A Few of my Favorites....

So here are some of my favorite things. When I started this list it kept growing and growing. I couldn't narrow anything down, so I've decided I'll just post a few things here and there....ya know- to keep you coming back for more.... 'cause I know you want to. So I don't know if any of these things are technically my favorites seeing as I have so many, but I like them a whole lot. Some of them probably are my favorites, but for those that aren't, maybe they'll still help all 3 of you who actually look at this blog to get to know me better. I was going to list them categorically, but they are organized in my computer alphabetically, we'll go with that. So...enough blabbering.

This one is a definite favorite. Lake Powell. Boat. Tent. What more do you need? (Usually a ton!)

I love taking pictures. I love digital. I wish I knew more and could do it better.

Love candles. Especially when they can put out a strong scent. I usually like the warm, spicy scents like pumpkin, cinnamon, apple-y ones.

Uh, yeah. I"m a girl. Need I say more?

I start getting excited for Christmas in October. I love decorating the house, the smell of cinnamon pine cones in the store, the music, the lights, neighbor gifts, wassail, being with family....ALL OF IT!

I never thought I would be this kind of girl, but since Jeff got a 4-wheeler, I have to say I really enjoy riding. Probably more for just getting outdoors and seeing the scenery and stuff, but it's really fun.

Jeff's parents have a really unique friendship with some Amish from Ohio. We even went out there and stayed in their homes overnight and spent some time with them. They have also come out to visit here in Utah. They are some of the neatest people you could ever meet.

Art. Love art. I love looking at it, and doing it, although I haven't done anything in a LONG time. Jeff keeps telling me I need to, and I want to, I just don't make time for it. I love abstract stuff like this, and everything else, too. I think any art technique or style takes some understanding and appreciation.

Basic Grey. My favorite scrap booking paper line.

Beyonce Knowles. It's not so much her music I like. I like a few songs. But she's just so GORGEOUS! Yeah, I wish I could look like her. Other beauties will be coming soon....stay tuned.

Popsicles and Popcorn

Hudson has found a couple of new loves...popsicles and popcorn. He now regularly asks me for both (he asked me for some popcorn at about 10:00 this morning), but he usually gets away with a popsicle. While he was eating this one he kept telling me he was eating a "popcorn". I love these slow melt popsicles. They really do melt slower and make a lot less mess! And they have some pretty yummy flavors, too!
Oh, and you have to check out that cute dimple. I love it!

Garden Update

We have been so excited about our garden growing! It really is fun and interesting to watch and gives me a little sense of pride knowing that I planted it! So I just wanted to show how much it (and the grass!) has grown since the last picture. Our backyard is finally coming together and I couldn't be happier about it! It gives me such a feeling of accomplishment!

A Baloney Sandwich

A Baloney Sandwich

Bob Benson

Do you remember when they had old-fashioned Sunday School picnics? I do. As I recall, it was back in the “olden days,” as my kids say, back before they had air-conditioning.

They said, “We’ll all meet at Sycamore Lodge in Shelby Park at 4:30 on Saturday. You bring your supper and we’ll furnish the iced tea.”

But if you were like me, you came home at the last minute. When you got ready to pack your picnic, all you could find in your refrigerator was one dried up piece of baloney and just enough mustard in the bottom of the jar so that you got it all over your knuckles trying to get to it. So you made your baloney sandwich and wrapped it in an old brown bag and went to the picnic.

When it came time to eat, you sat at the end of the table and spread out your sandwich. But the folks who sat next to you brought a feast. The lady was a good cook and she worked hard all day to get ready for the picnic. And she had fried chicken, and baked beans, and potato salad, and homemade rolls, and sliced tomatoes, and pickles, and olives, and celery. And two big homemade chocolate pies to top it off. That’s what they spread out there next to you while you sat with your baloney sandwich.

But they said to you, “Why don’t we just put it all together?”

“No, I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t even think of it,” you murmer in embarrassment, with one eye on the chicken.

“Oh, come on, there’s plenty of chicken and plenty of pie and plenty of everything. And we just love baloney sandwiches. Let’s just put it all together.”

