Kristin

When Sundy and I were married 4 years ago, there were three family members noteworthily missing: Paul, Sundy's brother who was at basic training (I advocated a wedding date 3 weeks earlier so that he could attend, but that is another story), Sundy's cousin Crystal (on a mission in Mississippi), and my cousin Kristin (on a mission in Texas).

Through our lives, Kristin and I grew to be close friends. We were both the oldest in our families, and as kids we would often get together with our fellow elder cousins Trent and Nicole (and the younger cousins later on) for Sunday card games, football matches, and philosophical discussions about whose parents were the most strict or which school classes were the most boring. More recently, when Kristin and I were both single twentysomethings, we would go on hikes and commiserate about our frustrations with the Happy Valley dating scene.

Because we moved to Oregon before Kristin returned from her mission, it was not until Sundy and I had been married for a year and a half that wife and cousin finally met each other. Even after they met, the two never had much of a chance to get to know each other, so we were excited when she agreed to fly up from Orem and stay with us for a week. As our time in Oregon is winding down (2 more weeks!), we took advantage of her visit to do some "last things" in the Portland area. We visited some of our favorite restaurants (Salvador Molly's, Rimsky-Korsakoffee, (Sundy wouldn't go for The Native Foods Cafe)), visited some new sites we hadn't yet been to (OMSI and the Rose Festival), and made our sixth and final trek to the tourist-trappy-but-still-worth-seeing Multnomah Falls. The falls provided our only real disappointment, the last leg of the trail to the top had washed away and we were unable to complete the hike.

Sundy and Kristin really hit it off. Perhaps too well. They spent more time than I was comfortable with swapping Tyler stories. Between the two of them, they now have nearly my entire life covered, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.