Day 2 of the Western Expedition

Day 2 of the Western Expedition
Saturday, June 24

At 6:30 a.m. in the morning, Kristi awoke like an early bird as if she did it every morning. Keep in mind the time difference- 6:30 in Arizona = 8:30 in Illinois. Anyway, eventually I woke up and joined her to start our Saturday.

We headed outside to the hot dessert and basked in the sun… for about 3 minutes, before certain individuals could take it no longer and jumped into the pool. It was a refreshing welcome on such a scorching day. Much to our dismay, cloud cover hovered above us most of the afternoon, but we somehow all ended up enjoying the warmth that enveloped us as we relaxed.

After enjoying a mild lunch of CHEESE CRISPS (Kristi prefers the title “quesadilla,” and simply cannot understand why our family calls them this name), homemade salsa and whole wheat tortilla chips, fresh fruit, and an ice cream bar, we headed back outside… but not before introducing Kristi to an entirely new fruit: the strawberry. Sitting there appalled was my mom and my Aunt Connie, trying to fathom how she had never ever tried a single strawberry in her life. Well, we couldn’t have it.

I kindly sliced up a strawberry into several pieces while Kristi sat there with a scrunched up look on her face.

“Try it….try it…. TRY IT,” I cheered. She hesitantly took a bite, and ended up enjoying it immensely, but not without a few comments about its texture.

Upon arriving back outside, we both jumped into the pool, and I swam over to the edge to get a gander at the beautiful scenery in front of me that stretched out down the mountain for miles. Looking up into the sky, I spotted something. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Was it SUPERMAN?

No- it was a red round object, flying gently in the sky with something attached at the bottom of its string.

“Look!” I shouted to Kristi, pointing up at the flying object. “It’s a balloon!”

“Yeah, and there’s something attached to it. I wonder where it’s going?” Kristi pondered.

“I don’t know. It looks like it’s headed our way.”

Well, wherever it was headed, it had a long way to go- it was pretty high up in the sky.

Within a minute, though, the balloon had managed to float over our way, lowering itself into an area that looked very close to us.

We just had to know for sure.
We climbed out of the pool, ran across the deck, and rushed through the gate, turning the corner. As we peered down the driveway, we both came to a complete halt, our mouths dropping open.

“There it is,” I whispered, pointing down to the foot of the driveway.

Sure enough, there it was, floating above the driveway under a shaded tree.

We approached cautiously.

“I wonder if there is a bomb attached to it,” I remarked. Kristi stood at a safe distance, and I circled the balloon, trying to eye what could possibly be attached to its string.

I picked it up, and low and behold… it was a CD, melted and twisted into the shape of a heart.

So thank you- secret admirer, for sending that present our way!

Kidding. But it was amusing, and we immediately befriended the balloon and went running with it back to the pool, half expecting for there to be several other balloons in the sky floating in our direction. Sadly, we were wrong, but it was fun to find such a prize.

The rest of our afternoon was spent being lazy at the pool, and then Kristi and I decided to be active.

“Let’s play tennis!” I suggested.

Now let’s get one thing straight. Neither Kristi nor I have played tennis since high school, so seeing us up there on the tennis courts was probably an amusing sight- and to our knowledge, no one got to enjoy that sight except us. We practiced serving and hitting the ball for awhile until running around and whiffing became tiresome and hot—I kid you not, it was likely still over 105 while we were up there.

After returning to the pool and then getting cleaned up, we headed to Pasta Pomodoro, a small Italian restaurant, and enjoyed that with my aunt and uncle. We then went to “Honk,” a play about the ugly duckling, featuring my little cousin. It was a darling play, with lots of fun and laughter.

By the time we got home, Kristi was ready to crash. After all, she had gotten up at 6:30 that morning. I somehow killed an hour (I have been dying to stay up late on this vacation, something I don’t get to do much now that I work every day), so I did so, and then climbed into the big, King-size bed next to her. The enormous size of this bed is nice for a change; usually, I am kicking, shoving, and elbowing the whole night through, but we practically have to get binoculars out to see each other in this bed. Nice change.

That wraps up Day 2 of the Western Expedition. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on today! I love you all!

T