Our Fourth and Climbing Kyhv Peak

Between lots of out of town visitors, planning for some upcoming travel, some health stuff with my Mom, two of our kids moving, and some other random time consuming responsibilities, life has been a bit chaotic lately.   For a while, I kept hoping that things would calm down once we got past a few certain calendar items, but now it's looking like the pace is about to escalate even further.  And on an indefinite basis.   As such, it's definitely going to be harder to find the time to sit down and blog, however, I still have the desire to keep up with it, so here I go adding blogging to my to-do list, so it actually happens in between all the other things!  

This blogpost will be all about our Independence Day happenings.   

Glen and I decided to take advantage of his day off and do some hiking in the mountains.  We log a lot of miles in a week walking around our community on our morning walks, but it's actually pretty rare for us to venture into the mountains.  It's mostly time and a little bit of an intimidation factor that keeps us away, so the holiday was a perfect excuse to set all that aside and hike Kyhv Peak (formerly known as Squaw Peak).  

Adam had told us that it was the perfect hike for someone at our level (generally fit, but not super into hiking mountains).    

Some of the uphills were definitely challenging, but with views like this along the way... 

we did our best to enjoy the journey...

The view from the top was lovely in all directions...

And it was fun that we arrived to the peak at the same time as some college kids who'd toted a flag up there for the Fourth.   They were kind enough to let us take a few pics with it, so we felt a little extra festive.

I slipped in some loose gravel on the way down and ended up with a minor sprained ankle.  Luckily, it wasn't too bad and I was able to make my way to the car without difficulty.  The pain didn't actually set in until later and I did end up hobbling around for a bit, but I'm back to 100% again now, so thankfully it wasn't too bad.   

Because of my hurt ankle, we just hung around home the rest of the day while I put my foot up.   Despite the injury, I consider the hike a success and we would totally recommend that hike for someone looking to hike a mountain without committing to an all-day adventure!   

 And that was pretty much a wrap for our Fourth, so here's a look at other family members' experiences.  

Cami and family had just barely moved to Rhode Island a week or two before, so they spent the day in a cute New England town, just exploring and enjoying the old town vibes, including a parade and fireworks!  

Lucie was a little cutie pie in the festive clothes I'd sent in a package for the occasion ! 

 

Emma did a little hike with her friends...

And went to the balloon festival...

Adam had to work during the day, but spent the evening with friends...

Ellie (currently known as Hermana G) didn't do much in the way of celebrating that day, but this photo is dated July 4th, so shows a little glimpse of the amazing things she was up to that day!  

I have no pics of Spence from that day, but he did have the day off, so I'm sure it was enjoyed!  

And that is all for this blogpost.  

Have a beautiful day!  

Adam's Summer Update

Alright, alright...we're off to blogpost #2 in our person-by-person update series here on the blog.  This post will be catching us up on what our Adam is doing!  As is usual with my kids, he doesn't sit still often, so it's been a busy summer for him.

Here are the bare-bones basics of what he's up to, then I'll add a little more detail about each below that: 

1-He's currently taking a spring class
2-He's currently working full-time at the FSY office on campus
3-He has two side gigs, in addition to his full-time job
4-He's been really into hiking lately. 

1- He's currently taking a spring class.  

So, he officially declared his major as "computer engineering" this past year, which he realized is a long major, and would require him taking spring/summer classes just to stay on a 5-year graduation plan!   This spring he opted to take a psychology class that would fulfill a general education requirement.  He had taken an AP psych class back in our homeschool co-op, so  he didn't find the course material very hard, but he was dismayed to find out upon opening the syllabus for the first time, that this class would require 13 written papers during the course of the 6-week condensed spring schedule.  Paper writing is not his favorite thing, but he has officially completed his coursework now and should be completely done with it all  in the next few days.   Hallelujah for him! 

2-He's currently working full-time at the FSY office on campus.

FSY is a HUGE employer of BYU students in the summertime and they recruit pretty hard in the Provo area.  I would say close to a quarter of our YSA ward has some kind of employment through FSY this summer.  Adam had worked as an FSY counselor before his mission and was applying to be a session coordinator for this summer.  He ended up getting hired as an assistant coordinator, before being offered his current job, which is logistics specialist for the Provo sessions.  It was exactly what he was looking for...part-time and flexible during the school year and full-time during the summer.   It's definitely stretched him in good ways (like becoming proficient at spreadsheets) and is giving him a good boost on paying his own rent this upcoming school year!    He gets to work with some great people and he likes knowing he is a part of something that is making a difference! 

3-He has two side gigs, in addition to his full-time job

He didn't get his FSY job until winter semester, so to  earn money for groceries and other incidentals, he started donating plasma during fall semester.  There's a donation center not far from his apartment and he found that donating didn't affect how he felt, so he's been a very regular donor for several months now.  I personally find the whole process fascinating.  I've been a regular blood donor for 35ish years now, but have never been paid a cent for it.  It's wild that there's enough of a market for plasma that they can pay that generously.   

