Old Friends and a Few In-Between Things

 Have you noticed that it's been pretty nonstop around here for the last couple months?  Yeah, me too.  With kids at home, my life used to be pretty nonstop all the time, but as the kids have left the house one by one, the pace has slowed down a bit.  There have even been times in the last few years when I worry that I'm missing something, because life is so NOT busy.   I've thought long and hard about finding a job, but just haven't felt like that was the right thing yet, so I am sometimes floundering a little as I search for the most effective/meaningful way to spend my time.   But then I have periods of time like the last couple months have been and I am grateful a million times over that I have the incredible privilege of choosing to stay unemployed at this stage of my life, because I can't imagine one more thing to do on my already long list.  Plus I really, really love being flexible enough to be available for the grandkids' calls and visits and I think our new BYU callings would be very challenging if I worked full-time too.  

So, I finally have a few minutes and, here I am, blogging about a couple of the in-between things that I missed mentioning here on the blog, because they happened amongst the myriad of other "bigger" things (like  our busy new callings, Emma's graduation, the work conference in Saint George,  our trip to Alabama, and Emma's injury/surgery).  

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I am not convinced that Utah will ever truly feel like home  to me, but I'm coming around to the idea that it's certainly not a bad place to live.  Besides the epic scenery, I love that old friends actually come to visit (or move here too).    If we moved away from our community here in Utah tomorrow, I am 99.99% convinced that not a single person we've met here in Utah would ever come visit us, no matter where we lived (even if it were a mile away), so the fact that I have friends that  call when they come to visit sometimes, makes me incredibly happy!   

  Heather and Kelly are two of those good friends.  Heather recently moved nearby and is now a part of my book group, which I love.  Kelly is so good at keeping in touch, something I'm not the greatest at, so I extra appreciate her efforts and I loved seeing her, along with Heather, when she came to town for her daughter's recent graduation from BYU.  

Speaking of graduation, when we were out celebrating Emma's, I  randomly ran into this cousin of my sister-in-law, Karey,  who recognized me from my blog.  Haha!  I am fully aware that she was a regular blog reader from way back when I actually attempted humor and had a lot more funny stories to share, but it did make me feel cool to be recognized all these years later!   If you ever meet / see me in the real world, please come talk to me and make my day!   

The day after all the excitement from Emma's graduation, we celebrated my 52nd birthday!   Emma made an AMAZING cake (gluten free of course)...

which was as delicious as it was cool looking!  

I'll do a catch-up post for every member of the family soon, since there's a lot happening in most of their lives, but I think I'll finish this blogpost up with a few more pictures of some Virginia friends that recently came to town.  Kim's son was performing in a BYU production of High School Musical, which provided the perfect, last minute excuse for a trek to Provo to gather with old friends!  

All of these women are dear friends, but, besides running RAGNAR together nearly 14 years ago (see photo below), I feel like I have a special connection with each of them.    Amy is a fellow grandma to Lucie and Oliver, Kim is the mom of one of Adam's best friends growing up, and Heather is a fellow Minnesotan with whom I have a lot of shared experiences.    Finding  this old picture of us was a blast from the past and brought back a lot of carefree memories from the couple of months right before Spencer was diagnosed with leukemia and our world was forever rocked!   These women were right by my side during that challenging time!  

RAGNAR, September 2011 {l-r:  Cat, Me, Amy, Kim, Paige, Heather}

 We had to get a photo with just us and the B family, since we're practically related now that our kids have been married to each other for 7 years!    

It made my whole week to see them all again...💗

And now I need to get back to my long list of things to do again.  Thanks for tuning in today and stay tuned for more updates coming soon!