My Favorite Place on Earth

Taken Fall 2005.
 I'm thinking about hanging this one on my wall.
But, I think that about almost every photo of this place.

I love Fall

JT knows just how to say it

etsy artist

Well, the sun's not so hot in the sky today
And you know I can see summertime slipping on away
A few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red
But the grass is as soft as a feather in a featherbed
So I'll be king and you'll be queen
Our kingdom's gonna be this little patch of green

Oh, september grass is the sweetest kind
It goes down easy like apple wine
Hope you don't mind if I pour you some
Made that much sweeter by the winter to come

Sun Valley

While C1 works long nights and weekends, I go on vacation.

Might as well be missing him away from home, right?

So this past weekend I went to Sun Valley

with Christian's parents (Roge-Dawg and Laurie)

and little sister. Hi Annie.

Sun Valley reminded me of a setting for a Hans Christian Anderson story. Rainbows, ducks, street musicians, mountain air...

Oh, and we ate some delicious food! Sweet potato fries, delicious pasta,

wraps and berry crisp among the hardest to forget!

This is the 5th Rainbow I've seen in the past month! Now, where's the pot of gold?

Bear Lake Blue--always photo worthy.

Roge-Dawg's favorite of the car show.

There were no ugly ducklings!

Annie took this pic! Isn't that the sweetest birdie ever?

I've been wanting to take a photo of a horse since June!

I'm sure due to my continuous reading and looking at her cook book.

OK, she really is taller than me, but not THAT much taller!

When I met Annie, I think she came up to my waist...

Can't wait to go back! Maybe next time with my CPA.

Heaven on Earth

this makes me happy

Missing the Farmers Market Already

It's 10/10 everyone

So it's been 10 days since I stopped storing September. The first part of October has brought a work retreat (well, technically it started on the last day of september), a trip to my favorite place on earth, and a totally crazy R.S. activity.

Work and Play

I spent a day here

with them.

We did a lot of brainstorming for the magazine, learned about communications styles, built balloon towers among other team building activities, and got a free night at Zermatt Resort in Heber. Sounds like a good deal to me.

At the Cabin for Conference

Other than the snow, Bear Lake was a perfect conference weekend get away.

My cousin Alyssa came with us. She has red hair and is an artist...I'm 100 percent jealous.

Kiss the Cook

The Relief Society Octoberfest was today--10/10 at 10 a.m., we had pumpkin waffles with orange butter, nutmeg syrup and toasted pecans and played a pretty noisy game of getting to know you BINGO. All the while C1 was cooking up our waffles and cleaning up. You can see more photos on our new ward blog that we introduced today.

Elizabeth Rooney says it best

Storing September

You ask me what I did today.
I could pretend and say,
"I don't remember."
But, no, I'll tell you what I did today --
I stored September.

Sat in the sun and let the sun sink in,
Let all the warmth of it caress my skin.
When winter comes, my skin will still remember
The day I stored September.

And then my eyes --
I filled them with the deepest, bluest skies
And all the traceries of wasps and butterflies.
When winter comes, my eyes will still remember
The day they stored September.

And there was cricket song to fill my ears!
And the taste of grapes
And the deep purple of them!
And asters, like small clumps of sky...
You know how much I love them.
That's what I did today
And I know why.
Just simply for the love of it,
I stored September.

People I Love (the first of a series)

Jenny is one of my lifelong favorite friends. I tell you about her now, because this week she made me laugh out loud. And I have to share it with you. I just have to. So, read this if you want to laugh out loud, too. And then, if you're interested, you can read about why I love Jenny below...

Jenny and I did silly things growing up--like we made up a recipe to put in our ward cookbook. We named it "Me Oh My What a Perfect Pie." I truly hope no one EVER tried it because it was far from perfect.

One time we noticed one of our neighbors didn't have house numbers--so we decided to use our artistic abilities, cardboard, and markers, and made one for them. We hung it up one day and the next day it was gone...I guess they didn't appreciate our art as much as we thought they would.

One Spring when we were in college, we took a spur-of-the moment trip to Boston where we went shopping, followed the Freedom Trail, ate expensive cheese and bread, and even went sailing with an MIT grad. Unfortunately I dropped my digital camera in the Charles River so I have no photos to show you (well, actually it was my brother's camera...the lucky duck got a brand new one on me). We ended the trip at an inn and restaurant owned by her aunt and uncle in North Hero Island, Vermont. If Heaven isn't just like Bear Lake, then it HAS to be just like this place.

We took the hardest class of our college careers together in our last semester at Utah State (go Aggies). Communications Law had a pretty tuff reputation, but Jenny and I decided we weren't gonna let that stop us. We had a weekly study date where we edited each other's papers, quizzed each other before tests, and laughed a ton. We both ended up acing the course.

Jenny's mom calls her a domestic diva. And I totally agree. For proof, just look around her blog for a while and you'll see organizing tips, sewing projects, and get this--she is eating a salad every day this year.

She introduced me to cucumber sandwiches, gummy strawberry candy, Vermont, pumpkin soup, tap lessons, organic sugar at Costco, Etsy, earrings like these, and many many many more wonderful, uplifting things.

Last Week at this time I was in heaven