July Travels

In addition to travelling most of this month, I also spent time developing one of my most highly developed talents - procrastination. For those of you who have been disappointed by the subsequent lack of posting this month, do not fear. In one posting I plan to catch up entirely.

4th of July



Every year my parents rent a houseboat for the week of the 4th of July on Lake Don Pedro (about 45 minutes northwest of Yosemite). We spend the time skiing, wake boarding, swimming, lounging, reading, and eating. There is a huge fireworks display that we can watch while floating on the boat and listening to patriotic music. The weather is always hot, but this year it was almost unbearable. Lets give a cheer for air conditioned houseboats!

This year my dad brought several kiddie fishing rods for "the kids" to learn to fish. Of course the kids only had patience for about 5 minutes of that so we happily kept watch over their fishing poles. The most luck we had was with a tiny fish that went after Ava's worm that was dangling in the water before I cast the line out. I grabbed the net and managed to scoop him up and put him in a bucket of water for the kids to see before releasing him back in the water.





Utah







We loaded up the minivan and road tripped out to Salt Lake for an extended week to spend time with Ty's family. His sister's family was also visiting from Dallas, so everyone was there. Ava and Lilly loved spending time with their cousins that they get to see too rarely. With all the kids and 100 degree weather it was difficult to do much, but we did manage to go boating, ride the alpine slides in Park City, shop, and hit the Harry Potter midnight release party.


One of the highlights of the trip was that I got to spend a kid-free night with my girlfriends from London. It's been 10 years since we were there and it's amazing how much our lives have changed, yet how close we still feel to each other. We stayed up till 3 in the morning reminiscing and talking about our lives, education, family, religion, politics...pretty much everything. I feel like a fairly liberal-minded person in comparison to the traditionally conservative culture of Mormonism, but these women share most of my views, which is rare in my experience. Since getting married and having kids, it's much harder to take the time to establish new friendships. The evening was a nice reminder that the greatest friends are the ones you can still love and be connected to whether you see them every day or every ten years.

Another highlight was going to Provo to see BYU. It seems like the campus was under construction the entire time I was there, so it was fun to see the changes, but even better was the memories that flooded in just by driving through town and walking around campus. It seemed that every building, restaurant, store, and street brought back a slew of memories, some of which I had forgotten entirely, such as the bell tower playing "come, come ye saints" and tunnel singing (yep, I'm a dork). Just driving past the MTC was amazing.

Tahoe

We weren't as ambitious driving back from Salt Lake and decided to split the trip up into two days, meeting my parents in Tahoe. We had a beautiful day biking, boating, and watching Taming of the Shrew performed on the beach at night.

The Deathly Hallows

As excited as I was to get back to normal life once we returned, I ended up retreating more into obscurity as I poured through the final Harry Potter book. I got it at the midnight release party, but with the drive and such, wasn't able to get much read until I came home. I was a terrible mom, ignoring my children and letting them watch movies on end, continuously promising them that when I was done we would do so many fun things. Finishing the series was bitter sweet.

Sometimes there is no substitute for a rake

Over the past year, we have become part of an elite group of Californians who do something few others can - our own yard work. It's so cheap here that it's easy to justify getting a service, but Ty and I decided that we really enjoy doing it ourselves and our yard's never looked better. Like other tasks we divide and conquer when it comes to the yard. Tyler is primarily in charge of taking care of the grass, and I'm primarily in charge of the flower beds. We live on a 6,000 square foot lot, so it really doesn't take that much effort, unless I decide that I feel like planting. One of these days I'll post some pictures of our work.

People sometimes ask how I learned to garden. I don't really have an answer for that, because I still don't know what I'm doing. I usually stumble upon plants I like and stick them in the ground. Most of the time I end up moving them to different spots until they flourish or die. I also follow this pattern when it comes to decorating my house.

Yesterday, I was blowing leaves and sticks and such from the planting beds and started getting really frustrated. As fun as a leaf blower is, you can easily make a bigger mess if you're not careful. It's OK for a quick pass through the yard, and for cleaning off porches and patios, but sometimes there is no substitute for a rake. Sure, a rake takes more effort and time, but nothing is better at clearing out all the old garbage that collects around and under the plants. I'm always surprised with how much I dig out, and afterwards how fresh and renewed it looks.

As I was contemplating the genius that is the rake, I couldn't help but think about the correlation with life. We can make quick efforts to deal with personal issues, work, and relationships, but sometimes there is no substitute for taking the time to really dig in and do the work that needs to be done.

Here are some examples of what I'm thinking:

You can spend time managing your kids, or you can spend time interacting with you kids.

You can go to church, or you can take the time to ponder and practice your beliefs.

You can show up for work everyday, or you can....Ok, you get the idea. And I have to say that I'm definitely guilty of leafblowing my way through much of life, but on occasion I try to pull out the rake.