The Maiden's Voyage

So in completely un-true fashion to myself - I did something during Spring Break that earned me an email from David that started out by saying, "Way to go, Idaho!"

What did I do that was such a big deal to my adventurous little brother (and probably anyone who's know me long enough)?

I took a lone drive to Rexburg. Shocking, I know! :)

My cousin Ben and his wife Kim moved there at the beginning of the semester and a few weeks ago Ben called me to say I should come visit them. So I thought Spring Break would be a good time to venture out and go to Rexburg, which I've been wanting to go check it out for a long time, especially to see the temple there, so I knew the time was now.

Wednesday morning I headed out and it felt nice to hit the open road.

I stopped in at a gas station on my way out of Boise and while I was inside (I finally broke down and bought some sunglasses...yeah, I'm behind the times), anyway, I laughed to myself at the song that was playing inside; it was something about, "Mama's little baby is all grown up" and I knew my mom was at home totally worrying about me taking a road trip. We always knew this day would come. ;)

 I rolled into town around 3:00 and was so glad that one of the first things you see as you get close is the temple!
  P.S. I thought it was pretty cool that I passed all 4 of Idaho's temples in one drive - boo yah!
Ben was at one of his classes when I got there, so Kim and I just hung out at their house while we waited for Benji to get home.
  We had some tasty dinner that Kim whipped up (Ben did his part by cooking some bacon like a pro) and then we loaded up and Ben took me on a "Tour de Campus". It was the first time I've been to Rexburg since 2004, and we didn't even see that part of town as we passed through on our way to Boston.
  BYU-I was something else and I really liked all the neat church artwork that was everywhere.

Then that night we met up with some members of Ben and Kim's ward around 10:00 and got to clean the temple. That was so cool! I was glad we did that because it gave me a chance to see more of the inside of the temple than I normally would have. We were there until about midnight and we slept good that night!
  When we first got there, we went up to the main doors and they were locked. There was a guy sitting at the front desk so we figured if we made big enough motions he would look up from whatever he was looking down at and see us standing out there. Nope. In the 10-ish minutes that we stood there trying to get his attention, he never looked up!
  Ben eventually called someone in the ward to find out what to do, yeah, we were supposed to go around the back to a separate entrance. Haha! It all worked out in the end.

 Thursday morning Ben had some things he needed to get done so at about 12:00 we went and did a session in the temple, which was so great.
    Kim and I kept noticing how nice and clean everything looked that day. ;)  
We tried to do a picture with the temple in the back, but mostly we just got blinded by the sun. On a good note, Ben kept saying that this was one of the first days that the sun had been out in a while, so I was glad for that.
                                                
 After we were done at the temple we dropped Ben off at school to run through a play he was in for his Spanish class. Then Kim and I went and hung out back at their house until it was time to go get Ben.
  We picked him up then went back to the house and killed some time until we all went back to the MC to watch the play.
 There were actually several different plays that the classes had broken into groups for and put together.
I think his play went fine, but it was all in Spanish so there was a lot of guess work involved with that.....
  He had a pretty sweet outfit that he'd assembled in order to look like an overweight, Mexican moocher, which he pulled off with ease! :)

 That night we went out to dinner at a delish little Thai restaurant that was just down off of Main St.
Let me just say, I totally tasted my way through Rexburg...mmm hmmm!
  After dinner we rented some movies then picked up some frozen custard at Neilson's. Remind me why Boise doesn't have one of those! So the night ended with a movie party, which was so fun!
 Ben and Kim kept warning me that they're "so boring" because they just like to be home and read or watch movies - which in that case qualifies me as boring, too, so it was a good combo.
  Then Friday we went to a craft store and a cute little fudge/candy shop (I thought bringing home 1/4 lb. of fudge to Mom might make all her worry disappear a little).
  After that, Kim headed off for some job training and I went to one of Ben's classes with him, so now I can officially say I've been to a class at BYU-I (take that David! :)
  Ben's last class for the day was a Spanish one, so I "peaced-out" and headed off to check out the bookstore on campus for a little while. Then I drove over to the temple and took a ton of pictures.

  I liked the wheat stalks that they incorporated into the windows on the temple. It's always fun to see what kind of "themes" each temple uses in it's decor and how it always ties in with the surrounding area. 

  I think I have about a million pictures of this temple now, but everytime I looked at it from a new spot on the grounds I wanted to remember how it looked just like that. These pictures don't do it justice, but I tried.

 Those columns in the front are so neat! And the view from the top of the hill is amazing! It just looks out into all these wide open spaces - awesome.

                                       
  After I was done up there, I went and picked Ben up and we headed back to the house and made dinner while we waited for Kim to get home.
    When Ben and I were about 13 or 14, I was staying with his family in Jerome for a few days during the summer and him and I decided we wanted pancakes for dinner. So we worked on them and I threw some chocolate chips on top of mine once I'd cooked the first side. Well Ben is a believer in "one last flip" before you take it off the griddle - which I'm all for, unless you put toppings on your pancake; let's just say, I ate some crunchy choc. chips that night.
  Luckily our breakfast casserole we made this time turned out a little better than crunchy pancakes! :)
 After dinner Kim and I ran to the Cocoa Bean and got cupcakes for our second movie party.
 
Check out these little beauties! The back one was S'more; pinky is Berry Bliss; and the front one was my "Better-Than-Whatever" cupcake. Oh yeah!

 Lookin' good, guys!

 After we watched the movie we ran them back to the rental store and then drove up to the temple so I could take a few night pictures of it. I love seeing the temples when they are all illuminated at night!
 Can you tell that I'm a little bit fond of the temple?

  The next morning it was time to make my way back to Boise. It was such a gorgeous day and I took a few pictures during the drive home (glad Mom wasn't there to see how I managed to do that...).

I stopped at the Farm on the way home and got to visit Grandma Farns and a few of the cousins for a while. Then it was really time to get home, so I cranked up the iPod and finished off the trip. Funny enough, one of the songs that came on was one from LOTR called, "The End of All Things", I guess that meant the trip really was over (yes, I know, I'm such a nerd!).

Anyway, it was good to finally make it over that way after wanting to for the last few years. I didn't realize Bear World was right there, too, so Ben said that this summer we need to go check that out, hmmmm...sounds like a possibility. Who knows!