And so you did and there you sat, eating like a king when you came as a pauper.

One day, it dawned on me that God had been saying that sort of thing to me. “Why don’t you take what you have and what you are, and I will take what I have and what I am, and we’ll share it together.” I began to see that when I put what I had and was and am and hope to be with what He is, I stumbled upon the bargain of a lifetime.

I get to thinking sometimes, thinking of me sharing with God. When I think of how little I bring, and how much He brings and invites me to share, I know that I should be shouting to the housetops, but I am so filled with awe and wonder that I can hardly speak. I know I don’t have enough love or faith or grace or mercy or wisdom, but He does. He has all of those things in abundance and He says, “Let’s just put it all together.”

Consecration, denial, sacrifices, commitment, crosses were all kind of hard words to me, until I saw them in the light of sharing. It isn’t just a case of me kicking in what I have because God is the biggest kid in the neighborhood and He wants it all for Himself. He is saying, “Everything that I possess is available to you. Everything I am and can be to a person, I will be to you.”

When I think about it like that, it really amuses me to see somebody running along through life hanging on to their dumb bag with the stale baloney sandwich in it saying, “God’s not going to get my sandwich! No, siree, this is mine!” Did you ever see somebody like that-so needy-just about half starved to death yet hanging on for dear life? It’s not that God needs your sandwich. The fact is, you need His chicken.

Well, go ahead-eat your baloney sandwich, as long as you can. But when you can’t stand its tastelessness or drabness and longer; when you get so tired of running your own life by yourself and doing it your way and figuring out all the answers with no one to help; when trying to accumulate, hold, grasp, and keep everything together in your own strength gets to be too big a load’ when you begin to realize that by yourself you’re never going to fulfill your dreams, I hope you’ll remember that it doesn’t have to be that way.

You have been invited to something better, you know. You have been invited to share in the very being of God. (2 Peter 1:4).

Author-Bob Benson, See You at the House

2 Peter 1:4 “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

Alma 26:12

A missionary used this scripture in our sacrament meeting yesterday, and I really liked it. I have been thinking about it for the last day or two, so I just thought I'd share:

Yea, I know that I am ^anothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will ^bnot boast of myself, but I will ^cboast of my God, for in his ^dstrength I can do all ^ethings; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Boulder

Hudson with his Grandpa Walker

THIS orange rock! I told Jeff I wanted him to take my picture by this cool rock with orange moss stuff growing on it. He was a few feet away and had been carrying Hudson on his shoulders while we were hiking around the lake to get to our fishing spot. He said, "You come here and I'll take it over here. What about this orange rock?" pointing to a rock that wasn't nearly as orange and didn't have the pretty flowers behind it. "NO. THIS orange rock" I demanded.

Fishing at Donkey

Jeff has been wanting to go to the Boulder mountains for quite some time, so when his Uncle Les' family went down, he couldn't resist. It was kind of a last minute decision, and only overnight, but it was fun. Jeff's parents also went with their 5th wheel, so we were able to just spend the night with them and eat their food...which made it so nice for packing. We mostly just went 4-wheeling up to Donkey Lake and went fishing. The night we got there Jeff caught a couple, and I didn't fish. The next day, I caught 8 fish and Jeff caught 4 in about 2 hours. Yeah, I out-fished him....again. It was beautiful up there and fun to get away for a little overnight trip.

Walker Rendezvous

The Walker Rendezvous is Jeff's family reunion. His parents started it 20 years ago the year after his brother Todd was killed in a car accident on his mission as a way to keep the family together. It's a mountain man rendezvous, so some people like to dress up and we do mountain man activities like shooting guns, throwing tomahawks and knives, bows and arrows, campfire programs, tug of war, watermelon bust, walking on stilts, hunkerhauser, BB Guns, sling shots, building fires with flint and steel, cow pie toss, fry pan toss, rolling pin toss, dutch oven dinner, etc. There are crafts and activities for the kids like the trading post which is where kids find "gold nuggets" to trade in for prizes and candy. They also have the candy cannon, rubber band shoot, noodle swords, nature hike, etc. Then at the end of the Rendezvous, we hold a raffle. Every family brings a prize worth $20 or more, then we buy tickets for the raffle.

