As long as we're blogging...

Here are some pictures from our Young Women's cabin sleepover a couple weeks ago. I love these girls. Scott and I really do have the coolest callings in the ward. This was an "End of Summer" party as well as "We'll Miss Kim" party because Kim and Mike are moving for grad school in LA. We had a blast staying up way too late and eating way too much. I think we've got everyone here except our other Maddie.





Katy, one of the counselors, with Amy Jo. Amy Jo gives the best hugs, and we love having her around.





The lovely Maddie snacking on some midnight fondue.










Group hug around Kim!

Gena and Lexey. Lexey is Ben's sister (Ben is one of our Young Men in the cave pictures)

I think at this point we were all dancing to the Glee soundtrack... Kim's favorite.

Parley is our group crack up. She keeps us laughing hard all the time.

This is all of us doing our best Kim impersonation... wide open mouth... mid-laugh. In case you're wondering about my sudden hair change... it'll make sense in a few pictures.







As part of our going away surprise for Kim, we all put on this wig that looks like Kim's hair, and we did our best Kim impersonation or told her what we loved about her and what we'll miss the most. I like this wig. I'm considering a change. What if I wore a different colored wig every day of the week?

Parley may have won for the best Kim impersonation.

Elaine, our fearless president and owner of le wig.

Maddie. We love Maddie. I love playing the violin with this one.



Isabella is our newest beehive. It's been fun to see her break out of her shell in the past few months.

Gena may be the closest look-alike to Kim.








I love these girls and I've had so much fun with them over the last year and a half. They're really growing up... I can tell in the time that I've known them. We just had our Young Women's sacrament meeting where they all spoke and sang. I was so impressed with each of them and how well they did.

El Viaje de Los Scouts

(By the way, I got to use some spanish at work the other day, and it felt so good... and simultaneously bad because I realized that my skills are dwindling in inactivity)

Scott had a blast on his scout trip with his boys. What a random bunch of kids! But they make us laugh, and we have a lot of fun. These are the same caves that we did last year around Labor Day. I was so jealous I couldn't go. But Matt and Adam were nice enough to join Scotty last minute as assistant scout leaders. I think the boys were pretty lucky to have these three as their weekend leaders. I'm so glad we've got such good friends (Their wives aren't too bad either).













Here's Zander and Joran... brothers. They are regulars in the troop and they're always up for anything. We have a blast with these boys. We're missing Johnny and Luis on this particular trip.











This is a very flattering picture of Wes. And the picture below is of Jaxon. These boys are both new to Troop 36.



This is a picture of Ben all bundled up. For a while, he was our only boy in the Young Men's program at our ward (Scott is the scout master for three wards), but our buddy Luis moved here from the Dominican Republic last month, so now we have two! Ben is from Peru so since both the boys speak spanish, Scott teaches Young Men's in spanish now and then, which I think he loves doing. It's a nice refresher.

After hours... and hours...

and hours... of very patiently working out the issues with our computer and hard drives, I have finally made the transfer from camera to computer to hard drive, and things are finally good.

It took most my day off...

But it feels good to know that I've freed all this space on our computer so it'll work much better.

So now on to the blog catch up. Starting with Scott's first day of school!!!





I know. I'm a dork. Oh the embarrassment I put my husband through.

By the way, since this is the first picture I've posted of our front door... anyone want to offer a suggestion as to what color our apartment is. We never know what to say when describing what our building looks like.

El fin de Semana

So much going on at our house! I used my day off last Friday to do an extreme clean of each room of the house. I did enough vacuuming, dusting, bathrooms, cupboards, closets, counters, dishes, laundry, sweeping, and mopping to last... well only a week as it turns out because I feel like I need to do it all over again!!! No, it does feel good to know that everything has had a recent deep clean, and all I need to do is keep it clean as I go so I don't let it get bad at all. Also on Friday, I got everything together for Scott's scout camp out up at the Brush Creek Caves in Vernal. I'm so jealous I couldn't go! But Adam and Matt were nice enough to go with Scott as assistant Scout Masters for the weekend, and they had a great time. Scott has an awesome and interesting group of boys; he said the trip was a blast. I'll post pictures soon.

(The picture saga goes as follows: I can't load them from camera to computer until we get an external hard drive. So I've got a ton of stuff built up...ready to go on the blog)

While the boys were camping, Beckah and I had a camping trip at our house. We went to the Farmer's market, watched a movie, went to breakfast the next morning. It was fun to have Beckah to keep me company while Scott was gone. We missed Loral, though!

So I worked on Saturday, and Scott was so sweet when he came to pick me up after his trip. He showed up with two pictures he had drawn saying asking me whether I was up for a sporty night out or a nice night out. I told him I'd just love to hang out with him whatever we did. He showed up with dinner which we ate up at the capitol, one of our favorite spots to relax, and then we went down to the Gateway to see Inception, which was AWESOME. I was so excited I understood everything. Scott was so sweet to me this weekend, he even shopped in Anthropology with me, which is the mark of a really nice... and patient... guy.

Sunday was a busy day. Scott had morning sacrament service at the psych ward at Salt Lake Regional Hospital. I had a morning singing practice. Scott taught Young Men's in Spanish because one of our boys is from Peru and the other one is from the DR. I sang in sacrament meeting and spoke as part of our Young Women's program. After church Scott took sacrament around to all the elderly members of our ward. Then we went up to see our cousin Matt who just got home from his mission in Texas. Then we stopped by Kirsten and Nick's to wish Andrew good luck on his first day of Kindergarten. Sarajane is getting to be such a funny little peanut! I love her! Benjamin and Scott are pretty good buddies. I love watching them hang out together because they're actually a lot alike! I am convinced that Scott would want to have kids right away if he could guarantee he'd get one just like Ben.

