Todays a sad day.  A new experience for our family.  Today we had to put down our long time faithful companion, Bear.  He was 12 1/2 years old, and that's really old in dog years.  He was a 115 pound, loveable, big guy.   He was the dog my husband and son always wanted.  He was my protector. We could not have asked for a better dog.   He will be greatly missed.

Going Authentic!

So I've had requests to blog about my going authentic journey.  You may be wondering what I'm talking about....basically letting my natural gray hair shine through after colovering it (you like that new word I created?  Colovering; to cover your natural hair color with chemical hair color.)
I've been thinking about "letting it go" ever since the Disney movie Frozen came out and I'm finally courageous enough to go for it.  That movie came out VERY close to my birthday in 2013.  It's a sign that it's time!!!

What's interesting about this whole idea is the reactions you receive from people around you.  First off my hairdresser was not for it.  I know mine had only my best interest at heart when she said it would make me look older.  I knew I was ready when my answer to that was, "And is that a bad thing?"  Of course close friends and family have different reactions but the tuff one is when my husband says, "I'm not sure I'm ready for that."  Ouch!!  Don't get me wrong, my husband is supportive in anything I want to do so I was surprised by his response.  I really knew I was ready when I said back to him, "Your hair is quite gray and I love it!"  End of discussion.

So after reading numerous blogs on how to go about the process, I learned several things.  1) There are a few options to get to the result: shave your head (nope, not doing that unless medically necessary), strip out all hair color to the lightest blonde you can get and dye it gray (bad for the hair and then I get the reverse problem of dark root grow in. No thanks.),  let it grow out naturally (now that takes a confident women!  I'm not there yet.), or have a professional soften the grow out line with low lights that blend with your hair color (expensive, but sounds more like my comfort level).
So I sat for 3 hours in the chair having my hair foiled to begin the process on May 5th, 2016.  It had been 7 weeks since I had colored my roots on March 17th, 2016. So I guess March it is, the month I began.
Something else I learned from reading various blogs on this "life changing" decision, was that it was emotional.  I'll go through lots of different emotions throughout this process that can take a couple years depending on how I go about it.  I was glad I read different women's feelings as they travailed the grow out.  Ok that's a bit of a strong word to describe this, but it was interesting to read what people went through and how they felt.  But in the end, everyone said they were glad they did it.  That's what I hope for too.  Words like liberated, healthier, authentic, and beautiful were inspiring me to see this through.
I've been warned that there will be ruff days ahead.  Knowing that helps. I've even shared my plans with everyone around me so they can emotionally be there when I feel like I can't.  Or at least not judge me to harshly, like, "She's really let herself go."  I will admit, the biggest worry I have is when my youngest son decides to marry, and who knows when that will be, and I will look like his grandmother in the photos.  This could be the #1 deal breaker for me.  Do I wait till my currently 21 year old son marries at some future time?  I say no, I'm going for it!

Name the Art Final and other Art photos

 

 A Cool picture Michael took with his new phone.  We'll call this piece, "A few of his favorite things"...a fire he built, his majestic looking dog, and the anticipation of Christmas surprises.  It's Christmas card worthy, dont you think?

I can not figure out how to rotate the wood pile picture because that's how techy I am.  Imagine it in landscape mode,  mounted to a black background and you will picture Michael's final art project that required 10 hours of work.  Well, he chopped the wood, stacked the wood in this triangle shape, purposefully placed the splitting maul, and took the photograph to call it ART.  What should he name it?  I'm curious what you see when you look at this "work of art".   Sorry that you have to tilt your head or turn your laptop to catch the vision. In portrait mode, it has a surreal sense to it. Maybe we're on to something!!

 

Michael's been into wood projects lately.  He organized this service project that his Priest Quorum did for a sister in our ward that heats with "wood only" through the winter.  Behind them is three chords of wood stacked in this cool igloo shape that I think also qualifies as a "WORK of Art"! 

 

 



Iron Man, Batman, & Boo

Happy Halloween from a very serious Iron man, a happy Batman, and an adorable Boo (from Monsters inc.).  They sure make me smile!

