Big news today: Google has succeeded in providing the world yet another way to deceive. Now we can back date out emails so that they arrive in the recipient's inbox in the "correct" chronological order. Not only that, but we have the option of marking it as "read" so that Rita (or Bob, or whoever) thinks that she must have just forgotten that she received your email and read it LAST WEEK. Talk about making a person go mad. Of course we only get a maximum of 10 a year, just to keep us from abusing the new feature. psh.

I didn't update on the rest of my Phoenix trip. So, here we go. If you're interested in the trip's happenings, read on. If not, you're welcome to just look at the pictures and skip down past this paragraph... It was really great. Momma and I did a lot of exploring... and shopping. We went to Superstition Mountain, a beautiful park with this amazing jagged mountain, tons of cacti, and beautiful wildflowers. On the way there we came across an adorable wedding chapel called the Elvis Presley Memorial Wedding Chapel, and on the road back to Phoenix we passed an incredible sign for a nonexistent restaurant. That sign must have been at least 50 years old.

Monday night (St. Patty's Day) I neglected my Irish duty to visit with some friends that were driving through town. My friends Preston and Taylor (who is dating my friend Jeanette) play with a Birmingham band, Wild Sweet Orange, and the guys just happened to be stopping in Phoenix. It was fun visiting with the guys and I'm really glad that I went to see them, especially since there was a miniscule turn out (the venue had no booze, which doesn't allow for very festive St. Patty's celebration). Wednesday night I visited with another friend from Samford, my dear Xue. She lives in Tempe with her little sister now, and Birmingham misses her. We had dinner at the restaurant where she works, went to another show for a band that I had met in Birmingham a couple weeks prior (These United States), and wound up enjoying the night discussing music, travels, books, and rug contents with some really cool fellas.

Saturday mom, dad, and I jumped in the car and drove to the Grand Canyon. We passed through Sedona (a place with some of the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen) and Bedrock. We were a little unsure about the purpose of Bedrock and their means of staying in business, but it definitely was the highlight of the trip north... at least in my opinion.

Sunday morning we woke up at 5am to make it to the Easter sunrise service on the Canyon's south rim. It was absolutely breathtaking and incredibly cold. Dad took a walk (about 100 yards) later that afternoon down the trail into the Canyon so he could say he hiked in the canyon. Silly daddy.

After that we got back in the car and drove all the way back to Phoenix (about 4.5 hours), stopping in Flagstaff for lunch and a quick photo op on Route66. Monday morning mom and I did some last minute shopping before dropping me off at the airport. I'm so glad I got the chance to go visit. Phoenix is definitely an amazing city and I'm now even more excited about mom and dad's future there.

This past week has been very uneventful. I won't sit here and complain because yall definitely don't want to read that, so I'll just summarize the few things happening lately. I'm working nonstop on my thesis, trying to catch up to my calendar. Currently I'm about 4 days behind my schedule, which is a great improvement (last week I was more than a week behind). I haven't had much social interaction due to my constant schoolwork, but I did cook dinner with my girlfriends last night. I found a chicken corn chowder in my new Phoenix recipe book and it was DELISH. Thanks, momma.

Ten semesters of college makes one very tired. I sure do enjoy interior design, but after all this work I definitely wouldn't mind being a flight attendant. I know mom and dad don't like hearing talk like that (they are very generous to fund my education), and I'm not entirely serious, but you can't avoid being burnt out on the thing that's burning you out. And interior design is definitely burning me out right now. There are very few other times when I've had such an itch to escape and do something completely different and adventurous...