LAST DAY....WHAT A SUCCESSFUL TRIP

[written yesterday, posted today]

Got to sleep in about an extra hour then normal which was like a gift from God. Breakfast consisted of one lemon poppy seed muffin, some fruit, and scrambled eggs….and of course a tall glass of milk. This morning we didn’t have class but rather went to the worship service in the morning of the church that hosted the Windrider Forum. We got there a bit early so we just kinda hung out waiting for things to start up. Monica, my wonderful cousin, gave me a ring which was so great. I hadn’t talked to her in ages and it was so nice to hear her voice. I haven’t seen anyone since my grandma passed away and I missed the funeral since I was at Sundance so Monica asked how I was doing. We talked about her for a bit and how the funeral was really nice. I had kind of feeling a little guilty for not being able to go to gma’s funeral but Monica eased the thought by saying how gma would have wanted me to go since it was a dream of mine and that it was a once in a lifetime thing for me. It really helped and I know that gma would have wanted me to be here but I still would have liked to be there. I hope I get to go home for a weekend at the end of February for Aryn’s concert so I can chill out with family and see my cousins. It would be nice to see them especially before spring and Easter break.

The worship service was great – it was all music and singing. There was a song that we sang with the line “we have hope and we have peace” or something along the lines of how we will have peace when the Lord comes back and it got me thinking of gma and how she finally has the peace she needed and deserves. Then I started remembering all the great moments with gma and naturally I began to miss her greatly and cried throughout the service. I kept on thinking about how whenever I had a guy friend over even it was more then a few she would always ask me if one or all of them were my boyfriends/husbands. She was so funny. The one memory of her that will stick with me till I die is one Henry Sunday when she just wept when we sang our family song before eating and she asked if we could sing it again. She just lifted her hand and sang with the most beautiful voice.

A friend of mine from theatre, Matty J, told me that two of his friends were going to be at Sundance and that I should keep an eye out for them. Emma and Charlie were their names. Well after the service, and of course on the last day, I finally met them! They were really cool. Emma is from Australia and had the sweetest accent. Charlie too seemed like a cool cat and if they are friends of Matt they are friends of mine. I got a picture with them to remember the moment and then we had to wrangle out entire group for a quick photo with Ralph Winter [I got to shake his hand!]. He is such a kind and generous guy. We need more of those types of people up in Hollywood and thankfully Ralph Winter is very high up in the Hollywood hierarchy.

Lunch was not at quiznos today! We went to Panda Express at a outside mall type place. We didn’t really have many choices….Panda, McDonalds or Quiznos. The choice was obvious. I love chow mien and fried rice. Yummy.

We still had about an hour to kill before heading over to the airport and Friday had a request that was I think one of the funnest things of the past few days. Friday is an avid fan of High School Musical. He found out that the high school where High School Musical was filmed at was actually in Salt Lake City so he asked the group if it would be fine with everyone if we went over there to take a jumping pictures in front of it. We all agreed and the journey began. It was so funny how excited he was when we got there. It took a few times to get the perfect shot with most everyone in the frame but we succeeded.

Hurry up and wait is the language of all airports. On the way to Utah a few of us got patted down, randomly searched or put through that air pressure machine but thankfully this time no one got pulled aside. Though my scarf had to get patted down which was thankfully done by a lady….that would have been weird if it was a dude. Spent about two hours waiting around the plane before getting on.

I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE THESE MOUNTAINS!!!! They are so beautiful the entire drive to the airport I literally just stared at them in awe at their majestic appearance. Me and Julia planned it all out….our first flight laid over in Denver, Colorado so we decided we were gonna not get on the second plane to Indy and instead live with our friends in Colorado. It would have totally worked too since we had a weeks worth of clothing, we had all our electronics and chargers and plenty of money to get by for another week. Regretfully our plan didn’t work. Poop.

Both flights went well. Kinda bumpy….it seems that every time I go to Colorado its always a terbulant flight. Oh well, we got safely one the ground. It was great, we had a flight attendant named Evaun [like “Can I Have Your Nunber?”] AND she had an up-do! It was so funny. When I heard her say her name me and Julia looked back at each other at the same time and just started laughing.

Nothing too exciting happened on either of the flights. Though there were two people sitting in front of me Kathy and Friday and the one lady was a Budhist and the man was a Christian and they were talking about religion – very interesting conversation.

We got picked up and headed home. Half of us stopped at Arby’s because we were STARVING! Got back to Berg, talked with Matty J and Karyn for a little bit then hit the pillow….instantly out.

What a great trip.