His second side gig is one that he's just recently taken up.   He's always appreciated a good pair of Nike shoes in his wardrobe and was definitely hoping to someday serve near the Nike headquarters while he was on his mission in Portland, but that never happened.   But, he has since discovered that if you can buy a pair of just-dropped limited edition Nike shoes, you can turn around and sell them at a good profit.   He's just figuring out all the ins and the outs of it right now, but he recently sold his first pair at nearly double what he paid for them!   

On his way to the post office to ship his first sold pair

   Nike doesn't release very many pairs of the limited edition shoes, so it's a bit of a crapshoot on whether you can get your hands  on a pair (and one pair of a design is all they allow), but he has since procured two more pairs that he anticipates will also sell for a hefty profit.  I think he's enjoying this new side gig a little more than the plasma donating one.  

4-He's been really into hiking lately.  

Between his full-time work and his fast-paced spring class, his summer schedule has not left a lot of free time on his hands, but  something that he is prioritizing this spring is hiking in the mountains on Saturdays.   I say I like to hike too, but not like his hiking.   His type of hiking is 10-12 mile hikes up  in the mountains with a few thousand feet in elevation gain!   He usually hikes alone, because he doesn't know anyone who wants to hike that intensely, plus, as I previously mentioned, many of his friends are off on FSY adventures in other cities.   Glen did join him on one recent voyage though...

When he's alone, we have a system, where he tells us where he's hiking and he checks in  along the way, so we know he's safe.  Surprisingly, he has found that he has reasonably good coverage on most of the trails...even high up in the mountains.    He did injure himself one time, which caught him unprepared...

But he now carries a first-aid kit with him, along with a boatload of water!  

So far he's hiked Big Baldy Loop, Provo Peak, Khyv Peak, Battle Creek Loop, Lake Hardy, and some other smaller ones... 

We love finding all these amazing pics in the camera roll... 

And we love that it exhilarates him!  It clearly is something he very much enjoys and we live in a great area to explore the outdoors.   

Okay, these are the main things keeping him busy right now, but I thought I'd throw in a bonus item for your enjoyment!  

BONUS ITEM:   He recently allowed his head to be shaved as part of his calling!  

He's the Institute rep for his YSA ward.   You've probably have never heard of that calling before, but in a BYU ward, it's actually a pretty big deal.   I didn't really know how big of a deal until we started serving in our own YSA ward a couple months ago, but let's just say that it's quite the weekly social event, they get amazing teachers for it, and the biggest chunk of the stake budget goes to providing food at Institute each week.  President Nelson (our modern day prophet) has given some amazing promises at how participating in Institute will bless lives and Adam's calling requires participating in ward council,  attending and helping at institute each week, and HYPING it up, so people actually come.   

Right at the end of winter semester, somehow the promise was made (with the help of a friend) that if his ward's attendance reached a certain threshold at Institute that week, that he'd allowed his head to be shaved.   They exceeded that threshold (by a good deal more than they'd had there all school year) and his head was shaved!   

I don't think he actually likes his hair being that short, but he took it all in good stride, and decided it was worth it for the cause!    His hair is growing back nicely now...

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Stay tuned for more updates in the series coming soon...

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Totality In Austin!

Seven-ish years ago, we trekked from Virginia to South Carolina, so we could be in the path of totality of a solar eclipse.  It turned out to be a pretty epic and memorable experience and I've been daydreaming about the next one for quite a while.  About a year ago, we realized that the "next one" was coming up in 2024 and we picked a location and started making plans.  We reserved our hotel, bought plane tix, purchased our eclipse glasses, and rented a car 9-12 months in advance, so we would be ready to go to Austin to see it and wouldn't get fleeced by last minute pricing.  

Even with all of our prep work though, we  had heard all sorts of nightmare stories about the expected crowds in Texas and how people's rental cars were getting canceled and how traffic would be horrible, plus it was supposed to be super cloudy, so we were pretty nervous and debated driving  instead, so we could switch direction if needed. 

But, in the end, we stuck with our plan and  our only hiccups of the whole trip were getting to Austin.   It snowed the morning we were leaving which delayed our flight out of SLC, which caused us to miss our connection in Vegas.  Glen caught a stand-by shortly after arriving, but Ellie and I were stuck for hours in the Vegas airport until our rescheduled flight that evening.   In case you weren't aware, the Vegas airport is pretty much an armpit of an airport.    It's dark (no natural light), full of casinos, dirty, and so overpriced it should be considered illegal to charge as much as they do.   

