Love

Author unknown

My heart fills with love as it expands even more with the addition of our newest grand daughter. A baby sent from heaven is a precious gift. Love, love, love her!

Fall is Here!

What better way to celebrate Fall than doing some of my favorite things. I will call it my

Fall Bucket List

1. Carve jack-o-lanterns with the grand kids

2. Go for a drive up the canyon with the hubs, take a picnic and gather colorful leaves

3. Plan Harvest Fest... an annual event with the family to celebrate the end of harvest

4. Make scarecrows with the kids and grand kids

5. Birthday lunch with a favorite sister to celebrate both our birthdays (one week apart)

6. Create a Homestead Christmas Shutterfly book 

7. Plan this year's three-day Homestead Inn Christmas at Midway

8. Decorate Home for Fall Holidays

9. Visit Mom and Dad's grave

10. Cook up Halloween treats, a new Autumn dish, and make desserts that include pumpkin and apples... yummm!

Beautiful Fall Leaves... Sardine Canyon

Harvest Fest

We usually center Harvest Fest around a theme. One year we did Pirates. The kids had to follow a treasure map. When they got to the bottle of (root)beer. They had to sing 20 bottles of beer on the wall, while dancing around the tree. At the end of the hunt, they had to dig up a treasure box filled with coins, necklaces, and other pirate treasures. It was a very fun year. We also do a Spooky Hollow Forest walk through the orchard where they follow clues from a story to collect prizes as they encounter graveyards and bones, bats and ghosts, and a witch at the end. They have to grab their last prize from the witch's hut and run to the tractor and trailer that is filled with straw bales. Grandpa then takes them on a hay ride back to the barn. Harvest Fest is one of the big things I look forward to in the Fall.

Fall is my favorite season. I love to decorate the house, porch, and yard with gourds, pumpkins, leaves, and candles. A daughter, who is very creative with florals, made me the beautiful Fall wreath for my door. The witch in the center is my daughter-in-law who played the witch at the end of the Spooky Hollow Forest walk.

Homestead Inn Christmas

This is a big event that we do every five years. We take the family to the Homestead Resort in Midway for three days, just before Christmas. We ice skate, ride the Polar Express, tube, sleigh ride, play games, play in the snow, and exchange gifts around the Christmas tree. On Sunday, before going home, everyone dresses in their best and we go to Sunday Brunch together. I am looking forward to this year's family Christmas at the Homestead and can't wait to finalize the plans.

As you can tell, all my favorite things center around family! 

Writing prompt #5:  Fall is here! List your 10 favorite things about this Fall  

Leaves

Autumn is my favorite season. My birthday (Sept 21) usually falls on the first day of Autumn. I can always tell. There's excitement in the air, it smells crisp, is a little chilly, is splashed with vivid colors of orange, yellow, red, and green.... painting the landscape everywhere I look. Autumn really is the year's last, loveliest smile!

I took Kaylene's advice and tried a little magic on the original leaves picture (below). I photo edit using picmonkey, a free editing program on-line. I first went to effects and applied orton, and then cinerama. Then I went to textures to smudge and then paint. I can't tell you exactly what I did. I was just playing around and having way too much fun to notice. All I know is that I was pleased with the effect I created. Finally, I added text. If you haven't tried picmonkey you really should!

This is my original leaves picture. The hubs and I went on a Sunday drive to the beautiful Heber Valley where he grew up. I was amazed that the leaves in the canyons were already turning color in the middle of August. I took this picture above Midway, a small resort town just west of Heber.

Hung by a Nail

Six Word Memoir

Maybe I have a warped sense of humor, but when I look back on memories of my childhood, I smile, or rather laugh, at things that really could have turned out unfavorably for me at the time. There was always an opportunity to get hurt, get in trouble, or just plain and simple... find something that would qualify me for mischievous behavior! I wasn't lacking when it came to all three categories. Now, many years later, when I think I am all alone, it's not uncommon for me to start thinking about such childish, funny stunts I participated in. A memory... a smile... and then the laughter! I can't contain it any longer! Sometimes someone will walk in on me and wonder what I've been up to... 

Case in point. One particular summer day my siblings and I were playing on top of the chicken coop in the back yard. The roof was slanted. The south end was higher and had an overhang on it. That was the front of the chicken coop. The north end slanted downward and was about 7 feet off the ground. That was the back of the chicken coop. The coop measured about 15 ft. by 12 ft. Now, dad told us kids he didn't want us playing on the roof. I'm not sure what the reason was, but I'm guessing it had something to do with damaging the roof and causing it to leak. 

I was about 8 years old. My sisters, brother, a couple of their friends and I were busy playing our usual barnyard play, when we heard the car drive up.  Mom and dad were home!  We all skedaddled to the back of the chicken coop and dove off before getting caught. Well, I got caught! Not by dad, but by a nail! A large old rusty nail was sticking out of the board at the top edge of the coop and when I went to jump off, that mean old nail caught me by the britches. Mid-air I was whipped around like a wimpy dog and found myself hanging upside down, looking sheepishly at the ground below. It seemed like an eternity before my britches finally gave way and I went crashing to the ground, head first. It hurt! I hit some old slivery boards below, got up and went running for the house. Everyone had left me... no brotherly love here! I quietly entered the house, went to the bathroom to access the bump on my head and wash away the evidence. I changed my shorts before anyone could see the big rip. I think I stuffed them under the bed, thinking MOM would never discover them there! I walked into the living room, where the rest of the family was, as if nothing had ever happened. I wasn't about to say a word! That mean, big, old rusty nail was the only one that had any evidence on me. Case closed!

