My Favorite People

In June we had our family reunion in Utah. The weather disrupted our initial plans as cold, rainy weather hounded the state. All of that mixed with a few unfortunate encounters with others resulted in over half of us being sick with one kind of bug or another. In spite of that we had a great time as we celebrated my sister and her husband's wedding in Utah with our side of the family, played at the cabin, and spent time catching up with one another.

Mighty Majestic Mountains

My wake up call

Too many monkeys jumping

She didn't think I could lift her

Hiking Stewart Falls

Bowling at BYU 

Bowling at BYU

Bowling at BYU

Bowling at BYU

Bowling at BYU

Bowling at BYU

Bowling at BYU

Family birthday party

Bow and arrow at the cabin (Yes I hit the target)

My siblings

My family

One If By Land, Two If By Sea

I'm really enjoying looking back on all that has happened recently. It's helped me to see how much I've changed and how far I've come. Now, I recognize the value of documenting important events in life while they are occurring, but sometimes when life feels overwhelming, like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, it's nice to take step back to catch your breath. October symbolizes when I started to breathe again.

Work allowed me to do one more event before focusing solely on one element of our marketing strategy, so off to New York and Boston I went. In New York, I caught up with a couple of friends from MBA school and my team quickly stopped at the 9/11 Memorial for a visit before our event that night. Then I went to Boston. I love Boston. I'd never been to Boston. I made arrangements to take that Thursday off and spend the day exploring. I need to go back. Too much to see and so little time. The reason for the short time is Friday I traveled to Rhode Island to see one of my dearest friends and spend some time at the beach. I love this family! They bring such joy into my life.

Boston Common

Freedom Trail

State House

North Church

Harvard Gates

John Adam's House

Ball Family

T and Mel

I caught an early flight home so I could meet up with my siblings for general conference at our family's cabin. On the flight back to Utah, I found a way to connect to General Conference and heard President Monson's announcement about the lowering of missionary ages. I wanted to jump up and tell the whole plane figuring some of those people HAD to be LDS. That weekend was exactly what I had hoped. Spiritual nourishment from the leaders of our church and emotional fulfillment from being with family.

Miracle at 35, 000 feet

Birthday celebrations between conference

This month also started my monthly trips to the Bay Area. My new friend let me stay at her place and arranged fun activities to help me meet other people. Sunday was spent trudging along the highway to Half Moon Bay. But these two made the trip entirely worth it. I look back on this October with fondness. Good things were beginning to happen.

Perry Family

New game. Chris lost.

Good Form

I've been organizing the last few years of pictures into folders. Forgot about this. Excited to do more of this at our family reunion this summer.

Hiking

My family thinks I don't like hiking. It isn't that I don't like it but sweating like a dog and gasping for air has never been much of a thrill for me. I absolutely love long stretches of trail that wind through canyons (Calf Creek Falls, The Narrows, etc.) but actually have very little elevation change (unless it is going down). So I must have been crazy when I offered to carry my cousin's son on our annual family reunion hike. Surprisingly, my hiking abilities have increased. My stamina and endurance are so much better than when I was younger. The hike was great and Gavin even fell asleep. I like hiking. Hopefully I can find more hikes like this one.