Anyway, this year it was held up Spanish Fork canyon. We were there from Wednesday-Saturday. It rained the first day we were there but had good weather the rest of the time. It was hot and the flies and bugs were ridiculous. But we had fun.

Hudson shooting cups with his rubber band gun.

We found some huge caterpillars there. Hudson loved them!So dirty! His hat is full of candy from the candy cannon.Jeff helping Hudson with the slingshots.Hudson walking on stilts.What a HOT mountain man my husband is!Bow & ArrowsBB Guns. Check out the determined look on his face!Here's the prize I won for winning the women's muzzle loader shooting contest. WooHoo!Eating some watermelon after the bust.

Card of the Month

A while ago my friend Tiffany invited me to be a member of a card group she was in. So I joined. It wasn't quite what I expected...or should I say who I expected. I thought it would be all younger girls our age. But when I got there, it was mostly "older" women, although they wouldn't claim to be "old". They are a lot of fun and I've enjoyed my one night a month card exchange night.
There are 12 ladies in the group (including me), so each month we all make 12 cards. We usually have a theme: Christmas, fall, birthday, thank you...whatever. Then we meet at someone's house, have treats, visit, and exchange our cards. Lately we have been doing some kind of craft as well. Now we have decided to make a couple of cards there. We are taking turns, each person bringing the stuff to make a card and maybe teach us a new trick or technique. There are some talented people in the group with some cool ideas.
Anyway, this months theme was Christmas (Christmas in July!), but I wasn't feeling it, so I did my own thing, but I do have Christmas colors in it! I just wanted to share my creation and my obsession for making cards! I'll probably start posting my monthly creations from now on!

Hamburgers vs. Dollars

Ok, so I just have to post this because it still cracks me up just thinking about it. Jeff came home today and told me he ate lunch at E-Z Burger. "Do you want to know why I ate there?" he asked. Why? They (the business) did some *trade work that they thought would be about $80. Well, it turned out that it was a bigger job than anticipated and Jeff's business partner was working there ALL day. The cost turned out to be around $600! So they have $600 worth of hamburger coupons!!! It was the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. It just makes me chuckle. These guys are great.
*Timberline does not usually do trade work. Jeff wasn't sure if we should post this little episode here and I asked, "Why? You don't want people to think you're giving out free hamburgers?" and he said, "No, I don't want them thinking we do trade work". Besides, who does he think he is trying to regulate MY blogging?!

4th of July

We couldn't make up our minds what we wanted to do for the 4th, so we just went to Provo for the Freedom Festival. Hudson got to pet a huge python and this tortoise. He could have ridden on it, too, but he didn't want to. We ate lunch there and walked around for a while and went home. That night we went out and got hamburgers, picked up a few fireworks, and took them over to Jeff's brother Scott's house to light them. And that was it! So nothing spectacular, but we had fun just hanging out together for the day.

Hudson's 1st Fish

We went fishing at Spanish Oaks Reservoir for a little bit on Thursday night. Hudson LOVES fishing! And they were biting so it was fun! I caught one and Hudson caught one, and Jeff was too busy helping both of us that he didn't really get to fish himself! Hudson was so excited to catch his first fish. He wanted to carry it down to get cleaned, then after we gutted it and put it in a plastic bag, he wanted to carry it on his lap all the way home. We put it in the freezer when we got home and I forgot all about it. The next morning the first thing Hudson said when he woke up was "I'm gonna find my huge fish!" and he went looking for it. So cute. He couldn't make his daddy more proud.

Our Garden is Growing!

Well, to our amazement, our garden is growing! We are so excited! We've got corn, mini pumpkins, cantaloupe, honeydew, zucchini, crookneck squash, tomatoes, and there are supposed to be carrots but we're not sure those are going to make it. Hudson loves watering the garden and anything in the yard, really. And I thought I'd post a picture of our (mostly) finished fire pit. And you can also see a little of how our grass is coming in! It's been so fun seeing everything come together!