These nuts were just one example of the outrageous prices.   The Chex mix was $13.99 in Vegas.  The same size bag in the Austin airport cost $5.99.   In a regular grocery store, it probably would have cost $3.99.    I stubbornly refused to give them my money and in the future will try to avoid scheduling flights that go through Vegas, because it's a dumpity dump dump dump.   

Once we got to Austin, though, we've had no issues.  We hear a lot of people canceled their trips here once they saw the cloudy weather forecast, which meant we got our car rental no problem, the hotel is only half full, and the traffic wasn't bad at all. 

AND BEST OF ALL...

In what can only be described as divine intervention....

the clouds parted right at the moment of totality and we got the full amazingly spectacular experience we'd been hoping for!   

We honestly thought the clouds made for a cool natural filter for the photos and added some depth.   It was everything we'd hoped it would be!  


We also ate lots of good food, including....

Bird Bird Biscuit, which has amazing gluten free biscuits...

Torchy's, which is our favorite taco place of all time...

And Hop Daddy's, which had amazing gluten free buns, the best sweet potato fries around, and a burger I actually enjoyed, instead of just tolerating...

We also went on a couple good walks at Lady Bird Lake (something Cami loved to do when she lived there)...

And we saw some amazing wildflowers along the way, that made me smile...

I would call it a good trip overall, but also exhausting.   We left for Texas already pretty tired after hosting the boys  for a few days.    We had hoped that our time in Texas would be more restful, but between our very long day getting here, our too-small beds, and an extremely early morning to fly back home, we got home even more exhausted than when we left.  Coming home to a disaster area of a house did not help matters either. 

Exhaustion aside, we are already scheming a way for us to see another total eclipse.  The next one in the USA isn't for another 21 years, so we're thinking maybe Spain or Australia.... 😏

I guess you can call us official umbraphiles now.   😏

As Seen On My Morning Walks

Hello dear blog readers!   

If you happened to live in the same neighborhood as me (or if you read this blog regularly), you already know that walking is my sanity saver.  I have yet to figure out the secret for making friends in Utah (or anywhere for that matter), so I just walk a lot...by myself, unless Glen is home, then it's with him.  And when I say I walk "a lot", I mean like 35+ miles a week a lot.  During those long treks around and about the area, I mostly just  wander and explore until I feel done, then I go home.   It works for me and it keeps my mental health on the positive side.  

With all the miles I log, I see  glimpses of a lot of interesting things out and about.   Here are a few from the last week or so...

One day I returned from my 7.25 mile walk to what I can only describe as wild sunflower "kisses"...

They confused me at first, then I realized that they're from walking through overgrown sidewalks like this one.  The wild sunflowers are everywhere right now and when they hit my leg head-on, the pollen leaves a little "kiss' mark.   I like it! 

This lovely dragonfly caught my eye and didn't fly away when I approached to take a picture.  It was definitely still alive, but I worried it may have been on its way out with how close it let me get. 

You've all heard of a "snake in the grass", but have you ever heard of a snake in a bush?   Not me, until the other day.   This snake was about 2 feet off the ground and just slithering around the bush!   I very much kept my distance from that one! 

Spence and I took the doggos out for a little jaunt around the block and found the loveliest double rainbow.   It looked like we could have walked right behind that house and found that elusive pot of gold right there. 

I am not normally much of a cat person, but this cute little kitty was super friendly  and had the most beautiful coloring.   I actually even gave it a little love, which is not very Lara-like of me.  

The Halloween decor is starting to pop up around town and this one was wild to me!   I thought it was supposed to be a skeleton basketball game until I saw there was an extra player in there.   I wonder how many small children are scared to walk by their house this time of year! 

Road closures are EVERYWHERE right now!   We just had our road paved a week or two ago  and now it's closed again for them to do work on the manholes.   It's rare for me not to run into at least one closed road on my walks each morning.    On the plus side, that means the massive potholes that popped up everywhere during our endless winter last year, are finally disappearing! 

So, that's it.  Thanks for reading my blog today. 

Ten Things that Made Me Smile Recently

If you know me in real life or have been following along with this blog for long, you will probably not be surprised to hear that sometimes I struggle to see the bright side of things.  I came from a family of worriers and I think my brain's natural way to see the world is with wariness, lest anything bad is just about to happen. This is not my favorite part of my personality, but it is how I'm wired, so I have to work really hard to maneuver my way around these tendencies and keep from being a Debbie Downer all the time. 

One of the things I try to do regularly, though probably not regularly enough, is to record some things in my life that are going well and that are making me happy.   My favorite way to do this is to keep a daily gratitude journal where I can write one thing from each day that I'm grateful for.   I go in spurts with it, where I'm really good at it for a while, then I get out of routine and it takes me a while to get back to it.   Here are a couple of my daily logs from earlier this year that show you how random I am with it!  

