Chicago, Phoenix, SLC

I am now at my grandparents' house! I'm excited to be here. Soon my aunt and cousin Daina will arrive to take me to their house.

Gracie hugged my goodbye four different times this morning. She is such a sweetheart.

My flights went pretty well today. At the Chicago airport, traffic was bad. My mom dropped me and my dad off, and it took her so long to find any parking spots that I had to leave and go through security without saying goodbye. We called her on her cell phone, though, and said our goodbyes then. I had needed to get through security quickly, because for some reason the seat we booked online was not on the boarding pass, and I had no assigned seat.

At the gate there was a very long line of fairly cranky people who all seemed to need to be re-assigned to their seats. It was pretty disorganized and there was come poor, chubby German(?) guy at the desk all by himself. I was right behindvery cranky couple who chewed out the poor guy because they "needed to be home three (later they changed the amount of days to 'four') days ago." They were going to Las Vegas. This plane made a stop in Phoenix, and then went to Las Vegas after about an hour's stop, and the girl was furious because they wouldn't have time to eat between flights, and said that they should at least get first class seats... It was really quite stupid.

On the flight to Phoenix I sat between an elderly woman and a guy who was on his laptop with headphones on the whole time. The woman and I talked a little bit about her kids and where they all live. Her husband died a few years back, so I was glad she was getting out to stay with her daughter, who is a nurse, for a while. When we got off I helped her find her next terminal. She was really nice.

On the next flight, I sat in the very first row behind first class. I sat between two older men (between the ages of 50 and 60?) and listened to them discuss the republican politicians. Then then man to my left and I figured out that we were both LDS and talked about geneaology, and the difference between Utah wards and wards all over the rest of the earth. I thought his idea summed it up: "Outside of Utah, wards are a great big family group. Once you get into Utah, wards are just a group of families."

Once I got off my flight, I remembered the SLC airport that I knew exactly where to go terminal. Grandma and Grandpa weren't waiting for me where they usually were, so I went and got my luggage. By the time I got back to the main entrance, they were waiting for me. They took me and my starving self to the Taco Bell drive thru, where Grandpa had me order what I wanted from out the back window, and the ride there was very short.

There's so much smoke from the fires! It looked like a flat plain with an overcast sky. The smoke was so thick that I couldn't see the mountains!

Well, Aunt Linda, Uncle Jeff, and Daina are here, and we're going up to have cinnamon(sp?) rolls and milk.


And is it Pheonix, or Phoenix?