtaking. There's something about those long stretches of flat that fascinates me, the sky looks so much larger, almost infinite and eternal the way it seems to reach clear to the ground. Plus the abundance of beer billboards right next to anti-drunk driving campaign signs is really quite fantastic. Irony is my favorite.
We drove from Cedar to Little America in Wyoming, it was a looooong drive only made a little more exciting by a crazy rainstorm from Heber clear until we got to the hotel.I thought we'd get washed clear off the road and have to become a little version of Noah's ark. Little America is a great place because super cheap ice cream cones, and frankly frightening penguins on the roof. If there is anything better than penguins on the roof of a hotel in Wyoming, I really don't know what it is. The twins and I voted our room sort of looked like a scene out of a horror movie, but besides one creepy trucker following us up the stairs, we fared quite nicely. :)
The next morning we got up and drove to Laramie. I think we were all getting a little covetous of the huge cattle and horse ranches we drove past. We got to the sale around 11 and got to wander around and look at all the horses. Ohhhh man, there were some really really good lookin' horses. There were stars in the twins eyes looking at all the horses, I've never seen them so thrilled. And just as a bonus, I'm pretty sure the twins found some potential husband material ;) I'm not going to lie, seeing all those old ranchers and cowboys in their boots and plaid made me think about Grandpa Wallace and Grandpa Garth.
Now, we didn't buy a horse, which disappointed some of us more than others. But I know we all had a real good time.
We drove home Sunday morning, and stopped in a little town called Lyman for church. It was a small cute little ward, they seemed more like a small family than a ward. The overall feeling of the ward reminded me a lot of going to church in Hatch or Tropic, so you know it was a wonderful meeting. I joked that the church might be a little extra true in Wyoming judging by the amount of members wearing boots to sacrament meeting. Now, that may not be true, but I can tell you, it was a cute meeting. And the town was so darn cute, I'm pretty sure I may need to move to Lyman at some point in my life!
After far far too many hours in the car, 1300 miles round trip to be exact, we made it home to good ol Cedar City. And as stellar as the whole adventure was, we were suuuuuper glad to get out of the car and be home!
Now if I were a good blogger, I'd have pictures to put up on here. But, I didn't take hardly any, and I haven't uploaded any. So, we'll just have to post those at a later date. :)