Yeah it is Fall in Utah!

I cannot believe that we are fastly approaching the end of September. I love spring and fall. The change in the way the air smells and the change in the way the air feels. There is nothing like it. I have experienced fall on the east coast. I spent a few months in Virginia and traveled thru New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire while living there. I loved it. I still have one very strong memory of being out for a drive and pulling up in front of this one tree that was of the most spectacular shades of orange. The tree literally looked like it was on fire. I grew up on the northern west coast and the seasonal changes are so subtle that they are almost unnoticeable until it is completed. Yet fall is beautiful there as well. You have the vineyards and apple farms in full harvest mode and it is a bustle that I do miss. Then there is Utah. I enjoy the obvious signs of the changes of the weather. I love to see the mountains change before the valley does. I love the crispness that comes with this time of the year. The one and only thing I do not look forward to is the snow. I appreciate it for Christmas and New Year and after that I don't want to see it. I do however get caught up in Scott's excitement of the snow. He is a true Utah child. He loves every season but none more than snow season.

As I approach the beginning of beauty school I have been in a flurry of activity, realizing that once I start I will be so tired that I will have literally no energy to do anything else but go to school and come home and rest. So in my flurry we took Scott up to Sundance on Saturday. Although he had been there before he would not remember as he was just a baby. I always forget how peaceful and beautiful it is there. There is so much more to it than just the name and the restaurant. Or the ski slopes. It is fun to attend the concerts and performances at the amphitheatre as well. At first we drove past and wound our way up the canyon. We pulled over just as the valley starts to open up, there we found a bright yellow tree. I had Star let me and Scott out so we could go pick some leaves. I was wearing the wrong shoes and could not reach the leaves and I turned around to holler at Star to join us and I noticed that we were suddenly overwhelmed with people. They just seemed to have crawled out of the forest. It was very bizarre!















After that we drove back down to Sundance and as if we called ahead found a perfect parking spot. Which was very lucky as we found out a wedding was taking place. So we just took our time meandering up the path that followed the little river. We gathered different leaves of shape and color. Also pictures of what we gathered. I love the camera that Eve got for us. It is fantastic. I enjoy taking pictures. After reaching the end of the paved path we opted to turn around and head back along the main path. We slowly made our way to the car and headed home. It was a great little adventure. I love to see Scott's excitement about things. I had to constantly remind him to keep his voice down as he just wound up about things. He is so dang cute!

The reason for the leaf gathering is that we made placemats for our missionaries to celebrate fall/halloween. We had a blast using the different leaf colors and shapes to make creative patterns. We accented with halloween stickers and stuff. We had a blast putting them together. That was our family home evening project for the week. Next week we are making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle heads stuffed with candy. It has been fun to put together little things for our missionaries. We have four out just from our street. In fact it goes our house, the Keils who live next to us on our west side have two out, and then going west again the Bartholomews. They live next to the Keils and they have one out. He happens to be Ammon's very best friend since they were 5. Then to our south across the street we have another one. So 5 just on our one street. It is pretty awesome. They are incredible missionaries and what an example for Scott.

ImageWorks Academy of Hair Design, Inc.
I have been slated to start beauty school at ImageWorks on Tuesday September 2nd. But I have not heard from the school as to whether my financial aid has come thru yet. So I am waiting for a call from the school so I can make arrangements for Scott and a prescription from the doctor so I can stay awake while at school. I am incredibly excited about going. I am really looking forward to the professional makeup coarse. I do not believe it will be what brings in the money but for those of you who know me it is all about the makeup and always has been! Not to mention it is with my ultimate favorite makeup line, MAC. I have found out that my financial has not come thru as of yet but I am going to start on Tuesday as scheduled and as soon as my student loan comes thru for $500 I will be able to take home my kit and practice. YEAH!!!!!


For those of you who have never tried it and believe in spending money on quality, you need to try MAC. As far as pricing goes it is actually cheaper than Lancome and Este Lauder. I started buying professional makeup with Este Lauder and was deeply disappointed with its quality and ability to last. A friend from Arizona turned me onto Merl Norman and I liked their makeup then a coworker from Arizona turned me onto MAC and I have never gone back. I am a contact lens wearer and I have never had a problem with their makeup causing me any issues. There makeup lasts longer and looks better than anything else I have ever tried. I did stray for a little while when I converted to mineral foundation and waited and waited for MAC to come out with theirs. Finally, yes finally they did and I was able to afford to purchase it. Early Christmas present to myself, I mean after all how could I go to school to learn professional makeup and not be wearing MAC!!!! I know, self justification!!! Not to mention that they do makeovers and I have never been disappointed with the look they created for me.

Everything from an evening eye catching look to an everyday natural look. They completely shattered my image of what colors I could or could not wear. OK, I will stop now. You can tell I am in love with MAC, enough said. Here is their link if your interested in what they offer: http://www.maccosmetics.com

Catching up....

Wow, I cannot believe that it has been over a month since I last posted anything. We have had some computer problems. We needed to reformat our computer and then update some of the software. Well I had over 7 gig of stuff that I needed to save and we just had one problem after another trying to get that downloaded. Then the first reformat we did back to factory and that loaded a bunch of stuff of we had forgotten about and didn't need bogging down our computer. We bought a floor display model and so there was a ton of junk programs that came loaded on it. So we finally get everything downloaded and the computer reformatted and up and running. Running a something different than XP and Vista so it has taken me a week to get used to it. Now my hyper somnia is in overdrive and I am once again sleeping my days away. I hate wasting so much of my time sleeping. I am also very close to starting Beauty school. If my financing comes thru I will start school on the 30th. Which only gives me a week and half to get all my sleep in and pray for all the help I can get so I can get out of bed in the morning to be at school by 8. This is what forced me to quit working in the first place, I am unable to control how or when I handle getting up when the hyper somnia is in over drive. It is for only three months so if I can just drag myself out of bed and get to Springville.......

Quick update on Dad. He is doing great!!! At first he was saying that he would not have the other knee done because the recovery was so painful. Now that he is MUCH more mobile than he has been in years he believes that he will have the other knee done next summer. We are all so proud of him. His recovery has been great. He has truly put a lot of work into it and is happy with his progress. He should be able to go back to driving his bus very soon.

We had a block party last night and let me tell you what a blast it was. Kris and Ron Bartholomew host it in their yard and all but three families showed up for it. The kids had such a blast. Kris is so creative (she should be with so many kids) she took water balloons filled them with little prizes such as coins, filled with water, and then froze them. They were the biggest hit of the party. She has been doing this for 11 years. She also had a pinata for the kids. And of course my Scott is the one that hit the poor duck pinata in just the right spot and broke it. One good whack and down the duck went. He does not realize how strong he is. The party wrapped up by 8. We did it later this year than in years past and it was weird to have it dark by 8. It was really nice because we have a neighbor that is the editor of the Daily Herold here in Provo and they showed up as well. It was great because the non LDS neighbors sometimes get a little overlooked as most of us know each other from church. We used to do neighbor parties in California and let me tell you those are some of my favorite memories. One of our neighbors was the head chef for Peir 39 in San Francisco and he was italian. Mmmmmmmmmm, man could that man cook! We had a party at thier house and played Bocce ball and dogged thier Pot Belly pig. Ahh memories.

Well that is a quick update. I will be much better from now on. It will hopefully be filled with all sorts of stuff from beauty school.