First, Friday evening I headed down to the Salem, Utah area with Corrinn (one of my mission companions) and we just had a great talk on the way. Seems we are both learning a lot lately about dating, life, and ourselves. We were headed to a party thrown by Mike Davis (an Elder we served with in Houston) at his grandparent's ranch--complete with volleyball, a lake, and a dancing area. Since it was on the way, we stopped by Matt Trappett's apartment in Provo (he's an Elder we both served with) and picked up him and two of his roommates, Ben and Brad, who were delightful and fun to say the least. With my car full, we continued on our journey only to find that the map we had printed off was difficult to read. It gave two names for almost every street we were to turn at. We were sure we'd never get there, but Brad announced that he was a (self proclaimed) "excellent map reader" so we gave him the map. We actually made it most of the way just fine, however, the final turn had even him confused. Luckily, I am an even better map reader (ha ha), and when they finally let me look at the map I figured out the problem and got us the rest of the way there. Although, the map-reading skills of Brad are now a fun joke between the five of us.:)
[Luckily I got ahold of the map, or we could have ended up here:
]The party was fun, though I wasn't about to put on a swimming suit in front of dozens of people I didn't know. We ran into another Elder from our mission, Lee Jensen, and the six of us spent most of the evening paddling the paddle-boats around the lake, playing a ring tossing game (that was surprisingly fun) and tossing the frisbee. Once it was dark those activities became more difficult, and though there was a dance, we were discussing what we should do next. At one point, Corrinn and Ben, the other roommate, went out on the lake in the canoe, while the rest of us decied that though the dance looked fun, we were going to head back to Provo and catch a movie. We tried to yell to our canoeing friends, but they were to far out. We waved our cell phones, and jumped up and down but that didn't work either. So, we decided that we'd have to take the paddle boat out and run them down. (Well, paddle them down...)
Lee waited on the shore while Matt, Brad, and I jumped on the paddle boat and headed off. We finally reached Corrinn and Ben as they were transfering from the canoe to the other paddle boat, and once aboard they jokingly rammed ours. We were nervous that the ramming would throw us off balance and we'd tip the boat! Then Corrinn decided she would jump over to our paddle boat and join us. None of us were thinking very clearly, so we agreed that she should come on over! Side note: These paddle boats are built for three people. Max. As Corrinn stepped onto one of the floats on the side, the boat started to tip. Luckily I was on the side furthest from where she stepped (meaning the last side to sink), but as my left foot started sinking into the water I thought "This is it, we're going over!" We all screamed as we scrambled to keep the boat upright. Matt was on the side going down first, and he got wet all the way up his legs. Brad was wet up to his knees when Corrinn was finally able to crawl over to my side and balance out the boat. Once we realized we weren't going to die, we all busted up laughing. It really was quite hilarious, especially when you considered the screaming that had been going on, and the fact that none of us was bright enough to see it coming. Not wanting to risk another "transfer" attempt, Brad jumped onto the back, Corrinn took his place in the middle and we paddled to the nearest shore. What an adventure! We were wet the rest of the evening, but it was a good story.
As we were finally leaving we ran into Mike to tell him thanks for throwing the party, and who was he walking with but Miss Kelley Konzak, another Sister from the mission! We convinced her to come with us (because she wouldn't know anyone else at the party) and Davis (Mike) promised to throw another party soon with just mission people, admitting that even he didn't know everyone there!
We headed back to Provo, though we took an unfamiliar route home and didn't know where we were most of the time. So much for Brad's "excellent" navigational skills. We kept heading north, stopping along the way to get Little Ceasar's Pizza and eat it on the sidewalk. Some ants came and crashed the party, but it was still fun. It made us feel like we were back in Texas, where you can't even sit in the grass for fear of being attacked by a swarm of Fire Ants. A storm was blowing in and the night was just beautiful. We watched the lightning flash in the dis
tance as we laughed about the many "U" turns we had taken that night (read: I had taken that night) and joked about how many more there would be. (Just so you know, there were several yet to come...)[This is a close up of a cuuuute little Fire Ant...awww...]
Once we made it back to Provo (after missing the correct freeway entrance and heading EAST instead of NORTH--don't ask) we went to the apartment of another friend of Matt's and played "Apples to Apples" that card game that has recently swept the young adult (and old adult) population and is played at almost every party I go to. Around midnight Corrinn and I decided that we'd better get going because we still had to drive home to Salt Lake, so we said goodbye to the group. We drove home, talking the whole way about more life lessons and things we had learned, and about how great the night had been. It really was a great way to spend a Friday night, even though it was filled with near misses and "U" turns...it's all part of a great journey!
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