A great vacation...

So I've been home from Utah for almost a week and I miss it so much!
Here were some of the highlights:
* Driving with two crazy dogs for 6 hours makes for a very LONG drive ... especially when one very spoiled dog insists on sitting on your lap the entire time.
* BBQ at Brent's newly finished, remodeled house with Amy, Elaine, Brent, David, Brian, Rob and Mike. Good food and GREAT friends!
* "Twelfth Night" at the Utah Shakespearean Festival with Shawna! Great comedy with an incredibly HOT Michael Sharon in a leading role. Great time visiting with Shawna catching up on love lives, gossip and other drama.
* Horrible, terrible, pathetic blind date. OK, so this one is another classic. I met this guy (37 and never married) at the Clark Planetarium in SLC. He stank of old man cologne. We saw a movie at the theater that was completely over my head. Somewhat interesting and incredible visuals, but I felt like I needed a doctorate in astronomy to understand it. Yikes! So afterward we wandered through the gift shop and he bought a 75 cent mini slinky and gave it to me ... I think it was just to get a parking validation. So we walked out to the parking garage. I knew my car was on an upper level, but he tried to convince me that it was on the save level as his. Well ... it wasn't. I told him my car was on the upper level and he then told me he had better go and find his own car, before he got lost. Yep, he actually left me alone in a parking garage to try and find my car by myself! I laughed the entire way to the elevator and continued to laugh all the way back to Layton. Including drive time that date lasted less than 2 hours ... thank heavens!!
* Uncovered new job opportunities in Utah!
* Took the parents out to lunch at a really nice new restaurant in Layton. Good food.
* Had plans to meet Joni in SLC at the Gateway for a little shopping/errand running and dinner, but plans quickly changed to just a quick visit instead.
* Got a text message from my favorite solider ... Keith and I met up at the Gateway. He had been serving in Afghanistan since Christmas and, after being wounded in a helicopter crash, he was FINALLY coming home!! He had arrived in Seattle the day before and then flew the next day to SLC. We spent a great time at dinner. I was completely excited, nervous and hardly ate any of my dinner. It was so amazing to finally see him after 10 months! The last time I saw him was on my 33rd birthday in October. We had a great time catching up, but I was sad it had to end so soon. I'm hoping we can pick up where we left off very soon.

* Shopping with Kristy for a little flirty nighttime fun was a great afternoon ... like old days when we managed to drop a good share of cash hitting sales.
* The drive back to St. George had a little extra "baggage" as Mom drove back with me.
* Visiting with friends once again, I dreaded heading back home to California, but it was a great trip!

Vacation time!

I am gearing up for a much-anticipated, long-awaited, extremely-overdue VACATION!
A trip back home to St. George and Salt Lake City may not seem like much of an adventure, but it's just what the therapist calls for ... haha!
I'm so excited to visit all my St. George friends. Even though it's only been a few weeks since I've seen them, I love and miss them all so much!

My favorite restaurants, too, await me. Green Chile Chicken Salad at Bajio, Steak Burrito at Cafe Rio, Chicken Tortellini with Creamy Pesto at Pasta Factory, Taco Time's Crispy Chicken Burrito, Honey-Baked Ham store's Bedda Chedda, The Empire State at Gandolfo's ... Ahhh the food! Can't wait! I have missed it so much. I'm so incredibly disappointed in the restaurants here in Palm Springs. There is fast food, crappy Mexican, fancy-schamncy places and completely over-priced wannabes regular faves. There is no where in this desert where I could get a lunch as complete as the Pasta or Pizza Factory lunches (drink, breadstick, salad and pasta) for under $7. Boy I miss Utah!
OK, enough about food...
While I'm home, I'm also going to enjoy one of my favorite summer traditions... The Utah Shakespearean Festival. "Twelfth Night" is on the schedule for a Saturday matinee! Last summer was the first in 11 years that I have not enjoyed all the plays at the Tony Award-winning festival.
After a weekend in St. George I'm heading up the 15 to the 'rents' place. Can't wait to hopefully reconnect with some friends I haven't seen in nearly a year or longer. And maybe, just maybe ... a certain returning, recovering soldier boy will find his way back home while I'm there!