A Family Reunion ~ of sorts...

So when I reflect back to my teenage years I have so many sweet thoughts...I know that isn't necessarily common but for me it is true. I can attribute it all to the wonderful friends I was blessed with at the time. I suppose I should give some credit to my parents because when they decided to make their last move they recognized that their children were about to enter some of the hardest years of their life. I was smack dab in the middle of 7th grade (the worst year of anyone's life I believe) and Jason was in 6th...Greg was only in kindergarten so he had many "good" school years ahead of him. My parents got the ball rolling by checking out the various wards of their church and picked one that had a strong group of youth. Of course they were very disappointed when the ward was promptly split and we were sent off to the "new" one, but that was where the blessings began. The kids that landed in that ward were incredible people and my teenage years were rich and full of fun because of them. I won't begin to go into all of the adventures that we had together, but it is a time in my life that I will always cherish. Shortly after this splitting of the ward my soon to be bestest friend, Joy, moved in to that ward's boundaries. My life would not have been the same without her, and yet once we reached adulthood our lives diverged and we drifted away from each other. A few years ago she made the effort to track me down and to reconnect...Thank you Joy for doing so. This past week, after more years than I can even remember (somewhere between16-18) we finally got to be together in person. We connected again at Music and the Spoken Word so that we could also visit with another of our childhood friends, Ryan (he grew up to be the Associate Music Director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). I've always wanted to attend this show so I was excited for that alone, but to catch up with my long lost friend Joy was so exciting. What we didn't know was that another of our childhood friends, Nate, and his father(who was the member of the bisopric over the youth program as we were growing up) had happened to pick the exact same performance to attend. It was a wonderful surprise. These people were part of my extended family growing up and it was a wonderful surprise family reunion.
Left to right you have me, Joy, Bro. Lytle, Ryan, Nate, and his youngest brother Seth. Sunday was a wonderful day and I'm so glad I got to see everyone. Thank you Joy for taking the time to come and hang out with me on your family vacation. I was so glad to catch up and let's not let it be another 15+ years! I love you :-)

4th of July hiking - Silver Lake

Notice that I'm in none of the pictures...nobody needs to see my overheated out of shape form hoofing it up the side of a mountain ;) You can see how high we climbed in a later picture because the lake in that picture is the same lake as this one here...

Goodbye to Spring...

It's been awhile since I've truly been inspired by what I see to want to photograph it, but over Memorial Weekend I was up at my brother Greg's home and there was something about the way the sunshine was shinning through the blossoms on the apple tree that just drew me outside with the camera. So I gathered up my two trusty companions, Jonsi and Magill, and set off on an adventure through the lens. At one time it really did turn into an adventure as I was determined to capture a honey bee, and after awhile one of them decided they had had enough, chasing me all the way back to the deck until he was satisfied that I was gone. Of course sneaky and determined soul that I am I headed right back to the tree (or rather a different tree because I didn't want to push my luck too much...) Some of the pictures turned out well I think, but mostly I enjoyed this last lushness of Spring knowing that in true Utah fashion it would be 100 degrees before I knew it...

Happy 90th Birthday!!!

Recently my Grandpa D made it to his 90th birthday. I can't even imagine having seen all the changes that he's seen in the world, or to be so active in life as he is (I already feel broken down sometimes and I haven't even seen 40 yet!) but to me that was quite an achievement. He's had a few close calls in his health, and in fact we had to cancel his original birthday party due to the fact that he was released from the hospital that day (nothing too horrible, just a flare up of a bleeding ulcer, but scary just the same). Instead we all got together two weeks later and had a giant party. It's always fun to me to have a big family event because it gives us all time to catch up with each others lives. We also invited Grandpa to share a few words about what has been important in life and how he's used these things in his life to reach these wise years. I can't remember how many of them there were, or the order that he spoke them, but there are three that stand out in my mind (good thing Uncle Mike was recording it all). The three that I remember were Family, Exercise, and Faith. Can't wait to get a copy of the tape so that I can hear his statement again because lets face it I was too busy snapping pictures and not paying attention :) Oops!

Catching up....

So the month of April was incredibly busy with trips out of town and then preparing for Grandpa's big 90th birthday bash. I ended up heading to Las Vegas for a girl trip with my mom and Leigh to celebrate my birthday. The week after that I found myself back there again to help out with my friend Nancy's kids while she and her husband were celebrating a friends birthday (apparently Vegas is the place to head for birthdays). I thought I'd post a few pictures from my birthday trip to Vegas just for fun so here you go. On the way down we stopped at the ghost town of Silver Reef so there are some shots from there too. We also got the chance to visit with my stepsister and her cute little ones...