I haven't kept up my daily gratitude journal in a few months, since it, like many of my other good habits I sometimes keep up, seem to fall by the wayside in the summertime.   Lately I've been feeling like it's time to start it back up again, but, first things first, I want to share a few happy things in my life here with all of you!    Blogging is good for my mental health and I like that what I share here gets preserved for future generations, as well as being an outlet for me to get down what's in my very muddled brain!  
 
TEN THINGS THAT ARE MAKING ME HAPPY

1.  We just returned from Labor Day weekend in Atlanta and got to spend time with everyone but Adam (on his mission) and Spencer (no luck finding care for Kiwi, his pit-pointer mix).   It was a wonderful weekend exploring,eating good food, and just savoring our time with Cami, Garrett, and Lucie who drove 2-hours to meet us there!  Family time makes me incredibly happy!  Stay tuned for a more detailed blogpost coming soon.

2.  I am grateful that our garden is starting to produce like crazy!   As mentioned in this post, gardening is something I'm not that great at, so I'm always extra happy (and honestly a bit surprised) when we start to reap the harvest in our overgrown and late-planted garden.  Yay for fresh fruits and veggies! 

3.  Speaking of gardening, I went out to do a little weeding the other day (the first time all summer) and I wore my pink overalls and listened to a good audiobook.   Every time I looked down at my happy pink outfit, I would think two things #1--how much I like pink, #2--I should probably just embrace my love of pink and  go see the Barbie movie

4.  On a recent walk, I found this big fancy house with a statue/fountain of Charlie Brown dressed as a Greek god.   It totally made me laugh out loud!  

5.  My 94-year-old grandmother just moved out of my parents' basement  to an assisted living center.  I think it was a very difficult move for her, but with her late-onset dementia and my Dad gone, it was definitely time for a new arrangement.  We stopped by to visit with her the other day and she was so happy to see us.   We brought her her favorite cookies and just chatted with her for a bit.   I am grateful that she has found a place that is nearby and that will meet her needs more fully! 

6.  I know it's a bit weird for me to have taken up sourdough bread baking again (since I can't eat it), but I was really proud of how this recent sourdough pizza crust came out.   The gluten eaters of the family very much approved and the bruschetta topping straight from our garden was absolutely delicious!   I had mine on a gluten free "cauliflower thin"! 😋

7.  I was introduced to the goofy .5 pictures by my niece, McKenzie, but it wasn't until my 2-1/2 weeks in Thailand with 21 young people that I realized how obsessed teens are with them! 😂 Here are a few Ellie recently took, though somehow she "forgot" to take one of herself, so the photo of her in the collage is from Thailand.  

8.  If you knew me from Virginia, you probably know that I'm mildly obsessed with making church programs.  It's an ongoing skill/passion of  mine that makes me laugh because of how utterly useless it is.   I'm not sure anyone  looks at them anyway, but it is a weird little thing that makes me incredibly  happy (and provides a creative outlet for me), so here I am doing them again!    Our ward here in Utah didn't do paper programs at all and refused my offer to make them several times before finally giving into my requests.  I was told, though, that it wasn't the paper program they were wanting, but something for the young women to do at church.  So I make them and the young women distribute them. Haha.  Someday I'll find something to do that matters, but in the meantime I'm happy to give the young women a job! 

Another thing that you probably know if you knew me in Virginia, is that I don't like to use any old art on the cover of the programs.  I like to get the ward members involved and use their original art.   In Virginia, I always had a steady stream of art being submitted to me and I only occasionally had to ask for it.   Here in Utah, however,  I have had a really hard time getting  people here on board with my vision.   I was putting my request in the program every week, sending notes to the primary president, asking people with lots of kids, etc. and getting almost nothing.  Finally, I had the great idea of bribery.   I started adding a note in the program that every person who gave me a picture for the program would get candy.  It took a few weeks to catch on, but I am now officially  the candy lady and I usually have a steady stream of kids bringing me their artwork after sacrament meeting--some of it usable and some not.   And I LOVE IT!   I'm happy to be the weird program making candy lady of the ward! 

9.  I know I mention this a lot, but I love that my body is strong and fit and can walk a million miles.  I've gained some weight since my hysterectomy in December, but it's not for lack of exercise!  My daily walks are a HUGE part of what keeps my mental health on the plus side and I'm thankful to live in a beautiful area that means even my neighborhood walks are scenic!  

10.  Speaking of beautiful morning walks, here are a few things I saw on my walk this morning.   A cute little wild turkey family crossing the road, an apple that fell off a tree inches from my face, a deer that totally froze until I was only a couple feet away from it, a horse that peed so loudly I turned around to see what was making all the noise, a cute baby deer just chilling in someone's yard, and fields of wild sunflowers.  

So there you have it...10 things that have made me smile recently!   Now time to get back to the daily gratitude log!   Have an amazing day! 

{Click here if you want to see some of my other gratitude posts from over the years}