What's life without a few deep squats?

My apologies on the delay - let it be known throughout all the land that there have been no sudden familial deaths, experiments that went awry, or (much to the chagrin of the parentals) rash engagements. My sole and (I think) extremely valid complaint is simply fatigue. Tu vas voir.  
Monday marked the return of the parentals from Paris. They managed to find a decent granola outlet and score me a couple bags. What's left of them currently sit in my work office. It's getting awkward when people come ask me for office supplies and I open many a food-filled drawer to find what they want. The previous day, a multitude of YSA church-attendees invited me to basketball Monday night. I actually went, thinking there would be a decent crowd and only a small percentage of creepsters. But alas, not a single person showed up. (Except one who showed up very late). At least I had some quality GB time (which refers both to Gnarls Barkley and Gordon B Hinckley). 

This is also proof that
I brush my teeth
sometimes.

Having Mom back and tired meant that she skipped Mutual on Tuesday. It also meant that (through quite a bit of nonsensical yelling) we could convince her to join in a family game of Uno. It's called animal Uno for a reason, people. Every night Moriah asks me, So what are we doing tonight? And typically that results in the playing of several Uno games (or, on occasion, a little Totally Insane). Needless to say, I'm getting really good.
Wednesday, I actually went to Institute. I heard they were doing a special on Gordon B himself. After hearing his assertion that he would be remembered as the prophet no one listened to, I've decided to specifically erase my name from that list. Also, all the ladies in our fitness class want to wear pink shirts next Wednesday, so I did a practice run. Unfortunately, I don't own any pink.
Thursday marked the arrival of my maternal grandparents and also the day that I realized that my role at Pfizer has somewhat altered. I used to run all my own experiments, but now, I go to a lot more meetings and tell other people to run them for me. (I still try to do my own experiments, but ain't nobody got time for that). I'm not opposed to having underlings, though. Thursday was also the day that I was invited to go to the Palmyra Pageant this weekend. (Et, voila, la raison pour laquelle.)

Friday after work, Greg and I booked it up to Providence to meet our chums, Pamela and Jen. We left our car there and started the long trek to upstate NY (5.5 hours turned into 7 with some decent traffic). Don't worry, though. The entire trip was spent refreshing my Spanish abilities and trying not to let French slip out. (Quieres coquetiar conmigo? No lo quiero. Que basura.) Jen started out driving, but after her initial statement of I'm the worst driver in the world, we didn't let her drive for the rest of the trip. Plus, the driver's seat is the most spacious in the whole car. We arrived around midnight for a YSA dance. It was highly disappointing to say the least. But it did get me excited for our reunion with Derek. Between the three of us, everyone should be scared of the dance floor. It's truly terrifying. And simultaneously awe-inspiring. After an hour, we headed out to the campground and leeched on to a YSA campsite (note that none of the YSA activities we attended were for our own stake). Marcy, tent master, helped us figure out Jen's tent and we were in bed around 2:30. (In contrast to my normal 9:30 bed time....)
We woke up to some guy yelling YSA breakfast is ready! Hence our early wake up around 7:30. Would we ever pass up a free egg sandwich breakfast? Negatron, ghostrider. After that we tried to hit up the shower. Emphasis on tried. We changed and left for the temple. Pam and Jen didn't have their own clothes, so they did initiatories while we did a session. It was wonderful. The bouncer almost bounced us out because our names weren't on his list, but our new friend, Sister Turner, hooked a brother up. We broke the fire code with all the extra chairs in the room. At one point, the brother in charge tried putting a chair in front of a first timer and a lady said No! You can't put it in front of her! So he moved it two chairs down, in front of a more experienced patron and said You don't need to see this....Alrighty then. We then got a wonderful gentleman named Stan to take our picture in front of the temple.
We claimed some mediocre seats at the Hill Cumorah and drove to the top. (Not about that walking life.) We sat with a security guard at the top whose very important job it was to keep kids off the grass. Security breach! I met a guy who served in my mission, in Cannes and had a wonderful chat with him that didn't last nearly long enough.

From there, we went to the Sacred Grove, where, who should we meet? Our friend, Stan, and his wife! We took pics of them this time and had another chat. They promised to save us seats if they found better ones. Half of the walk was very peaceful, relaxed, and Spirit-filled. Then we ran into Derek and his family and we had a nice chat with them and I caught a few frogs and such for their kids to play with. Good times all around.
We then returned to the pageant and snatched up six second-row seats in the non-reservable section (if you leave, they remove your stuff). I took a nap on the grass until a child next to us started trying to eat my toes. We became fast friend with James, Kayla, and Kara. Jen even held James for several hours until he fell asleep. The next several hours were spent sleeping, picture taking with actors, searching for ice cream, and doing Stan Scans. (Don't worry, we found them! And they sat with us in the second row!)
Then my mission president gave his homecoming talk and my whole mission was there and my delightful friend Carolyn recorded it for me. I love them all.

Stan and his wife. Looking forward to our birthday calls, buddy!

Notice the apostle on the left? He doubles as
cliff jumper in the final battle.  

King Noah bein' too lazy to jump into my arms.
You know him. He ain't about that life.