My teenage boys funky hair phases

This is my youngest son's 2012-2013 school picture.  He is a junior in high school this year & a freshman in college. (I'll explain in the 2nd paragraph)
I'm not sure what it is about my boys when they get to this age but they go through funky hair phases.  My oldest was into having his friend bleach the tips of his hair on the top of his head only & My youngest son is into shaving his own head with a #1. (It does save $)  Although I'm more the conservative hair style type, I have to admit they both look good in their non-traditional doo's. So if that's the worse thing we ever disagree over, I'm OK with it.   
To explain why my current youngest child is a Junior in High School & a College Freshman at the same time, he is finishing his last two years of high school doing a program called Running Start.  He attends college at a very reduced rate and his classes fulfill the rest of his high school grad requirements.  So when he graduates from high school, he will also have his AA degree from the community college.  SWEET DEAL!! Its only his 2nd day so we'll see how this goes, but so far so good!

Girls Camp & Education Week... the rest of my summer

Since 1999, I have had the privilege of attending girls camp as a leader in various capacities at this beautiful camp on Lake Roosevelt called Camp NaBorLee.  I cant imagine what summer would be like without helping with the planning and attending our stake girls camp every year.  I imagine it will be a little less stressful, but from the pictures, you can see the serenity and beauty of this place truly testifies of a Supreme Creator.

I had a few good reasons to go to Education Week and three of them are in this picture! 
My Mother-in-law and I drove to Rexburg to pick up my daughter and head to Utah to see these three adorable people!  We made a quick stop in Idaho Falls to see my nieces and nephews and Sister-in-law, (My Brother was at work...bummer) then we headed off to a day of Education week to hear my nephew-in-law present his class!  We had to stop in SLC and get a waffle at Bruge's waffles and frites. I included a youtube video of this yummyness!
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhuV7z3KHIo  We met my niece and her husband to enjoy the fare.  We then hit the new mall across from Temple Square called City Creek Center.  If you have a chance, you should definately make that a stop.  My daughter found the most beautiful sunglasses in Tiffany's jewelry store.  Does it surprise you that we did NOT buy them??$$$   We then stayed with my other niece and her family in Provo so we could hear the N-I-L teach us how to make the most important decision in your life:  Whom you will Marry?   He did a fabulous job presenting!  I learned so much from his class even though I had already made my choice. (I think I did pretty good!).  We went to several classes that day...Susan Easton Black, Brad Wilcox, John Bytheway, Marvin Goldstein and Janis Kapp Perry. I think I might be hooked on going again next year.  I dont think I have the attention span for an entire week of classes, but we could certainly make it work with some side track events like shopping breaks, a jdawg, http://www.jdawgs.com/ and whatever suits my fancy.
We had to rush to get my daughter back to work but not before we made one last stop to see my little cuties again and go on an outing at the Dinosaur park in Ogden. It was fun you should check it out! http://www.dinosaurpark.org/tour.htm.  Next excuse to go back...My Grandaughters 1st birthday! 

What have you been doing this summer?

We had a BUSY summer!! It started with the June Republican State Convention where we got to participate as delegates along with Bob's sister and her husband in Tacoma, Wa. Go Mitt!!

July 4th week was a  reunion of sorts with my husbands side of the family. We greatly missed three of our family members, but  Everyone else was there and we had great food, great activities, and great family bonding time. http://www.silverwoodthemepark.com/ One of the highlights was Silverwood theme park...check out their website... I certainly hope we make it a tradition at least every two years!

We had a basement/storage room/garage cleanout and sale along with craigslist listings galore. (gotta love craigslist!!!) Of course, My husband was out of town and my teenage son had a golf tournament so I ended up doing the garage sale myself with some help from my Mother-in-law, in between her hair appts, work, dinner group, etc. We now own a little less "stuff" and that feels good!!

I went on a 58 mile bike high adventure with 19 of our Laurels in our stake. We rode 28miles on the Trail of the CD'A the first day. We stopped in Harrison for a swim and icecream then went on to camp at Chatcolet. What a beautiful ride! The next day we went to Hiawatha trail and rode 15miles down and 15miles back up. It wasn't to bad of a ride up... the mt. grade is less than 2%, but being on a bike for that many hours for two days was the greatest challenge, but WE DID IT!! (Love the nasty pic of my backside after coming out of the 1.7 mile dark, wet, muddy, scary tunnell) Check out the links to these bike trails and maybe it will entice you to come visit us to ride our beautiful trails.
http://friendsofcdatrails.org/CdA_Trail/index.html
I'll post about girls camp and education week next time...maybe.