On The Way to Idaho... Our Baby Girl is Leaving the Nest!

The day we had looked forward to and dreaded  arrived.  It was time to take Susan to BYU-I.  She will have lots of great adventures ahead of her.  We are excited for her, but doggone it, we miss her like crazy already.  That's the nature of this whole earth life business.  We took a whole week for the adventure so we would have time to spend with some of our other chicks along the way.  Where did the time go?  They were babies just yesterday, I'm sure.

Getting in the truck--ready to leave on our adventure!

We went on a walk on Saturday when we got to Provo.  This is at the NuSkin place.  We had fun with their water feature!  (I used your blog pictures, Angela!)

Very fun to hop across!

On Sunday, we went to church with Steve and Angela.  Their ward is huge!

We went to visit Aunt Mary.  She had lots of goodies and snacks for us to eat.   

Sunday afternoon naps are very important--sacked out on Mary's couch.

Playing "Ticket to Ride."  The dad won.  I lost by a landslide.

On Monday morning, we hiked to the "Y."

This picture doesn't show how absolutely tired and miserable we really were.  It was a killer hike.

I couldn't get up.

I will have to say we were pretty proud of ourselves for not having to have a rescue helicopter lift us out.

On Monday afternoon, we went to see Angela at work!

On Tuesday, we had plans to walk the Provo River Walk.  Well, the heavens decided to open up and let loose.  It rained like crazy all day long.

Instead of walking the River Walk, we went to the University Mall in Orem and walked the entire mall twice.  When we finished, it was still raining, so we went to the Provo City Center mall and walked first the bottom floor, and then the top floor.  When we were done, it was still raining.  (Sadly, Gallup didn't get any rain at all while we were gone.)

On Tuesday, we took Aunt Mary out to dinner at Village Inn.  Amy had a work meeting.  She wasn't able to go, so.....

...we picked her up afterwards, went to Dairy Queen for Buster Bars, and took them back to Steve's and Angela's house.

While we had Aunt Mary in the car, we went and stalked Donny Osmond's house.

On Wednesday, we met Cindy Wiser at Temple Square and spent a few hours with her.  It's always good to get together whenever we can!

We always go cemetery hopping when we can.  At the Millville Cemetery, where we found the graves of Elsa and Ola Nielson, we found a crabapple tree.  We picked crabapples so we can make Great-great-great grandma Elsa's Crabapple jelly!

I haven't made crabapple jelly since we moved from Los Lunas.  We used to pick crabapples from the tree in the church parking lot for jelly when we lived there.

In Logan, we met up with Sami Durrant.  We went out to dinner...

...and then ice cream at...

...Twizzleberries!

At breakfast in our hotel in Logan.  Susan said, "Now this is the way you do it!"  She ate all the cereal out first, and saved all the marshmallows for last.

This is the house my dad grew up in.  It is still in Logan.

Get a load of this windshield washer we found in Logan!

When we got to BYU-I, we went around with Susan to find her classrooms!

Susan unpacking.

At the Orientation Meeting.

We walked along the Snake River after we left Rexburg.

Idaho Falls.

Along the Snake River walk.

Drinking orchada at the cute little taco place in Provo.

It's Taco time!

After the Saturday session of Stake Conference with Steve and Angela.

On Sunday, we took off for home.  We made it safe and sound.  It certainly is quiet around here.  I miss my baby.  I wonder how long it will take us to get used to this whole empty-nest bit.  It took us a while to adjust each time one of our baby chicks left the nest.  I guess it's just part of life.  Millions and millions of other families have gone through it and have been just fine.  We will, too.