Saturday, June 13, 2026
For Devri’s 40th birthday present, Brian gifted her a ticket to the Standard of Truth podcast church history tour with the hosts of the show, Gerrit Dirkmaat and Richard LeDuc. We highly recommend anyone interested in history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or anyone with questions about church history to listen to their podcast as it is hilarious and extremely informative. It is apparently popular enough that their tours get booked out at least a year in advance, so he had to book it in May 2025 to go in June 2026. So finally the time came that Devri could get her 40th birthday present just two weeks before her 41st birthday. Brian graciously decided to go with her and arrange for the kids to be taken care of by Lea and his parents (who were very kind to accept).
We departed for Cleveland leaving the children to fend for themselves “Lord of the Flies” style at least until Michael took them over to Lea‘s for the night. For reals, we didn’t help them pack. We didn’t give them a list at all, we just helped them talk through what they might need and left them to their own devices. As a result, one of them snuck a device he probably shouldn’t have. We don’t want to name names, so let’s just call him G blank blank blank.
Michael took us to the airport and he said he kind of wished he was going with us though he would never admit it again and it wasn’t enough to actually make him change his mind about it (we did offer to take him at one point). Since we felt like we had plenty of time in spite of our frantic packing, we ate at Blue Lemon because we’ve been missing it by us and they have one just outside of security. While heading into security, we found out that Brian didn’t get his TSA pre-check connected to his ticket so we headed to the Delta desk to get that straightened out. With a little less time than we were hoping to have by this point, we headed through security again. Devri did not get a pat down thankfully, but her bag did get flagged. After having the TSA agent look through her liquids, we were on our way through the tunnel (primary children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked and…) over to the B gates and got there about the time our plane was boarding.
In the boarding line we ran into the Dirkmaats. We were so excited to finally meet Gerrit and that he was on our flight with us. We got to meet his wife Angie and three of their children, and then we boarded the plane. Since somehow, we ended up with an aisle seat and a window seat with a seat in between, we switched a guy for his middle seat and he was very happy with the arrangement. Devri watched a movie while Brian played a game and listened to the podcast to try and catch up. He also nearly slept.
We made our way off the plane finally caught the airport shuttle to our hotel. During this, we ran into at least two other people that were going on the tour as well. It was well after midnight, but it felt early due to Hawaii time zone to Utah time zone to eastern time zone mess. We were super excited, and also relieved to know that our children had finally made it to Lea’s house. We made it to our hotel and crashed.
Sunday, June 14, 2026.
We woke up, showered, packed up, and then took a Lyft to church. The Westlake Ward in Cleveland was fantastic. They were so friendly and reminded us both of our wards growing up so much that we wanted to move to Cleveland. We had to convince ourselves that we needed to stay in Highland. You’re welcome, children (and Devri’s hair).
We met up with two other couples that were on our tour at church and sat by them through sacrament meeting and then went to Priesthood and Relief Society. After church we were invited to a popsicle social out on the pavilion and again, everyone was super friendly.
We decided to book an Uber with the other two couples since we were all headed to the same hotel for our tour meet up. Brian tried to book a Lyft, but no drivers were interested so one of the other couples booked us an UberXL, which was supposed to seat six. It was a CX-9 that took the job and we both knew the CX-9 CAN sit seven people inside.
However, when the CX-9 showed up and after Brian and I put our bags in the back and we climbed into the back, we discovered this particular model had captain seats in the middle row and only seats six total including the driver, meaning there weren’t enough seatbelts for all seven of us (three couples plus the driver). The Uber driver told us he couldn’t take us since it wouldn’t be safe and Uber is always watching. Maybe he didn’t say “always”, but he did say he could get in trouble if he tried to take us without everyone having a seatbelt. We were a little frustrated since we had requested a car for six people, and he took the job without meeting the criteria. By this point we had already waited half an hour for a car. Seeing our concern, he said “I’ll just give you a ride for free and I’ll cancel this Uber” which was very kind. We opted to just pay him in cash instead.
We were trying to puzzle out what to do. Meanwhile, we checked into our room and headed back to the lobby to once again look for the missing AirPods. While Brian was stressing about it and headed up to the room to change, Devri checked the hotel store to see if they had travel hairspray since she didn’t pack any and it was quite humid. She tried to pay for the hairspray but tap to pay wouldn’t work and we couldn’t charge it to the room because it was booked through the tour. The front desk guy told Devri to go ahead and take the hairspray and just pay him later so she headed up to the room to grab her wallet to pay the guy at the desk.
When Devri got back down, a gentleman informed her that he had paid for her hairspray since he had overheard her plight. She knew he was part of the tour and so she introduced herself. He said his name was Richard and we started to ask for his last name before realizing it was *Richard* Richard, as in one of the hosts of the podcast. We told him about Brian‘s missing AirPods and Richard offered to take us in his rental car to go find them since their location pinged a mile up the road, so we took him up on it because that’s the kind of lazy mooches we are. We followed him around for a few minutes before Brian decided to call it as a loss cause since there was about a 5-10 minute delay between updates and it kept moving ahead of us. We literally only knew three things about the vehicle: it was a CX-9, it was silver, and the driver was a younger Indian man. Meanwhile, Richard realized we were needing lunch and dropped us at the mall for the food court and possibly new AirPods. Richard also said that if the AirPods popped up close by again, he would be ready like a fireman with his pants and boots all ready to step into and take us to go find them.
