Day 191: 9-20-20 (Sunday)
Today we had home church and online Relief Society. After church Tyler and I moved everything completely out of one storage unit. Nice... now we are down to just two! Today the sun was actually shining. The smoke is gone and the air is clear. It's crazy how many basic things we take for granted. COVID has been teaching that lesson for months. All in all, it was a nice relaxing Sunday.
Day 192: 9-21-20 (Monday)
Today we started our 2nd week of school. The girls are adapting well and working hard. My Institute class that I love started up again. I decided not to attend this week. We are really trying to limit the number of people that we are around before we head out of town. We do not want to miss out on this trip and seeing Kam. Speaking of Kameron, we talked to him today. He is getting excited to go to the temple. He said that the Utah missionaries complain and think that the Minneapolis Temple is ugly. (Ugh...Utah Mormons...they are so annoying!) It's a small one. Kam says it looks just like the Spokane Temple and he says it feels like home! The church building he attends is on the temple grounds so he is there multiple times a week and he loves it! I can't believe that we get to see him on Friday!
Day 193: 9-22-20 (Tuesday)
Today I sold a really big piece of furniture so Tyler and I ran to Coeur d' Alene on Tyler's lunch break. I did a quick booth restyling since we will be in Minnesota on vendor night. The air is finally clean enough to go walking again. It feels good! Bryn had her first "in person" piano lesson since last March today. Both she and Jodi (her teacher) wore masks and everyone is happy that things feel a little bit more normal. Yay for things like piano lessons resuming. It is the only extra curricular activity Bryn has thanks to COVID and she is excited to be back!
Day 194: 9-23-20 (Wednesday)
Today Tyler and I packed for our trip. I had rotten sibling issues all day long. Can we just make progress moving toward closing on the Sandpoint house?!
In better news...Kam got all of his information for his temple endowment session. Exciting! Ailey had an "in person" YW activity on the temple grounds. Since it is about 25 minutes from our house Tyler and I dropped her off and hung out in the valley for awhile. We got ice cream. :) We also got word tonight that our school district will begin phasing back in to going to school on Oct. 7th. They will start with the kindergarteners.
Day 195: 9-24-20 (Thursday)
Today was EXCITING!! We flew out of Spokane early at 7am. It didn't really feel any different flying during COVID except that everyone was wearing masks and they give you a sanitizing wipe to wipe down your seat and a prepackaged snack including a drink. I prefer no one in the middle seat so that wasn't bad either. Yes, wearing a mask for so long was irritating but who cares! We left Spokane!!
Obligatory airplane shot!
We arrived in Minneapolis around noon on a gorgeous fall day. All of the leaves have turned colors in Minnesota. That hasn't happened in Spokane yet. Everyone had pumpkins on their porches...in September! Unheard of! It still feels like summer at home and that is FINE by me but it was fun to *visit* autumn for awhile.
Everyone told us that we had to see the Mall of America so that was our first stop. We decided to have lunch there and see what all of the hype was about. It is definitely BIG! It wasn't quite what I expected. Yes, there is an amusement park inside.
Yes, there are a ton of stores. Yes, we had to go back out to the parking garage to put on tennis shoes because our feet hurt from walking around...so yeah...big! But the inside is totally circa 1989. I want to go back just to show my kids what 80's malls looked like! This is one on a really large scale! I was THRILLED to see this store:
Be still my teenage Swatch loving heart! Yes, I was one of those people who wore multiple swatches at once. I almost bought one. But I've come to depend on my Apple watch which has a rubber monogramed band and feels kind of Swatch like! LOL.
There were a lot of fun stores. Definitely nothing like what we have at our malls in Spokane which are barely limping along. Bring back malls! We marco polo-ed with Reilly, Ailey, and Bryn and they are all super excited to come here when we pick up Kam after his mission.
After that we checked into our hotel which is about 5 minutes from Kam's apartment. We got our stuff unloaded and then headed out to explore the area. Minneapolis is really pretty! There are so many beautiful trees and little *lakes* everywhere. Kam definitely downplayed the beauty of the area. We saw the Mississippi River which was exciting! We also drove to the temple so that we would know where to go tomorrow. It does look like the Spokane Temple but I think that the Spokane Temple has prettier and larger temple grounds.
Pretty!
We wanted to drive across the border into Wisconsin (part of Kam's mission is in WI) so we headed there and found the cutest town full of great shops and restaurants. Kam told us that there were Culver's in Minnesota so we got that for dinner while we drove all over. There are no Culver's in Spokane or ANY frozen custard for that matter!! People of WA... do you know how delicious frozen custard is???
By 8:30 pm we were exhausted and decided to head back to our hotel. But then the most awesome thing happened!! We decided to drive by Kam's apartment to see where he lived and where we would pick him up tomorrow morning. He lives in a VERY large apartment complex. It looked okay... nothing too snazzy... but not a dive either. It is very large and there are probably 12 big buildings that are each 3 floors. We had his address so we drove around looked for his particular building. I am not sure what kind of numbering system they are using but it was completely elusive. We circled and circled. It was also dark and not well lit. Finally after about 15 minutes Tyler was like, "I'm done! He can walk out to us tomorrow!" As we were pulling out of the complex I saw a flash of white in a third floor window and what looked like some guys in white shirts. I made Tyler drive around once more and I saw the flash of white again! This time it was just one guy in a white shirt sitting on a couch. We stopped and looked up at the window and I just knew it was Kam! I was like, "There he is!! There's Kameron!!" and Tyler said, "Are you sure??" and I said, "Yes, I am sure!! I know my own kid!" We sat gazing up at his window and then he cracked his neck like Kam always does and Tyler was like, "Yep, that's him!" We sat there staring at him from our darkened rental car in the dark parking lot when all of the sudden Kam looked out the window and looked like he saw us. We were like, "Does he see us??" But Tyler said, "There's no way he can. It's dark. He is just seeing his own reflection and even if he can see into the parking lot our car is dark and it's a rental. He wouldn't recognize it." But then all of the sudden Kam's face broke into a huge grin and he waved! I was screaming, "He sees us!! He knows it's us!!" We were waving and Kam was waving! Finally when Tyler made us drive away and I messaged Kam to say that we weren't trying to spy on him (He was very strict that we couldn't see him before the allowed time) but that we were just trying to figure out where he lived and Kam messaged back with a laughing "I KNEW that was you guys!!!" We were laughing and messaging back and forth that it doesn't matter where he goes I will find him no matter what! Kam responded with, "That is true!" Tyler was like, "Wow! There really is something to a mother's intuition!! I can't believe you found him in that giant apartment complex!!"
There really is something to that isn't there? And... there really are tender mercies from Heavenly Father to a mom who just wants to know that her kid is okay. He gets it...He understands. He knew I needed a glimpse of my kid that day and He knew that maybe our kid needed a glimpse of us too.
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