That's just one of many childhood memories that make me smile... always! I could go on and on and on. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can?  

You can just imagine the laughter that takes place when my brothers and sisters and I all get together and reminisce about the good old days! It was that way with mom and dad, too. They taught us to laugh.. at ourselves and with each other. It's not just the smiles... it's the laughter!

prompt #2:  What memory from your childhood always makes you smile, no matter what? 

Butterfly

..."one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower". 

Love the quote by Hans Christian Andersen. I know my life would be dull without color, flowers, sunshine, and freedom to create, explore and discover! I knew when we put the landscaping in, I had to have something to attract butterflies!  I love the bright purple flowers that bloom on the butterfly bush from late Spring to early Fall.

Smile

Grandchildren give me plenty of reasons to smile...they are the source of my JOY!

It Was No Coincidence

I was married to a man I was madly in love with. He was my High School sweetheart! We were building our first home and looking forward to many years together in the town we grew up in. We were expecting our third child and were in the middle of the happiest days of our lives.

Then... a strange thought entered my mind... "It wouldn't always be this way". Another strange thought... someday I would be married to a "fruit farmer" and a "military man". "That's ridiculous", I thought. "I am the happiest and luckiest girl alive. Why would I ever think something like that."? I even felt a little guilty with the thought. But I did have to secretly confess... I had always been attracted to both professions and often daydreamed about a beautiful fruit orchard and marrying a soldier... a patriotic kind of guy. I thought that would be romantic! I shrugged it off, but that thought came to full fruition several years later. Not by my choice, mind you. The man I loved with all my heart left us... me and our five beautiful children. He deserted us; abandoned us. It turned my whole world upside down. I had five children who depended on me, and me alone. How could I grieve when so much was heaped upon me! I cried... oh, how I cried... many, many nights I cried myself to sleep. In spite of it all, I think I was brave. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and made a new life for the kids and I. I went back to college and got a B.S. degree and prepared for the future. My kids would not go without! I was going to make sure of it. The next few years were long and I didn't think my heart would ever heal. Sometimes I would just go through the motions of the day. But those years also turned out to be some of the happiest memories of our lives. We had so little, yet had so much. I grew in ways I never expected. The kids were happy and well adjusted. We not only survived, but thrived. It's a hard thing to explain. The blessings came so unexpectedly; but always at the right time.

I got my degree in Family and Consumer Science Education, with a minor in Nutrition. I grew up in 4-H and always dreamed of being an Extension Agent; the lady in charge of "fashion shows".   I was headed there, really! One of my childhood dreams were becoming a reality. 

I became good friends with a single lady just around the corner from my house. After a few years, she moved over the hill, 30 miles away. She was neighbors with a newly single man with three children. He worked for the Department of Agriculture. My friend knew she had to get us together somehow. We had so much in common! His father had been an Extension Agent for most of his adult life. His son, my friend's neighbor, followed in his dad's footsteps and was interested in plants, gardening and farming. We talked on the phone and decided to meet.

It was winter. I chose an activity that all of us could do. All ten of us! We went to Hardware Ranch, a mountain location in northern Utah that the DWR (Division of Wildlife Resources) owned. Hundreds of Elk take refuge and make Hardware Ranch their home in the winter months. Sleigh rides through the herd, hot chocolate and friendly chat prevailed our first meeting. It went pleasantly well, considering my first impression.

On the day of our first meet, he knocked on the door and was welcomed in to the house. For a brief second he looked familiar to me... like "I knew him". Strange! And first impressions... I remember his big grin. It was far too energetic for me! The little boy he held in his arms. That was not at all attractive to me. I was overwhelmed with my own little brood. How could I want more? The attraction was not there. But we had planned a day out and I was going to make the best of it. At the end of the day I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went. The next few weeks and months were filled with phone conversations and dates. I still couldn't say I was in love with him, but we enjoyed each other's company. It slowly evolved into love; a much different kind of love from my first love. Eight months after our first date, we were married. 

Can I say I had a moment when I knew he was "the ONE?" No!  But that crazy little thought that entered my mind 15 years before I met him... the thought that I would marry a "farmer" and a"military man", became a reality. "Was that when I knew?" If I did, I wouldn't have believed it at the time. Insane!

My hubby of 18 years now, is a Colonel and Brigade Commander in the Army. He works for the Department of Agriculture, and we are fruit farmers. How coincidental is that! Is it a romantic life, much like I dreamed about when I was much younger. Hardly ever! Are we madly in love? That's hard to define. I'm not in love like I was with my first spouse, but I'm in love. Would I change anything about my life with this wonderful man I have as my spouse? Absolutely not! He is "THE ONE"! And I believe it was no coincidence.

My "Warrior" (Iraq)

My "Fruit Farmer" ... and yes, he did pick all those peaches!

My "Friend"... still wearing that grin!

Writing prompt #1: Tell us about the moment you knew your spouse was "The One."