Millcreek Canyon

This year I took a solitary drive up Millcreek Canyon - this is what I found!

Pretty amazing! HUH?

NY to DC

All growing up I watched Dick Clark drop the ball on Time Square to usher in a new year. This year for my 34th birthday, my friend Liz and I decided that we too, needed to drop the ball and go to New York. We packed our bags and headed off to Time Square, where we would find our hotel, The Millenium.

We had two fun filled days walking throughout New York, one in the pouring rain, the other with blue skies. I think we accomplished about everything you can do - we saw "Wicked" on broadway, ate a hot dog in Central Park, cried at Ground Zero, saw the Statue of Liberty, walked the Brooklyn Bridge in the pouring rain, ate pizza at Grimaldi's, shopped at H&M, took pictures on top of the Rockefeller Center, fell asleep on the subway, and saw the exhibit"Bodies" on the pier.



We then hopped on the Amtrak, down to D.C. where we stayed in the mission home with Liz's parents who are the Mission Presidents of the D.C. South mission. Our stay wasn't very long, but long enough to know that rest is a rare commodity in that home.

before...after

This Summer has meant a lot of changes in the yard!

BEFORE!!!!

AFTER!!!!

Pilgramage

There is something about a pilgrimage that brings a person back to the core of their belief.

As I walked the 40 mile path through the plains of Wyoming, my blistered feet remind me of the sacrifice of the "Mormon" pioneers, each painful step urging me to think deeper. We walk and walk, over the boulders of Rocky Ridge, through the refreshing coolness of the Sweet Water, through dry sage brush lands, over more hills and down into lush green meadows, along more streams and along what would be considered nothing at all. Yet songs and stories of the sacrifice of those who have gone before, fill our hearts and fill our minds. Their legacy of faith burns deep inside, and rekindles what I already know to be true.

We walk on paths we did not create!

We drink from wells we did not dig!

How grateful I am for those who have gone on before

and who have created a legacy of faith!

May I continue that legacy,

so that those who are behind me might enjoy the same journey

and the same refreshing drink.

Grapefruit!!!!

Tiki

I've always enjoyed going to Disneyland..... Mickey Mouse, Corn Dogs, Splash Mountain, and the Jungle Ride. But one spot has always been especially refreshing....The Tiki Room....It allows you to get out of the hot sun and be entertained by robotic cockatoos and parrots.

Everytime I walk downstairs, I suddenly feel that same refreshment, the coolness of my own Tiki Room.......all I am missing is a corn dog!

Broken Cokix

Some people look like their dogs.....

Other people look like their cars...

My car just happened to want to be like me!

I broke my "cokix" sledding earlier in the month,

my car broke his 1 week before the lease was up.

Remember

Remember...
An account of some of my memories of Grandma and Grandpa Finlinson

~ Sitting in my night gown pulled around my feet, in the middle of Grandpa’s pea patch early in the morning.
~ Trying to wake up before Grandpa, but knowing deep down he would be up first and the comfort that knowing gave me.
~ The pride on Grandpa’s face as he held up an amorphous vegetable, with Grandma in the background, smiling proudly at a husband who could create such a phenomenon.

~ Grandma’s soft hands.
~ Grandpa’s half fore finger tricks.
~ Saltines and Ice Cream (only eaten at Grandmas)
~ The warm comfort that came out

of Grandma’s kitchen.
~ Sweet, constant encouragement to do my best and to keep practicing.
~ Soft, buttery Grandma rolls.
~ Top Secret doughnut raids from the downstairs freezers.
~ Rook Tournaments
~ Whisker burned cheeks from Grandpa’s kisses, quickly soothed by Grandma’s soft ones.
~ The delight in Grandma’s eyes when you came to visit and the tears when you left.
~ My long late night talk with Grandma, just shortly after Grandpa died. And her statement that she chose him ( I didn’t realize how many suitors she had) "Because he treated me differently than all the other guys. There was something in his eyes, I had seen them somewhere before".
~ Grandma’s sweet smile, the twinkle in her eye, her soft disposition, and her nonjudgmental countenance.
~ Just sitting in the early morning with Grandpa, reading or talking or just being, while everyone else slept.
~ Grandpa’s gentle touch, through his rough, strong hands.