Monticello

Last weekend, Niels and I went down to Monticello with his sister Joelyn (who just finished her mission a week and a half ago at Temple Square) since her records were still there. My sister Susan also went down because she needed a break from life. We went down to Provo Friday night and helped Holly and Ammon (Niels's sister and her husband) in the morning with weeding and mowing the lawn, then we made our long trek down to Monticello. It is about  a 4-5 hour drive from Provo. We ended up stopping at the Needles overlook viewing part of Canyonlands (which isn't too far from Monticello, but a good drive out to it), so it took us about 6 hours instead. Here are a some pictures of that area:

 It was fun to stop there and look around. It is a pretty area. When we finally  were in Monticello, we first stopped by their house where  they grew up because it is still for sale. We walked around the yard and inside (the house was for some reason unlocked) and Niels was having a hard time. Since my parents still live in my childhood home, I haven't had to go through that loss, so I can't imagine how Niels was feeling. I could tell it was hard on him so I tried to have him talk to me about it, but he isn't one to talk about feelings and acts like everything is just fine even though I can definitely tell there is something wrong. He doesn't have a good poker face like he thinks he has. Anyways, after that, we went and stayed at their mom's good friends house and it was nice. The husband reminds me of my grandpa just through the way he says things and his laugh and smile.

Sunday Morning, Niels and I went with Joelyn to her report to the high councilmen. We were her acting parents since they're on their mission. It was fun to here some more of her experiences and her testimony. The spirit was strong and it was just nice to be around a freshly returned missionary. After her report, which was at 6:30 am, we went back and had some fun:






Poor Susan was asleep still (we all slept in the same room) and we were laughing and talking and we woke her up. I felt bad. We finally went downstairs and talked before the couple started coming out and getting breakfast out. Church was at 11 and Joelyn gave a great talk on missionary work and how we can become member missionaries and not being afraid to open our mouths because we never know how it will impact our friends or family. It was really nice and she took some quotes from Elder Andersen's talk on missionary work from general conference and the tomato plant story from Elder Ballard's talk in general conference. I enjoyed everything she said and I need to get back into the missionary mindset of being willing to share the gospel, that I love, to others so they can have that blessing as well. I remember thinking that I would be the best member missionary when I got home, but I quickly lost that feeling after returning home.

 

After church, we had a delicious dinner of roast, potatoes, carrots, and salad. Also, we had a yummy apricot drink, it was really good. For dessert, we had homemade, from scratch, spice cake with applesauce on it. It was all so good and my mouth is watering just thinking back to it. After dinner, we went back to the church on our way out so that Joelyn could share her testimony with the mission prep class because the teacher asked her to. Afterwards, we were on our way back to Provo. Here are some pictures of our drive back:

This is what Monticello is known for, the horse head, do you see it?

This is looking across Canyonlands to the LaSal Mountains 

 This is church house rock

 The turtle rock

 Wilson arch which is right by the highway passing Moab

 

We stayed at Holly's and Ammon's again Sunday night. Then on Monday, we helped clean up their yard some more by trimming rose bushes, weeding some more, trimming back grape vines and fixing the sub-pump. We left right after lunch just after 2 and went to Salt Lake for a chiropractor appointment again. My back was doing a lot better! Which is good. I have noticed a difference since my first one in March, my back doesn't hurt as much. The chiropractor was happy about the difference in my posture and that it wasn't too bad because that meant my spine was keeping up a good structure. We finally left and made our way back home Monday evening. It was such a long quick trip, but it turned out to be nice and something Niels needed to get some closure from his parent's moving out of Monticello before they left for their mission. It was beautiful weather during that long trip, which was perfect, because nobody likes to travel in bad weather. Here are a couple more pictures of our trip:

Our cute new nephew Andrew, we just kept holding him and fighting over him

 This is Melanie's newest lamb and it's mom. We stopped by in Burley to pick up Ginger and she wanted to show us her newest addition.