Festival of the Trees 2009!!!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Every year we host a party to go along with the Festival of the Trees. The Festival of the Trees is a really cool concept. People create gorgeous trees and sell them. All the money goes towards a children's hospital. It's amazing there are thousands of things to look at. Trees, centerpieces, wreaths, gingerbread houses. And there is music and dancing and singing. Many school choirs, children and adult will perform on either of two stages. It's an amazing time.

Afterward we all go to our apartment, where Frank has been cooking up yummy food, and have a little party. Frank prefers to stay home, he's not into spending 2 hours looking at trees and lights. (His loss!) So he stays and cooks things like stuffed mushrooms, fried polenta with sausage and sweet peppers, caprese spears. MMMMMM!!!! It's probably my favorite day of the entire year. My friend Micki joins us with her kids and everyone piles into our tiny apartment and eats finger foods and chats. It's a perfectly lovely Christmas tradition.

Inside a bubble!

Emma is very thrilled. As you can see she got a face tattoo at the kids craft area.

Kira Lynn and Uncle Boone holding hands. This is another thing I like, we all get to spend time with each other, kids go off with other adults, cousins get to hang out. I just like the inter-family bonding that goes on at things like this.

Tyler! Love him! He's about to get glasses! At the end of the party this little darling boy came up to me, with no one telling him to, and said "Penny, thank you for the party. I love you." I hugged him and then had to sniff away tears. He's not biologically my nephew but he IS my nephew all the same.

Becky and I almost fell down and started drooling over this tree. Look at all the scrapbook supplies! The tree was only $4000, we should have just got it!

This was my favorite, not sure why, but I loved the colors.

Wizard of Oz tree. Emma loved this of course!

Labyrinth Tree!

Rock tree. My mom loved this. She really likes the trees made from things other than just tree. LOL

I liked this tree, it was really cool. My Uncle Neal love Lucy so I took a pic for him.

An outhouse, a gingerbread outhouse!

This was a gingerbread house based on Nightmare Before Christmas. It was really awesome.

Micki's daugther, and Emma's best friend Patience. Gotta love the goofy side of being 5!

My mom and dad enjoying hot chocolate.

Sean-Paul just chillin' at the "after" party.

Micki and her new baby Ender.

Oh yeah, we went to a lake.

Friday, December 4, 2009

No, this is not one of us, it was just very cool to watch. This is some reservoir up in the mountains just past Layton. IT WAS VERY COLD! But we still had a blast. Anything is better than sitting at home staring at TV.

I don't know why but I LOVE this shot. The towel flying in the wind. Becky moving towards Kira. Emma drinking her hot chocolate. It sums up the day well.

My Kira Lynn. I love my niecey pie.

Dry grass+New jean=Fun slide!!!

Mario and Luigi!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

First Snow of the Season!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

PageMaps Layout Contest (october)

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sorry about the glare, I haven't yet found a good way to take pictures of my scrapbook pages.

I love the PageMaps website so much. It's the most useful scrapbooking tool I have and these monthly challenges are exactly what I need to keep me on my toes! This layout was a huge challenge for me, but again it made me grow as a scrapbooker. It took me way too long to figure out what to do in place of the ticket embellishments since I wasn't feeling the ticket idea for these particular photos. But when I decided to bits of chopped up ribbon it felt suddenly so right! This is also the first time I've ever used a rub-on on a layout.

Hikes and Caves and Streams! Oh YAY!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Last Saturday we were finally going to Timpanogos Caves. We had planned this trip for a couple months. Friday night I got 2 hours of sleep...this happens to me every autumn. When the weather changes it takes me time to get used to it and have a bout of insomnia. This night it was awful. Nothing I did got me to sleep. I finally feel asleep at 6:30am and then Woke up at 8:30am. I decided I wasn't going to go to the caves. I didn't want to go on a mile and a half walk and then spend and hour inside some caves when I was so grumpy and tired. At the last minute I decided I would really regret not going and I got ready.

Little did I know this "walk" was entirely up hill!!!



This photo above gives a vague idea of what we went through to see these caves. (Click on the photo to get the full effect.) The red arrow is the trail I'm standing on. The black arrow is the part of the trail we WERE standing on about an hour before. The blue arrow is the parking lot where we started. 1.5 miles doesn't SOUND long, but when you are also going up 1100 feet it gets a little hairy! I was BY FAR the fattest person on this trail and Emma and Tyler (my nephew) were by far the youngest people who were walking. Kira, (my niece) was carried, by Neal, up most of the trail and she even slept a good hour on the way up!



Imagine walking up this for an hour and a half.



We saw some great fall scenery the entire time...no it's not NEW ENGLAND awesome, but not bad for Utah! Pretty leaves and crisp air.



Emma was awesome, she was EXHAUSTED but very brave, she even got a couple of blisters on her feet but didn't whine at all, that's my amazing girl!

Cozy! (Cosette, my niece)

Emma chose an interesting place to break the rules...LOL

We made many friends on the way...they really loved the peanuts in our trail mix.



Emma's best impression of falling off the mountain.

We all joined in. (Frank was the photographer here.)

I loved this lone tree on this odd ridge, so cool.

Taking a break.

Another break.

There were a lot of breaks!



Another friend!

Getting close! When we could see the entrance we were very excited!


At the top! We're fat but cute. I LOVE HIM!

Kira, still sleeping in her daddy's arms.

Inside the caves

Pillsbury Dough Boy

Frank had some fun with the guest book...lol

Frank and his "Mountain Hat"

It took at least an hour to make it down, it was almost as hard as going up. There are cliffs on one side of the trail, the trail switches back and forth on the way up. So watching the kids and keeping them from the edge was difficult by itself.

After we went and spent an hour or so at a stream and the kids got to get wet and muddy. My camera died by then but Becky took pics. That will be a later post.

I'm glad I went...I really WOULD have regretted staying home. I was just so proud of myself making it up there. I felt sad for how out of shape and fat I am, but I am proud of myself for not quitting half way though.