The first order of business was food. Unfortunately, the food court didn’t have great options, so we settled on an Italian pizza/pasta/potato/wing place. It was about what you would expect from such a place in the court: too much dressing on the salad, too much grease on the pizza, and overpriced.
By this point, we realized that the mall did not sell AirPods anywhere, and we should have gone with Richard to Walmart where he needed to pick up his wife. We decided to just walk to Walmart even though Richard had earlier offered a ride. Fortunately, the downpour Cleveland had when we first started out had slowed to a slight drizzle and we had a pleasant walk over.
At Walmart, we got new AirPods, fortunately able to price match them to the same price they were on Amazon. We felt good about that but still a little salty about losing the other AirPods. We walked from Walmart back to the hotel and headed up to our room. Brian was getting ready to open the box and connect his AirPods when I suggested maybe he should wait until the end of the night just in case we found them. Even though he had offered a prayer or two that they could find them, he didn’t hold out much hope.
We decided to just relax in the hotel room for awhile. Brian kept checking Find My and discovered that the driver seemed to return to the same spot near the airport after his drives. He texted Richard to see if he was game for trying to meet up with the driver at this spot after he went back there again. Richard was down, so we headed to the lobby to find him and continue this side quest. We found Richard, his wife Becky, his son Rigdon, and Rigdon‘s girlfriend waiting for us in the van and off we went. When we got into the car, Becky told us we didn’t look like their “normal fare” of tour guest and that we looked much younger and more put together than most of those that are typically on the bus. We took it as a compliment instead of just feeling weird. We drove to the spot only to discover the AirPods were ready on their way to downtown Cleveland. Richard started to give chase before Brian told him that they were quickly moving further and further away from our location and perhaps we should just give up. The other people in the car protested; they were invested now and determined to see it through. They actually thought the entire situation was hilarious.
Richard asked if we wanted dinner and we agreed that sounded like a great idea. Richard took us to a Mexican restaurant, Matador, and we all got some amazing pastor tacos and burritos. A few times during the meal, Richard asked where the AirPods were but they were still downtown. He asked if we wanted to go to the new Cleveland temple, and of course we were up for it, so we drove to the temple which has its open house starting next week. It is a modular temple and is truly stunning. We told them about how we had learned at church that morning that the dome on the temple had to be switched out two or three times before they got it right due to the wrong size and cracks that developed.
After the temple and a quick check on the AirPods (still at least 30 minutes away), Richard was excited that we had time to get ice cream at a highly rated local place called the Honey Hut. Brian and I got a peanut butter cup sundae, which was delicious, to share. Then we were back in the car chasing the AirPods again.
They were finally headed closer to to that parking spot at the airport!
We got to the spot and set up where we could watch every car coming in and out, but Brian discovered that the AirPods had stopped in front of a house about 10 minutes away. We had heard from the other passengers that morning that the driver said he lived nearby, and since it was already 9pm we wondered if he had gone home for the night. Becky immediately said, “let’s just go to that house and knock on the door!” and so we took off. Just after entering the freeway, Brian noticed that the AirPods once again had moved back to the spot we had just left!
Richard took the next exit and swung back around as quickly as possible. By this point, it was getting dark - not pitch black, but the sun had already set. We found a silver Mazda CX-9 matching what we remembered and outside the car were some Indian men. Our driver had been Indian, so even though none of them looked familiar we thought it could be them!
Brian excitedly got out of the car and went quickly to approach the drivers, who were eating dinner outside. He immediately asked if one of them had given him a ride earlier, but they all just stared at him, wondering what in the world was going on. He decided instead to ask them who drove the silver Mazda, and a younger man said it was him. Brian finally recognized him and asked him if he remembered driving six people that didn’t fit into his car from a church to a Hampton Inn. After a few seconds, he recognized the ride and Brian was able to tell him that his AirPods were still in the car. They were all shocked that we had tracked him down and were laughing as Brian climbed into the back of the car and grabbed them. The driver said he had given rides to people all day long and many had gotten in the backseat or put luggage back there and yet no one had seen the AirPods. Meanwhile, Richard had gotten out of the car as well and snapped some pictures using his Meta glasses to remember the occasion. They both returned to the car victorious.
We were all delightful stunned at the outcome of our crazy adventure. It had been an interesting night full of belly laughs due to Richard’s sense of humor. After the AirPod reuniting reunion, we headed over to the airport to pick up Gerrit who was returning his rental car. We told him of our triumph on our way back to the hotel. We felt so cool to have been a part of the LeDuc family throughout most of the afternoon and we entered the hotel in blazing glory. After such an accomplished evening having found the AirPods and getting to know our hosts better, we finally headed to our room and bed. (After making sure to take a picture with the Fellowship of the AirPods, aka the Le Duc family).
We found out the next day that Rigdon’s girlfriend/pre-fiancee thought it was so funny and awesome that she told her whole family about that night. Admittedly, we did the same thing.
