My Second Home?

Very often you hear the phrase, "my second home". It is one that I use very often. Obviously my home is and always will be Whittier, CA. It's where I grew up, it's where my parents home is, and no matter where I live it is my home. The question I ask is where is my second home? The obvious answer would be Northern Virginia/Washington DC, or Sweden where I spent two of the most important years of my life and of course Utah. Every summer and many winters the fam would go to Utah to visit my relatives and of course I went to college there. The past weekend I went to Utah and had so much fun. I thought I might hit some of the High Lights.

Awkward and I on Campus at BYU. Notice the Y in the Background.

Families aren't really supposed to have favorites but I will go out on a limb and say that I am my Uncle Danny's favorite nephew. He's always been my "fun" Uncle. When I was a kid he would take me to the Arcade, drive me around in one of his cool cars, watch action movies and all sorts of fun stuff, and of course our many trips to Disneyland. Uncle Danny (I think my family are the only people that still call him Danny to everyone else he is Dan) called me early last week and asked me if I wanted to come out for a weekend visit. Seeing as it was a long weekend and I had no other plans, I thought that would be great. We made the reservations and I was on my way.

Amber Pack deserves major props for driving me out to Dulles on her day off. I had a layover in New York but I had stayed up so late the night before watching the BYU game that I was happy to take a nap and listen to some NPR in The JFK Airport. It wasn't a terribly busy travel weekend because on every flight I took I never had anyone sitting next to me.

Danielle and Camille picked me up at the Airport and we on our way to P-Town. I had a number of things that I wanted to do while I was in Utah. (In no particular order)

1. Eat at Cafe Rio
2. Visit the BYU Book Store
3. Find a wife
4. See my interns Kenny and Michael and their cute wives
5. Watch the latest "Mormon Movies"
6. See Julie (Note #3)
7. See Dan, Matt, Brett, and Brent
8. Get my haircut
9. Go Shopping
10. Make care package for Elder K-Koz

My family took me out to a Birthday dinner at Macaroni Grill. They had a guy there who sings opera and so he asked if I wanted him to sing anything for him. I requested "Time To Say Goodbye" but he didn't know it. I was not pleased. I settled for some other song and Happy Birthday in Italian. I took my cousins on a drive around Provo showing them all of the old places I lived and doing an impression of my Grandpa that I think only Danielle "got". I managed to find the house of a boy that my cousin Jacqueline...well I'm not really sure I think they went to a formal dance together or something. We pulled up to his house and I threatened to go to his front door and introduce myself. Needless to say Jacqueline wasn't so keen on that idea. In fact she freaked out and nearly had a panic attack. The rest of us thought it was very funny.

I'm sort of a sucker for those "Mormon Movies" most of you have probably seen God's Army and the Singles Ward so for some strange reason I was excited to see what Utah had to offer as far as cinematic gems. We rented two. Beauty and the Beast: A Latter Day Tale, and Anxiously Engaged. They were both terrible and by that I mean amazing. B and the B was especially cheesy. I also must share a quick aside. My cousin Camille just turned 14 in fact we were together in CA last month to celebrate her birthday. We call her with the utmost love "Awkward" and we can use the word Camille interchangeably with awkward. She is very beautiful and we are just teasing her a little. Her awkward moments include, telling jokes that aren't funny, assuring us that she has Fall Out Boy Bassist Pete Wentz's phone number, and allegedly a genuine love of side pony tails. As the movie ended Danielle says to me,

"That movie was so awkward it was like Camille and her friends wrote it."

Nom Nom Nom Cafe Rio

Danielle and I wearing Sun Glasses in the Porsche. I remember Uncle Danny wearing those exact glasses without the slightest bit of irony during the 80's

We spent Saturday running errands and doing all the enjoying all the things that
I love about Provo. I got my haircut by Nicole who was able to share my "vision" of what my hair should look like. Something that is surprisingly difficult to find here in DC.

Throughout Friday evening and Saturday my old pal Julie and I worked on figuring out how to meet up. She is in Salt Lake and I was very excited to see her. She told me that her twin sister Emily as well as our friend Marlena from our Freshman ward was there. I had been joking with Julie for about a week that I would take her out in the Porsche. I wasn't sure Uncle Danny would let me take it. Not only did he let me take it, he also gave me a coupon to get it washed.

Since second grade I have had a poster off a Porsche 911 in my room. It is and will always be my favorite car. Driving it was an absolute pleasure. I totally understood why middle aged men buy these things.

Partying like it is 1999-2000 Peter, Marlena, Julie, and Emily

I drove up to Salt Lake (and even though it was terribly tempting without really speeding) and picked up the girls. We went to dinner at Pei Wei which I think is delicious and reminisced about the old days and what is happening in our lives now. Emily and Marlena expressed some interest in moving to Washington and of course I encouraged them. After dinner we drove around Salt Lake up as high as we could. We took some fun pictures of the city and the car. It was a lot of fun. At least for me. I'm not so sure about the girls in the back seat. I think a sign of friendship is that you can not see some one for a long time and then when you do see them it's like they were never gone. I experienced that a lot during my trip.

Two Hotties, the Porsche 911 and Miss Emily Dougall

I won't say too much more about the evening other than these few semi cryptic things. Life doesn't always happen the way it does in movies and, Slider's comment to Maverick about "Crash and Burn" was a fairly accurate way of describing how my heart to heart went. But I have gotten major props by most everyone for being brave enough to say anything. On the way home I called B-Rock and made a quick stop in Lehi. Alas I did not see Bryce Gardner while I was there.

My protege and forever my intern Kenny Keeton

The highlight of Sunday was seeing Kenny and Marlyse. Kenny was an intern in the office at this time last year. We got along so well because we both love football, video games and procrastinating. He is forever indebted to me for getting him a picture with Randy from American Idol and I am forever indebted to him for letting me score a touch down against Dr. Tim. Marlyse is nine months pregnant. She is so cute and Kenny is so excited. They have completed the nursery and Kenny even pressed the curtains. We talked about law school, politics, real estate and all the other other stuff we are interested in. Marlyse and Kenny are among the best and encouraging me to move back to Utah. I want to get married so we can be couple friends. We had a great time chatting.
Cousins picture at the Energy Solutions Arena

Wanting to maximize my time on Monday I took Camille to school with Dooney and Uncle Danny. Uncle Danny and Aunt Lisa had something to do on Monday so Uncle Danny gave me the keys to the Porsche and wished me the best. I went back to BYU to see Matt for a few minutes and then picked up Kenny to go eat lunch one more time at Cafe Rio.

For awhile I had heard about Gabrielle's teacher Miss Rust. Danielle wanted me to see for myself. I had seen a picture so we went to pick up Gabrielle from school. The sixth graders seemed pretty excited to have me there. I recognized Gabby's friend Kimba and some other kids I had seen at Cafe Rio. I met Gabby's teacher and she assured me that Gabby was not a trouble maker but that it can be difficult being around sixth graders all day and not start sounding like them.

We had just enough time to meet up with intern extraordinaire Michael and his wife Jody for some ice cream at the BYU creamery.

Although I no longer consider the Jazz my favorite team (and yes I realize I am a traitor and I am a terrible sports bigamist) since Karl came to the Lakers it was still fun to go up to Salt Lake to see the Jazz beat the Kings.

I had a wonderful trip and I am so thankful for my Aunt and Uncle having me for a visit. I didn't get to see Dan and Ashley, Brett and Beth or Brent and Stephanie but I had a great time. And despite the fact that one of my big hopes for the trip took a nose dive....I still got to drive the Porsche.