Flat Stanley's SLC Adventures

So, maybe I'm behind the times, but up until a couple weeks ago, I had no idea who Flat Stanley was. Even PRESIDENT BUSH knew who Flat Stanley was (and please PLEASE read that very short article - there's something about Pres. Bush saying 'Flat Stanley! Did you want to take a picture?' and knowing exactly who it was that really cracks me up).

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a brief summary:

Flat Stanley is a children's book about a boy named Stanley Lambchop. His dad gives him a bulletin board and hangs it over his bed (Come on, Dad, that's just an accident waiting to happen) where it OF COURSE falls off the wall and flattens him in his sleep, but Stanley, being a boy of great ingenuity and courage, makes the best of a somewhat odd, not to mention impossible, situation and LIVES IT UP as a newly flat boy and takes off on all kinds of adventures including mailing himself off to faraway places (which is not a bad idea considering the cost of airline tickets - if it were that easy, I would have been to Greece long, long ago). So elementary teachers, including my nephew Nate's 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Carpenter, have since been having their students send little Stanley replicas off to faraway places. All the F.S.'s are then returned with evidence of wild adventures. Apparently the idea is to teach them about geography. Or something.

(A side note: This book has been around since 1964, well before I was in 2nd grade. Mrs. Beck has some explaining to do.)

So Nate's version of Flat Stanley was mailed off to SLC from North Carolina a couple weeks ago, and I have since been taking him with me EVERYWHERE. Please observe:

Flat Stanley at Supercross (front row seats, no less. Nothing but the best for F.S.)

 Flat Stanley school-counseling...

 Drooling at Gourmandise bakery

 Eating Nielsen's Frozen Custard

 Saving three ducklings from the neighbor's window well and setting them free at Sugarhouse Park

 Celebrating Cinco de Mayo

 GRADUATING WITH A MASTER'S DEGREE!!! (Beat that, all of Nate's classmates...)

 Doing research on what colleges he'd like to attend.

Learning about paintings of Christ

 Checking out the Y

 Visiting the Great Salt Lake

 Taking Grandma for a spin



(Who comes to Salt Lake and doesn't visit the Morton Salt factory??)

 Frolicking on the salt flats

 Visiting Temple Square

 Going for a ski at Snowbird

 And taking one last look at the Salt Lake valley before going home to North Carolina!!

If this doesn't get me Aunt of the Year 2011, I don't know what will.