Utah = Friends

In an effort to be economical on this trip, I decided not to rent a car. Big mistake! Although Kelly was wonderful about driving me places, I know that next time I want to have the freedom of going wherever I want, whenever I want and to not have to rely on others to be my taxi. One of those willing to be a taxi driver, however, was one of my besties, Lenae. She moved to Utah three years ago and I still haven't forgiven her for it. When I found out I was going to be heading her way,  I immediately got in touch with her to make plans to spend some time together. She picked me up Friday morning and we spent the day together. It was so much fun!
I was super excited to meet her new little guy, Ashur, as well as catch up with her other kids.

She and I went to lunch and also got pedicures. Oh, how I have missed having her close by!

The second willing taxi driver was my sweet friend Linda who I have known for over 20 years. She picked me up from Lenae's house Friday evening and we headed to Tepanyaki to meet up with some of my other long-time friends, Courtney and Jennifer, to have dinner and play catch up. These ladies can make me laugh and our dinner was filled with loud stories (Courtney), gossip (Linda), and a lot of joy and laughter. We had a hard time saying goodbye at the end of the evening; we ended up talking in the parking lot for another 45 minutes! Love these ladies!

When friends saw that I was in Utah many of them reached out to me about coming to see them but I had to apologize and say "Sorry, no car." But one of those lovely friends didn't let my lack of a car stop her from seeing me - Kinzi, who was Sister Mortensen to my family while she served her mission in Baltimore, got in her car and came to me. What a sweetie! It was so great to give her a big hug and catch up with all of her post-mission happenings. Love her!

And of course there's Kelly, a person who I'm lucky to call not only sister but friend. She took time off work to spend time with me and it was wonderful. I absolutely treasured the time we got to be together during this trip and especially loved the evening where we got to go to dinner and just enjoy each other's company.