Wonder where we’ve been?

Friday morning my wife and I dropped of the kids with a good family from the ward (friends of ours) and headed south to Saint George on Friday morning. We shared a car with Tamara’s sister and her two older kids. That was a fun family adventure, talking about childhood camping trips and what the world might be.

We whiled the day away on Friday. Tamie and Kathryn headed out to do some bargain-hunting (they pride themselves on that*) or was that Saturday? In the late afternoon we went to the St. George Temple. That’s an old building (see above), but kept in pristine condition. And I do mean pristine. Temples are kept in immaculate order down to the square millimeter. Being with family, everyone dressed neck to to wrist to toe in white, temple workers smiling (and meaning it), and a blissful quiet… it’s what I imagine the afterlife to be. Or at least part of it.

The human spirit is in every way as intricate and marvelous as the human body. And the spirit world every bit as diverse and wondrous as this Earth. I decided to stick around for a while longer. I’m really looking forward to raising my children.

We all went swimming in the hotel pool that night. The sandstone cliffs looming, palm trees hissing in the temperate night air, crickets droning in the nearby grass. That was a bit of magic.

I am usually a little embarrassed to take a trip or spend money. I guess I feel answerable to my clients, like you all are collectively my boss and might show up at the hotel room and ask me why I’m not at work! For the record, I did spend a half day on both Friday and Saturday clearing out the Inbox and taking care of the day to day operations.

In fact, that seven magical hours in the hotel room, enjoying the good smell and the air conditioning (we stayed at a newly built hotel), was the best part of the trip. Just being left alone, no stimulus. I also got to spend some time setting up my D&D campaign. To recap: air conditioning, silence, peace, food (a BLT and a shake) and new fourth edition D&D books equals paradise.

I’m an easy man to please.

*for you young men looking for a wife, near the top of your list should be how she uses, spends, earns, handles and thinks about money. There’s nothing worse than a woman who blows your hard-earned cash like it was nothing. My wife, fortunately for me, is quite frugal and actually has a mental block against spending too much money on any given item.