Public Transportation

For someone who always had a parent or neighbor drop me off and retrieve me from school (until I could drive myself of course!), public transportation comes as quite a shock. My roommates and I decided it would be immensely more economical to take the bus to school and around Orem instead of driving our various vehicles. So, in the last few days, we have had many adventures and many laughs involving wrong buses, missed stops, seeing the same bus driver 3 times in one hour, and a mistaken trip to a secure area that was meant to be closed to the public. Woops. Oh, not to mention, we waited half an hour for a bus that doesn't exist. That one will make you feel reeeeeealllly smart. So much for being Honors students.....

On the Tram with the Fam.

Today our family had plans to ride the Tram here in Albuquerque and have a picnic at the top with Amber and Scott McEntire and their kids Kirra, Kade, and Keian. My love for all things culinary of course prompted me to volunteer my skills to prepare our picnic dinner. I spent a couple hours preparing a pasta salad, caprese, and a delicious entree consisting of pizza dough, mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, basil, and spinach, rolled up and cooked to crispy, golden perfection. Needless to say, our meal was rockin! The McEntires picked us up at 5:30 and we drove to the tram, boarded, and marveled at the lovely view. We were anxious to get to the top and have our picnic! I for one was beyond starving, and the aroma of warm pizza dough wafting from my bag did nothing to help the situation. Anyway, we got to the top and wandered around, attemtping to find a flat spot to put our blanket down. The whole time, Kade was bounding around in the tall grass, jumping off of rocks, and announcing with much fervor that he was going to "hunt bears and coyotes". What a fearless little guy he is! We finally found a spot that was flat enough for us to sit down and eat. About midway through our meal, I started to get pretty cold. It was quite breezy up on the mountain and a lot more chilly than I thought it would be. My shorts and tee shirt ensemble was doing nothing to remedy the situation. I wasn't the only one feeling the chill though. What all of us imagined would be a leisurely picnic dinner followed by much lighthearted frollicking through the mild summer evening air, turned into a half an hour race to finish dinner and get off the mountain before our fingers turned blue and fell off our bodies. We did manage to get some nice pictures before we left, however. And the trip to Coldstone for ice cream (compliments of my ever generous father) was certainly good compensation for our short lived attempt at a summer picnic. Fun stuff. :)The view from the top

Kirra and mom enjoying the view

The countdown begins...

8 days. 8 days is all I have left in the place that I have lived my entire life. I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it is the only place I have ever called home. In 8 days, I make the trip to Utah to start the rest of my life. I've always known the day would come when I would pack my things and leave the familiar things behind. But when I was five years old, nothing seemed further away than college. Even during high school, the wait for graduation seemed eternal. But now, graduation is in the months gone by, and I have little more than a week to get my life together and relocate. I'm excited. I'm so excited to move on to new things and find out who I am. I'm looking forward to the lack of expectations I'll have to fill. I only have to meet my own standards, and I get to decide what people will come to expect of me. I will finally get to find out if I am in fact the child my parents hope I will be. I'll be able to decide if I want to live by the rules they set for me, or work out something better on my own.
Preparing to move is something that is completely new to me. I have only ever moved one time, and it was 10 minutes away from my childhood house. I was only five at the time, so the boxing up of my limited possessions was not something I had any part in. I just had to get in the car with my parents and walk through the doors of a new home. Now, however, I have to box up all of my things. I have to go through my closet and get rid of things that I no longer need, things that a few years ago seemed of the utmost importance, things I thought I could never part with. I was surprised to discover how easy leaving so many of those things behind has become. I'll just say this. I am not a high school student anymore. Between graduation and now, my life has changed immensely. And I know it will change even more in the weeks and months to come. I've been waiting for this day for a long time, and now the final countdown begins.