12of12 | September

01. The moon as I was leaving on my run this morning.
02. Girls making lunches--a part of their morning routine.
03. Megan drew a self-portrait of the two of us on the chalkboard Saturday. According to her it's to remain up until I get back.
04. A detailed schedule for Adam & my mom of the girls comings and goings this week.
05. We spent the evening walking around the 9/11 memorial. Definitely a sobering experience to walk around and read about the individual lives that were lost that day.
06. Had lunch with my dear friend Laurie.
07. A lot of this day has been about packing up for New Hampshire. Yes, that is a heating pad and cake pans in my suitcase. The heating pad is for my bed at night (no heat in an uninsulated cabin) and the cake pans are for my food photography class. I must say it is rather delightful packing for fall weather.
08. Another shot from the 9/11 memorial.
09. Adam helping Megan with her afternoon homework.
10. Target for last minute purchases.
11. Another shot from the 9/11 memorial.
12. Last, but certainly not least, Adam surprised me with an ipad of my very own to take on my trip. I was and am still in shock about it. Looks like traveling alone to the east coast won't be so lonely after all. Wahoo!

It was one of those day with lots on my to-do list, getting out of town is always full of last minute details. Of course it's the kind of busy you are happy to do. I am, I believe, all set to leave for New Hampshire--now. I hope you had an equally productive day or at least a delightful one.

over the weekend | farmers market

I have to laugh when I look back at my post from last night. I don't know why i ever think it's a good idea to be blogging in such a vulnerable state. Thank goodness for a new day and a clear head--I woke up this morning feeling totally refreshed and in control of everything.



Over the weekend we made our way to the farmers market downtown. I always find it enjoyable to roam around and see local artists, live musicians, fresh produce, and taste homemade goodies. I would definitely recommend going and going hungry. It's seems like every time we turned around there was something else that looked phenomenally delicious. My other recommendation would be to go early. I read you want to go early enough to get the best produce, but really you want to go early enough to beat the heat. I'm thinking fall would be the perfect time to go, of course then you might miss out on all the flowers. Go now & go then--I'm certain that will not be our last visit.

The other thing that made me extremely happy was to see my two oldest walking around with their cameras taking photos of stuff that stood out to them. Looking forward to pouring over their memory cards as soon as I have a moment.

a day in the city

library
new books
reading passports
attic room
magazines
art gallery
ideas
cafe



glass elevators
roof top garden
lovely views
noise
waterfalls
foliage
summer heat



fresh cookies
gateway
more heat
fountains
shops
knick knacks
can we get a slushy?
apple accessories
mist

family campout | photos

I'm playing catch up this week before the summer is completely gone. Back on Aug 6th we went to the Heber Valley camp ground for our annual family camp out. I wasn't there Saturday for the boating, games and other festivities, but I did get to participate in my most favorite parts of camping...the fire, roasting marshmallows, smores, gazing at the stars, hanging out and talking, eating, and enjoying cooler weather.

It was funny as the lady was talking to us about wild animals and what to do if we saw any a badger came out of no where. I couldn't believe how big it was.

It was fun being able to celebrate Landon's birthday while we were up there.

gateway outing

took the kids on a little outing this afternoon just to have something to do in the heat...it was a success on all accounts.

monday bullets

-Mondays just seem like a bullet point kind of day. It's the day I look at the whole of my week and add to my ever increasing to do list.
-My lists are no longer made with paper and pen, well occasionally they are, but for the most part I use 2Do. A favorite app that helps me stay organized.
-I'm finally completely done with my Woman's Conference talk. The guts of the message has been done for about a month actually, but there were a few things that didn't feel right that I kept coming back to. Yesterday evening I was finally able to figure it out. Feels good to have the final draft in my hands.
-I hear it's suppose to be cold, maybe even snow this week/weekend. Can't tell you how disappointed I am by that news.
-My two nieces, Olivia and Ashley, slept over Friday night. We met up with Robyn at the mall to hand over Olivia so they could spend the afternoon together celebrating their birthdays. Adam and I were left with Megan and Ashely which seemed like a manageable group, but had the ability to remind us how easy we have it now that we're at the tail end of little kids. It was an enjoyable outing even though they had the ability to walk in front of every person in a hurray and their attempts to play hide and seek were thwarted by their giggles.


-Here they are shopping with us at the boutique Lucille Elaine. Adam took this photo while I was trying on a dress. The two of them were trying their best to behave because there was a table full of cookies and cupcakes tempting them. I wish I had had one myself, Adam said the cupcakes were day changing.
-A really great show started last night on the history channel called, America the Story Of Us. It's all about America's beginnings. From what I have seen it's not only really well made, but it's a great reminder that our country beat the odds because of the determination of the people. I think it's a 12 hour mini series so start recording it now.

outing

If I could freeze time it would be now. Today with my little family was perfect--as perfect as I think it can be. We spent the entire afternoon together and there was no fights, no crying, no whining, no one saying I'm tired or bored. Everyone just happy to be together tooling around town before we headed to a birthday party.

Our day took us to Barnes&Noble, it usually does. Our normal routine is the girls make their way to the kids section while Adam and I pick out a few books of our own to look through and then we meet back up. This time the girls found the "little miss" books and Megan was thrilled to see that she", little miss chatterbox", was actually in them. That surprisingly provided lots of entertainment for her.



For me the best part was being admits the action, but being consciously aware of how good it was. More than once I looked over at Adam and said, "I'm loving this day. It's so good right now." he agreed. It's so enjoyable to see how excited my girls are to find something new and then eager to share it. Bella and Tess spend sometime in the juvenile section looking for books they're interested in while Megan read about reptiles with her dad. I love that they're readers and once a book is finished that they're excited to move onto the next adventure. Bella wanted Percy Jackson book #5, Tess is anxious to start Diary Of a Whimpy Kid, and Megan well, she was pretty fond of Little Miss Chatterbox.




[Tess and Bella were showing me Diary Of a Whimpy Kid and how the book is full of sketches. They found one of his baby brother and they couldn't stop laughing...it caught on.]

The best part about taken self portraits is you never know what everyone else is doing. You hope they don't know a picture is being taken so they are natural. Looks like it was natural. We definitely all had a good laugh.