Monday was a busy day, but we got everything we needed at Ikea to finally finish our closet organizer upstairs. I've put all the pieces together this morning, and Scott's going to help me finish everything later today! It'll be so nice to finally have a place to put everything. Scott has been inheriting some nice suits and dress shirts from Doug (who just moved to DC and has been getting rid of all kinds of clothes), so we need a nice organized place to put everything. It's funny how you grow into a place. It's hard for me to believe that we fit all of our stuff into our old apartment on South Temple. Where did we fit everything??? We love our apartment. It has so much natural light and is so spacious but cozy at the same time. I love coming home to such a pleasant apartment!!

The biggest news is coming last only because I'm going chronologically. SCOTTY STARTED SCHOOL TODAY!!!! He begins his first day as an MBA student starting TODAY at 4pm. I am so excited for him and proud of him! He'll do GREAT and I can't wait to hear all about the first day. (I even made him eat off the "I am Special" plate this morning and I took pictures of him before he left.... he he he)

What's the dumbest thing you've done today??

Yeah?

Well, did you track dog pooh all throughout your living room and kitchen while carrying the groceries in this morning? I'm amazed at how much ground I was able to cover.

All I can do is laugh about it and hope that the soap spots on my carpet blend evenly when they dry.

Canada updates still to come!

And a retroactive congrats to my AMAZING friend Brenna and her new husband Sven! They got married yesterday for time and all eternity!


(Brenna and I took a trip to Bodega Bay with Kyle a couple years ago at the end of the summer. This picture was taken at our beloved Dillon Beach.)

Brenna's the best. We became fast friends on the river, and she's been there for me ever since! She was even there when everything was starting with Scotty in Oregon. I love her with my whole heart, and I'm so happy to see her happy! Sven made the steal of the century! (I'm sure he's fantastic too!)

Voila! Victoria!

Here's the first in our Canada segment! Even though it's Wednesday the 18th, I think all the segments are going to be dated as the 16th of August because I opened all the drafts on that day so I'd remember which ones I need to write about. I'm kind of going in chronological order, but I have skipped John and Ishigh's wedding (which is the whole reason we went!!!) and the family reunion with the Hannays (which was definitely a highlight) so I'll go back to those when I get some pictures to post. Rick emailed me a few and I'll try to get on Margy's album so I can post some. But I'll just move on bit by bit.... VICTORIA!!

After parting ways with Lynne, Rick, Margy, and Oliver, we took a ferry to Victoria and stayed in a B&B there close to downtown. It was so fun to walk downtown and see all of the street performers and local artists. It was such a cool little town, and I'm a big fan of Victoria! It was quaint and small, but there was also so much to do!

We ate at a little Tapas place - one of the best dinners of the trip! This was just after we discovered the Canadian REI, and we were in heaven comparing gear.





Victoria was gorgeous, and we love walking along the water and checking out all the awesome boats, listening to music, and just taking our time.

























I absolutely LOVE all the hydrangea that grows alongside the streets in BC. It was BRIGHT blue and BRIGHT pink, and it was as huge as my head. I loved loved loved it!



Don't mind the pig tails. I know I look like I'm twelve.

Well folks, we had a blast.

Margy is very on top of things and has already uploaded her Canada pics to a picasa web album AND updated her blog with a lovely recap of the first portion of our recent British Columbia trip. Thank you Margy!

Sadly, I can't view her picasa album and I'll have to get some pictures from her another way sometime (eh, Margy?), and when I uploaded our pictures to Scott's computer, half of them won't show up in his iphoto, so I've got a little work to do to get this trip documented. Scott and I are hanging out at Andrew's tonight, so I'll have to try to re-upload our pictures from the camera card when I get home tonight or sometime in the next few days.

Yikes.

But I'm motivated to do this because I suddenly feel validated in my blogging. My mother-in-law left me a voicemail a few days ago telling me that she could tell I've been busy because she hadn't seen any ramblings on the blog recently. I got an email from my father-in-law asking for pictures from our BC trip just today... so at least I know that someone is out there keeping me on my blogging toes. I'll be happy to have the satisfaction of printing this blog out sometime and turning it into a journal/scrapbook/coffee table book for our home to remind ourselves how fun our lives are.

Cause our lives are a blast. I'm so lucky have such an energetic and adventurous boy to be mine.

So the BC details are coming in the next couple days. I've started a couple of the posts, but I'll wait to publish them for when I've got pictures. Life is good, and I wouldn't change a thing about it!

Maybe I'd like it if we got more sleep, actually.

Time

I imagine that SOMETIME I'll have SOME TIME to MAKE TIME to TAKE TIME to do the things that are on my mind when I go to bed, wake up, and all the moments in between.

Each night I make a to do list for the next day. If I don't do this, I won't ever get to sleep because my mind spins and ticks with too much stored information and especially at the prospect of organizational projects I want to get my hands on. Last night Scotty and I were about to turn out the lights when I told him that so many tasks and projects were marathoning in my mind. Scotty told me it's because I make so many lists, and maybe he's right. But I think the lists are what alleviate the mind-spin because I can organize my mind-pile into separate list-compartments. I just have to get it out of my head onto paper. I'm such a paper person. I once had a journal that said, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say." I think that is dead-on the way I am. I can't even make sense of what I'm thinking until my hand has made the transfer to paper. I used to prefer to write with my eyes closed so I could really complete the transfer without my mind interrupting or distracting me.

We got back from Vancouver on Sunday, and life was waiting right here for us when we got here. And I'm so glad! Because I love our life!