My First College Drop Off

After that stunning realization, there was nothing to do but get up and get ready for church.  I was so tired I ended up taking a quick nap before our 11:30 sacrament meeting.  But in between those times, Bentley and I enjoyed hanging out some more with Jenna and Nick and their super-cute kids.  Church was fine.  I opted to go to YWs with Jenna (mostly because I figured I'd rather stick with her AND because Relief Society is boring).  But it was definitely weird having me and my Mom suddenly show up there, although everyone tried to be very gracious about it!  (Poor Bentley had agreed to go to YMs with Nick, but he hadn't realized until he was already sort of committed that Nick taught the deacons!  Oops!)  And then while I was trying to sit through the lesson, Craig was frantically texting me asking to call because he was stressing about our upcoming Tuesday activity.  Oh, well.

We left as soon as the lesson was over, raced home and ate my Cafe Rio leftovers, and then hurried to visit...  President and Sister Grames-- my mission president from my entire mission in Sendai, Japan (from 10/2000-3/2002) and sort of my backup parents for that entire time.  I love them dearly and was so happy to get to spend some time with them catching up!  Unfortunately, we were so busy chatting that I didn't think to take a picture.  Darn it!  Now I'll have to go see them again...  But it was really fun seeing them.  When I arrived, I had Bentley and my Mom with me so they could say Hi.  But I figured this would be a pretty boring visit for them, so my Mom headed off to visit a cousin on the other side of town, and Craig's brother Jason and his daughter Maya came and picked up Bentley after a few minutes.  (They were in town getting Maya settled at Weber State!)  And then after spending an hour or so at a park with Lindsy and Brayden, Jason collected me and brought us back to Jenna's house.  So that was a little crazy, but everything actually went really well.  I love it when my wacky plans actually work!

And once my Mom had rejoined us, we drove to Heber City to have dinner with Luke and Kat Hogan!  People who really read my blog might be familiar with the Hogan name-- they have been our family friends for forever and we have enjoyed countless Thanksgivings and other holidays with them!  Growing up Luke was Natalie's best friend, and the closest thing I've ever had to a little brother.  (Truth be told, when I realized that Craig was exactly two weeks younger than Luke, I was a little horrified.) Anyway, Luke and Kat lived in the Seattle area for quite a while, but then two years ago they defected to Utah, which was shocking.  Why would anyone leave the paradise that is Seattle for the little mountain town of Heber?  

It was fun to hear their answer, which (as I suspected) was well thought out and involved a lot of factors; it was nice to understand them better.  But more than that, it was just fun to hang out with them again!  (And they fed us really well, too!)  The best part of the evening though was probably when we figured out that Kat is good friends with Bentley's roommate's mother!  This was awesome for a number of reasons: first of all, she was able to reassure us that he's a good kid.  This was especially important because there had been some sort of mix up with their instagrams so that Riley was following Bentley, but hadn't allowed Bentley to follow him back and this had been a source of stress for Bentley.  The mom connection quickly sorted out whatever had gone wrong there.  The other good thing about this was now we knew that Riley was from Bothell, which meant we didn't need to worry about Bentley being stuck with a roommate from Orem who would go home every weekend to do his laundry, all while acting like he knew what it felt like to be homesick.  Those roommates are the worst.  So, yes, Bentley came away from this visit feeling much better about what was in store for him!

Luke and Kat, with their daughters Emi, Maya, and Naomi!

We'd planned on swinging by Bentley's dorm afterwards so that he could leave his church clothes and collect a few things he would need for his Foundations of Leadership conference.  But when we arrived there, Bentley realized he'd forgotten his ID card.  Someone was leaving and we caught the door, only for Bentley to admit that he'd ALSO forgotten his key.  So then we just drove back to Jenna's for the night.  Hopefully that will help him not make that mistake in the future!

We had to get up early the next morning, so we kept the car and dropped my Mom off at her hotel.  Bentley went straight to bed, and I stayed up hanging out with Jenna while she did laundry.  I could have stayed up chatting with her all night!

The next morning, we planned on leaving the house at 7am.  So Bentley was going to be up around 6 or so, and I was going to shower after he was done.  But this time, I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't get back to sleep.  

Me?  Stressed out?  Never!

So I got up, showered, and tried again to sleep, only to notice that I was getting texts from our poor seminary teacher who was locked out of the basement.  So I was up again trying to make sure someone let her in.  And then I went ahead and got dressed and packed.  We had no problem leaving on time!  We swung by Mom's hotel and she was also ready to go, so she accompanied us to Provo!  We swapped out all the stuff at Bentley's dorm (including grabbing his pillow, which we wouldn't have thought of the night before!).  We had time to kill so we took pictures in front of the BYU signage:

The flowers are sort of blocking the sign, but this one says "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve"

I like how my pants match the flowers, although I wish Bentley and I didn't clash!

And this sign says "The World is Our Campus" (it's so fun to be able to say "campus" again after UVA always has to be referred to as "the grounds"!)

He was mad at me for making him stand in front of the Brigham Young statue, since there were a couple of cute coeds walking by.  But he still smiled very nicely for me!

And then it was time!  We drove to LaVell Edwards Stadium and got him all checked in for the leadership conference.  He was group 18 and we gathered his stuff and marched him to the right number.  We were early (Bentley was understandably very antsy) so it was just us and some sort of counselor trying to make small talk with us while I tried to not start sobbing.  Finally I couldn't take it any more.  I'd warned Bentley that this would probably happen, but I tapped him on the shoulder, told him I had to go and that I loved him, gave him a hug, and walked away sobbing.  Grandma followed quickly after me (I really wish I'd asked her to get a picture of my hug, since a real Bentley hug is such a rare thing).  I sat in the car crying for a few minutes and then called Craig and cried to him.  Mom noticed the bug spray Bentley had forgotten in the car, but I couldn't say goodbye again, so I made her run it back to him.  And then we went to Waffle Love to cheer me, and then on to the airport.

Our flights were leaving within twenty minutes of each other, and were only a few gates away, so we got to hang out together looking at each other's pictures, which was nice.  And then it was time to say goodbye to my Mom, too!

Definitely a good day to NOT wear mascara

My flight was uneventful in the best possible way.  But when I stepped off the plane in Baltimore, I immediately got a text informing me that my next flight had been delayed three hours.  So that was pretty lame.  I cried on the phone to Craig some more.  I called someone with Southwest to see if anything could be done and when he couldn't help me I just sat there in silence until he finally asked if I had any more questions and all I could say was, "I'm just really sad and I want to go home."  But eventually I gave up and got myself some dinner, put on my pajamas in the airport bathroom, brushed my teeth and tried to not care.  Right before that flight finally took off (and well after I should have been home and in bed!), I got this picture from Bentley:

That lifted my spirits a little, at least, and made my extremely late night feel worth it.  Scream-singing Taylor Swift to keep me awake the entire drive home, I finally arrived at 3:15am and crawled into bed.  At least if you're going to be sad, your bed is a good place to be...