Blissful end of September

September was wonderful, moved by at a perfect pace, and now it is October. I tried to squeeze in some extra appreciation of nature before all of the leaves fall, so Kristan and I took a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon to the top of Alta which was quite nice.

Laura and I joined Kayleen and Co. for our last Real Salt Lake game of the season.  It was a nice fall evening out and while we tied 0-0 it was still a lot of fun to watch.

Camilla and I had a great night at the symphony watching Ellis Hall perform some great soul and jazz.

Dinner Made Easy book launch.

Becca and I had a chance to attend the Six Sister's Stuff "Dinner Made Easy" cookbook launch over the weekend. It was a fun party and I have already started making stuff from the book.

Fiiz and Sweet Tooth Fairy catered some sweet treats.  We Are The Strike played some fun tunes.  We were able to meet the sisters and get our cookbooks autographed, enter some amazing giveaways, and I ran into some fun bloggers and friends like Emilie from A Year of FHE.  Overall a fun night!

Yesterday I made the first recipe in the book, "Chicken Cordon Bleu French Bread Pizza" and it was do tasty and easy!!  A nice quick recipe that everyone liked to eat.  The Six Sister's cookbooks never disappoint!

The Soul and Nature.

"Every natural object is a conductor of divinity and only by coming into contact with them... may we be filled with the Holy Ghost." -John Muir

It has been fun to spend some time with my church ward out in nature in the past week.  It is such a wonderful time of year in Utah, as the leaves change, the temperature slightly cools...it makes me excited to be alive again.  This summer was dry and hot, and although I had some wonderful adventures, my Summer Variant of Seasonal Affective Disorder (I call it Summer Defective Disorder) was especially rough.  Autumn always ushers in a sense of renewed hope and well-being for me which I greatly appreciate.

Our first adventure was our ward campout up in Heber Valley.  President Hinckley was inspired when he organized and set apart that piece of the valley to be a large girls camp area.  We easily fit 500+ people in our campground and we were only one of 5 or 6 campgrounds.  It did get rather cold that night, but our souls were warm and happy.  Over the past year our ward of 800 has been split so many times we are down to 100ish.  It was wonderful to get the whole group back together again, meet many new people, and visit with old friends.

me and Anna

Me and Jonathan

We had dinner and a devotional, then we enjoyed looking at the harvest moon and stars, warming up with a dance, watching an outdoor movie of Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and playing games.  Endless amounts of food and laughter flowed.

dance party

"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean." -John Muir

Taking advantage of the fine weather we have been having our ward headed up to Silver Lake up Big Cottonwood Canyon for Family Home Evening this week.  We were there just in time to watch the sunset and enjoy the yellow aspen leaves.  As most of my close friends have moved away or are busily involved with their families, I have been trying to make new friends.  Grateful for church to be a place to meet lots of new and interesting people and for those people I am becoming friends with.  Also grateful Utah has so many beUTAHful places nearby to sneak away to.

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." -John Muir

15 years later

15 years ago I woke up as a freshman at Utah State and the world had changed.  The United States had changed.  The definition of patriotism had changed.

I can still remember the feelings of confusion, fear, sadness, and pride.

A group of people from my church ward decided to go to the Healing Fields in Sandy.  There is a flag for everyone person who died in the World Trade Towers, in each flight, in the Pentagon, in Flight 93. There is a flag for every Utahan who died serving our country in the subsequent wars that followed that tragic day.  There is also a flag telling the story for each of the search and rescue dogs who searched endlessly for survivors in the days and weeks following the collapse of the towers.  Every flag has a name, every flag has a story.

We arrived in time to listen to some speeches from the guy who hosts American Ride, the mayor of Sandy, and for a 21 gun salute and the Utah Pipe band playing Amazing Grace before the moment of silence.  It was a beautiful summer/fall evening and it was nice to spend it remembering those who were lost while feeling grateful for the future and freedom we continue to enjoy.