There are a couple of things that we have come to appreciate Utah from our experience here. The first thing is that you can cash a
check anywhere in Utah. We mean anywhere! You can go to Ream's or Washington Mutual, it doesn't really matter, they just charge you
a small service fee. In Hawaii, you can only cash a check at the bank listed on the check or your own bank. This is an incredible
inconvience to us since, neither of us have accounts at any of the banks here. The only place where we can go is a credit union
that participates with Mountain America (Ashley's bank). These credit unions are far and few, so without a car....well, you get the
idea.



Equally bothersome is the lack of sidewalks in the neighborhoods here. We probably wouldn't have minded it so much if we were not
forced to walk everywhere. So why not walk on the roads, you ask. Well, the streets are lined with parked cars at all hours a day,
making the street accessible only to traffic going in one direction. Cars going in the other direction are required to wait their
turn. If we walk down the side of the street, we get glares from the drivers. So we walk in peoples' lawns and on the curb and sometimes
in the mud if it is raining (as we did today walking to the credit union).



One other thing that we are nostalgic for is good mexican food. We know that we have said it before, and Utah has far from the best mexican,
but we really miss it. The quality of the food leaves a lot to be desired. We can't wait to get some spice back in our food.



On yet another note, Ben awoke at 3:45 AM and heard voices outside, a car door open and then quickly shut. This morning, he went outside
to check on our pumpkin and as we expected, it was missing. We hope they didn't torture the poor pumpkin before smashing it!!!




We watched Jurassic Park 3 this evening. It was filmed on Maui (A place we will not get a chance to see this visit) and it looked very cool!
Anybody know how they built those huge abandoned metal structures in it (such as the ones that hold in the Pterasaurs)? Was it done with
computers or did they actually build them? Those things were huge!




Today at the grocery store we picked up a couple of wedding magazines (which, of course, had checklists galore). What initially seemed
like a little bit of work appears to be a lot more! This small ceremony may actually take more effort than we [Ben] initially thought. A lot
of the things listed fortunately do not apply to our ceremony, however, so after more careful inspection the ceremony may take the same amount
of effort that we [Ben] initially thought...only time will tell!




Getting ready to come home...


Ben & Ashley