September Fun

Hi all. I know it's been a vast silence since my last post. I wish I was better at this but dang life is busy. I guess that's a good thing! :)

Just going to do some review posts for fun.


Joel and Josh staining the bench they made in the summer. Love those boys, they can fight so well but get along so well too.




Just wanted to post a pic of the cabin. Sometimes when we're really busy and there's a long stretch of time when I haven't been up there, I just ache to be away from the busy, crazy life and just be up there where it's just wonderful. It's snowy now but I haven't been up since September so now (posting in Dec) I am missing the snug fireplace, the cocoa, the trees. So that's why I'm posting this. :)



This was over the Labor Day weekend when our really awesome and super fun friends, the Dunnings came up to visit for a few days. We went on a hike nearby the cabin called Limber Grove Trail. It's actually a pretty short hike, about 2 miles round trip, but it goes over the top of a high area with no trees, and then an area that has Limber trees, thus, Limber Grove. Pretty twisted, ancient looking trees but really fun to climb on.



Me and my buddy Katherine, it was not super cold but it was horrendously windy which made it FREEZING! That's why the hat and hoodie. :)



I just LOVED this picture. This is the friends picture! The Dunnings have three kids all the same age as mine and what great kids they are. They also have a littler one, but she was hanging with her Mom. But they were just so cute, I love to see friends and siblings playing and having fun together.

A little me time in Richmond, VA

Okay this post is mostly for me. I have a girlfriend, Hayley, who I met online when the Lord of the Rings was all huge. She was about...er, dang well 15 or 16 when I first came across her. By the time we had our epic LOTR Moot here in Denver that I hosted (25 strangers showed up from around the globe and we watched movies and were geeky) back in January of 2004 she was about 17 and her parents didn't want her to go off and hang out with weird adults for a weekend. I totally was understanding of this, and bless her heart, her mom came out with her! It was fun and really solidified a lovely friendship.

Meantime I've had several other get togethers with several of these friends of mine. We went to North Carolina, Lake Tahoe, Albuquerque and another Colorado trip together. Hayley and I have enjoyed a lot of time together so when I learned she was going to get married I totally wanted to go!

So on May 1st in Richmond, Virginia and I was super privileged to be able to attend the wedding. One other friend of mine from our crazy group, Sue, was able to come meet me there, so we were roomies and navigated Richmond together for a weekend. It was fantastic, humid and just so nice. So just a couple pics from that experience. I'd never been to Virginia, so the green, the humidity, the HISTORY there was fascinating and I could have enjoyed a lot longer back there exploring.

Visiting with friends out there, I realized that so many people back East sort of take for granted that they have so many very cool historical locations in their backyards. We weren't there for that reason but boy you could spend a long time looking at old historical places. (The thing that made me giggle the most-the whole conflict I grew up calling "The Civil War" I guess in Virginia quite a number of people still refer to it as "The War of Northern Aggression"! I still am not sure if they were kidding but I had never heard of that before...guess I grew up in Arizona where we learned more about history of the Wild West or something! Or maybe I wasn't paying attention. LOL.)



No idea how old these cobblestones are but they were located in a section of an "older" area of Richmond where Sue and I had dinner at a Celtic Pub.



We had a little time prior to the wedding so we visited the "Edgar Allen Poe" house, a touristy place with really old buildings and lots of stuff from Poe's history. I hadn't done a lot of research on Poe but it was interesting and I think I may have to re-read some stuff.



The wedding! Here's Sue and I with the Bride and Groom. It was a lovely wedding and I'm super happy for her. :) I am a little melted...this was May 1 and it was 90 and about that much in humidity which is SO not what I am used to! LOL.


Lindin Row Inn where we stayed. We did a lot of walking around and looking at buildings, many of which were for sale or lease or in foreclosure. It makes me sad that such a historic city is clearly not doing well in the Real Estate department. But there's always hope that it will revive and some of that history gets to stay for the rest of us to see later.

It was a quick trip, but I am so grateful for a super awesome hubby to take care of the home front so I could go. :)

Glass is half full!

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope it finds everyone well and comfy, with good friends or family, and blessed with a tasty meal. I haven't been one of those organized people that have expressed their gratitude for something every day in November, either blogging or on facebook...I've been too busy trying not to cough and writing...NaNoWriMo count is up past 27,000 words. I'm just thankful I've beat my past record of fail! ;) But I am very grateful and I'm trying to really think about how good things are for me instead of what is popular nowadays...whining!

We're going to attempt the cabin again for Turkey Day, last year was a 'disaster', having three sources of power die on us. But as I'm trying to see things from the 'glass half full' point of view...I figured last year we just weren't supposed to be up there. We had to come home Thanksgiving Day and boy the traffic was non-existant! So that was good. We had Steak instead of Turkey, we got to go shopping at a lot of stores on Friday without too much driving and we had our bird the next day and watched movies and missed a big snowstorm.

Still, I'm really, really hoping I can keep having a good attitude when, doubtless, there will be some snags! Crossing fingers for no broken pipes, no frozen well, and no critter invasions. Also really hopeful for power sources to work and the weather to be fine. We're having our wonderful friends up, and I'm very excited. When you don't live near family, you make family from friends. And I could not be more blessed that way.

I'm particularly feeling emotional about the changes our Stake made on Sunday. Ever feel tugged between being very happy and very sad?? We had 8 wards that they pared down to 6. Every ward was sliced and diced, and glued to various puzzle shaped blobs. Each ward was re-named, which I thought to be a brilliant move by our leadership because really, we're all starting afresh. I'm now in Littleton Ward, and I'm going to have some wonderful people in my ward that weren't there before. I'm also going to have some of my very best friends going to a different ward. It's going to take some adjusting.

I am glad about it because of the motives and the results. The youth program needed some help, and this basically adds a lot of youth into the joint program we have, which is very good for our kids. It's also really good as far as leadership managing the massive piles of people that need managing. There's a large percentage of need verses those who are willing to help, put it that way! This should help that. But it still doesn't make me feel good about the fact that my friends are not in my ward.

Thank goodness most are still in my building, and we're not living far away so I can still hang out with them. I must say I don't envy those who have to organize such things. I am sure they will have a lot of 'feedback' but I hope people can trust them. What a great opportunity for each of us to get to know others from our Stake that we would not perhaps had got to work with before! Half full, it's half full. Actually if I think about it, generally my life is more often at least 3/4ths full, so I'm not complaining. Some things make us just work harder to see it.

I'm actually very grateful for all I have, I always feel so lucky I wonder just what is around the corner. :) I don't want to ramble but thanks to all of you for all you do for me. :) Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!!

*HUGS*