You know it's the fourth of July when...

Bobby woke up in the wee hours of the morning to head off to the bike shop for the group ride that is scheduled for every Saturday at 7 a.m. When he walked out of the house, one of our neighbors across the street was outside yelling things at our Hispanic neighbors about how they "don't belong" and "don't deserve to be here." When no one showed up for the group ride, he returned, and when he pulled up he saw the same lady being cuffed and taken away. She was yelling something about showing her pride for her country.

On Thursday, my brand new bike arrived, and this morning, I get to go on my very first ride in a very, very long time. Sara is coming with me, which makes my heart happy. She informed me yesterday that I'm never allowed to leave Utah, because then she won't have any girl friends.
Perhaps I can convince her in the mean time that she would actually be much happier at KU. I had to laugh last week at the adoption event when we were volunteering, because this guy kept making loops around the store to where we were. Sara was convinced that meant he really wanted to adopt a dog, so I turned on the sales pitch and started talking to him about all the dogs we had there. Instead, his eyes were fixed on Sara, and he asked her what her necklace meant. She told him it was a cross, and he said, "Yeah, what does it mean?" He was very excited to have found a non-LDS girl in the Provo/Orem area, so I left the two of them to chat while I laughed at her awkward misfortune. Eventually, she found some way to bring up her boyfriend, and the guy quickly departed. Times like that make me especially grateful to be married.

Can I just take a moment to brag about how wonderful my dog is? We went hiking last weekend, and Peli spent the entire time off leash. We passed a lot of groups of people, and several of them had dogs. A lot of their dogs went nuts, barking and trying to run over to Peli. Peli listened to us, though, and never ran over to people or their dogs, and would only stop to sniff the dogs if we stopped. We passed a group of people that were holding onto a couple herding dogs, and Bobby stopped to pet them. He asked if they were Australian Shepherd or Heelers, and the person holding the leash said, "No, but could you stop giving them attention, because they're pulling." It wasn't a request, but a demand, as if it were Bobby's fault that her dogs were not listening to her. Peli goes nuts with everything outdoors because she absolutely loves being out there, playing and running and digging and rolling, but as soon as we call her, she responds. On mornings when we want to sleep in, she stays with us, snorgling with us the entire time. She's pretty much the best dog in the world. Three cheers for awesome landlords for letting us get her.