October 2014

The first weekend in October, my dad & sister came out to visit, and so did Thomas' dad (with some youth from their ward), for General Conference.

Unfortunately for my dad, the night he drove down to Provo, traffic was horrendous because of a BYU home football game and a free Neon Trees concert both in Provo. We braved the concert and he found us there once he got into town :) It made me respect my dad on a whole new level the way he actually seemed to enjoy & be interested in the concert :)

Fictionist

Neon Trees

On the Saturday of General Conference, I experienced the worst "morning sickness" of my entire pregnancy. We stayed home and kept the whole day pretty low-key. Morgan joined us that evening (she had stayed with friends the night before).

On Sunday, Dad & Morgan got to go up to the Conference Center for a session of General Conference. Thomas & I stayed home to get dinner ready for them & his dad, fellow travelers, and Samuel & Sarah.

Thomas got an unexpected email saying he'd been selected for another film shoot for the church's Bible videos. It was prior to his shaving off his beard, so he went for it!

Later in the month, his dad was back in town for a conference.

We went to Octubafest this year, as a throwback to our first "date" 6 years ago.

Thanks to a little help from our friends, we were able to put these cute things in our windows for Halloween:

oxox

September 2014

September was a good month! The weather started to turn more autumn-like & we got a fair amount of rain. We had a couple of "weird" Sundays (stake conference & a temple dedication) that convinced us we could get used to just 2 hours of church at 10 AM. We also got to enjoy harvest a little.

We went to a u-pick raspberry patch south of Provo (you can see the Payson temple if you look closely at the next picture, taken just around the corner from where we picked berries):

About 5 lbs of raspberries!

We went to a Bradshaw wedding:

We saw Sterling's band at their 9/11 memorial performance:

Sterling's family allowed us to glean their peach trees. We processed about 30 lbs of peaches (with the help of our canner, purchased that weekend!):

Coincidentally, we also announced to our families that our own little "peach" will be here in March.

We bottled 8 pints of peach halves and 10 pints of peach jam, froze a few pounds of peach slices, and used the remaining fruit for 2 9*13 pans of peach crisp!

We spent the following weekend up at the cabin, with a family from the ward joining us for one night & a day trip to Cascade Springs:

We decided mid-September is the ideal time for the cabin. The surrounding trees were turning their fall colors, the nights were cool, we got a day of sunshine and one of rain... it was really beautiful and the perfect start to autumn.

oxox

June 2014

We tried out Red Lobster for the first time thanks to some gift cards!

We hiked the Y on a whim! There were a lot of wildflowers.

Getting out in nature is so relaxing, and really puts things in perspective.

We went to an outdoor concert with our friends, the Hunts!

We took a scenic drive:

We ate our fruits & veggies:

Thomas went to a fathers & sons activity:

Samuel had a birthday:

And we went to Samuel's work party:

We also had Thomas' friend from Seattle, Tony, and his wife visit us for an evening on their way to southern Utah. They took us to dinner at India Palace and we showed them around Provo before winding down with a round of Pandemic. [picture to come... maybe?].

oxox

On a Night Like This ...

 Earlier this month we came across an opportunity to see one of my favorite musicians of late in concert about 15 minutes from where we live. And we found tickets for $5. So we just had to go. And we are glad we did.

Hint: he's wearing a salmon-colored shirt in this picture

I first discovered Dave Barnes via a Pandora station and I was hooked early on! His songs are beautiful and the lyrics are particularly meaningful for where I am in life. He sings some contemporary Christian songs, some blue-eyed soul, and some rock. I love everything I've heard. Thomas is less sold than I am, but I don't mind.

The concert, put on by Top Blip, at the Scera outdoor theater, was mostly a competition between 9 up-and-coming bands to fill 2 performance slots at the Stadium of Fire this summer. The bands that performed were pretty good-- we especially enjoyed the Spencer Glenn band and their song Polynesian Island (that video is actually from the concert we attended), Joe Banua and his love songs, Carl Dylan, and Ty Mayfield.

The final act that was competing was a local artist we saw last summer at the Provo rooftop concert series (he was an opening act there) and liked enough then to buy a cd-- Ryan Innes. His band won one of the Stadium of Fire slots. He and his band looked and sounded so classy-- they were dressed up, and put a really unique, jazzy twist on a Bruno Mars song they covered

After these bands played and everyone cast their votes via text message, Dave Barnes took the stage. It was just him and his back-up singer (not sure of his name) and their guitars. They sounded awesome! I was really excited to hear Until You, Little Lies, Mine to Love, Love Will Be Enough For Us, and God Gave Me You, and a couple other songs live. Dave Barnes talked about his wife and their baby and his uncle's reaction to hearing Blake Shelton's version of God Gave Me You.

The weather was great and if you ever have a chance to attend an event at the Scera shell theater or see any of these bands or download some Dave Barnes music, I recommend it :o)