Friday was my last day with the Hogan family, which was really hard for Clare, myself, and the family. It made it difficult to know just what we wanted to do. I don't think I mentioned the scavenger-like hunt that we'd created earlier in the week. Well, it didn't start out as a scavenger hunt (but do things ever end up the way they started out when I'm around?). It started out as a list of things that we still would like to do (or could possibly do) before leaving at the end of the week. Well, if you've been paying attention at all, you know that Clare's friends are as crazy as I am, and you can probably imagine the kind of list that was created. If you can't, then let me enlighten you some:
- pick nose (it was never determined if this was your own, or someone else's but it WAS first on the list which I am proud to declare was NOT my doing!)
- hike to Bridal Veil Falls (check)
- go to Walmart (I think this was a joke like unto "pick nose" but I'm not entirely sure because it was done)
- swimming
- make my suitcase look older (yes, I have my own little suitcase now, but it gets packed in Clare's)
- another bodily function that I'll just leave to your creative imagination
- feed ducks
The list went on, and I don't remember all of it, nor does it really matter to you right now. While its obvious that some things were never meant to be done (ok, well maybe you can't help them being done, but they weren't really ment to be recorded or checked off as "done"). However, the day after the list was created, someone did one of the silly thing on the list, someone else caught it and yelled "Where's the list! We can check that off!" Thus began the scavenger hunt version of the list. In fact, when we were at Bridal Veil Falls, a duck swam across the small pool at the bottom of the falls, and someone yelled out that we needed to feed it something. Having not planned for such an event, an M&M was tossed its way, claiming that "we tried" even if I'm not sure the tiny piece of candy landed anywhere near the duck.
That brings me back to Friday, and a list that had many things crossed off, but by the evening there were a few more things on the list that seemed would just have to be left undone. Not to end a holiday with things undone, Clare and KayRena jumped into Second Life and found a mini golf game they could play together. I wasn't even invited in the room during this occasion, nor was my SL avatar invited (yeah Clare made an SL "Whatever", isn't that cool). I guess, in their excitement to finish the list, they completely forgot that the trip is all about me, and that I might have liked to join them, even if it was just in SL. I am amused to report that SL mini golf is just as hard (if not harder) than the real thing. I heard their laughter all the way in the other room, as they exclaimed about balls going over the fence and into the river, barely missing close shots, and complaining about the little mounds that the balls just refused to go up. If only they'd given me the chance to try.
Saturday morning was spent lazily hanging out and just enjoying their time together. Originally, the entire day was supposed to be spent together, doing something fun as a family (like going to Heritage Park again), but KayRena's sister-in-law went and scheduled her zombie wedding for that afternoon (yes, I said "zombie wedding"), an event that while sounding wildly amusing, was not really something I wanted to take part in. Instead, Clare and I packed our stuff up and headed back up to Ogden to spend our last few days with Di.
After the obligatory visit (for some reason it seems important to just sit and talk about nothing for an hour or more when arriving at someone's house before getting up and doing something), it was decided to travel back down to Salt Lake City to the Build-a-Bear store there. I thought this would be in your average indoor mall, but wow was I wrong. I'm not even sure how to describe Gateway Mall, but its a huge outdoor mall, which takes up four blocks (I think, I just know Clare drove right down the middle of it trying to find a place to park).
Dinner was the first stop on the agenda, and looking for gluten-free food for them both is always a fun challenge. They found a place that had the now very familiar one page printout of gluten free menu items (which then has to be cross referenced with the menu to figure out what it all means and how much it costs). However, upon studying the two menus, they both became quite confused and soon learned that the restaurant had just started a new menu two days earlier (no wonder they didn't look beat up yet) and nothing matched. The manager did his best to help them pick items, but they ended up choosing steak (as usual), as it seems to be the safest fallback. I'm not sure what the complaint is about this, as I hear steak is very good, but perhaps they were getting sick of it (can one get sick of steak?).
Sadly, the extended stay at the restaurant left us too little time to check out the children's museum in the mall, so we headed over (in the pouring rain - Di claims its following her, so I'll blame her) to Build-a-Bear where Clare bought Di's birthday present, and another bear for herself (because one can never have enough bears, even if they are two or three times bigger than me). Di had never been to a Build-a-Bear before, so this time it was Clare who enjoyed showing her through all the steps of creating these fun new friends. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it.Are you bored yet? I know I was... the following day Di and Clare did nothing, yeah NOTHING. They stayed up most of the night talking and then slept most of the day (this seems to be a habit with them, if I recall from last time). I think they went to Walmart at midnight, or shortly thereafter to make sure they didn't shop on Sunday, but I politely declined. I've seen enough Walmarts to satisfy curiosity for the rest of my life.
Monday was a little better, but not much. We went into Layton to check out Barnes & Noble (bookstore) and a few other stores there, as well as dinner in a Mexican restaurant (too spicy for me, even when its mild, but each to his/her own I suppose). We wandered around another mall for a while, found nothing of particular interest and headed home to help Di hang the maple leaf drawing Clare gave her for Christmas, which required hanging a few other pictures, which required moving a few things, which basically bored me to tears so I went to sleep.
That brought most of the list of still-to-accomplish things to a close. I know there were things both KayRena and Di wanted to do with us, but they will have to wait until future trips as we ran out of time. Our final day was going to be celebrating Di's birthday and then packing to go home *sigh*. Hard to believe the month was over already.
*yes I know, the beginning of this entry claims that I was writing it at the airport on Wednesday morning, which I was. However, due to internet issues and a lazy scribe, it has taken me until today to actually post it. Maybe, if I'm really lucky, the final two days of this wonderful trip will get posted tomorrow! Ahh, the struggles of being a bear at the mercy of humans!
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