FALL

I love fall. The colors (both in nature and otherwise), the food (pumpkin desserts, warm drinks, hearty soups, etc. (although I guess those foods should be in reverse order. I guess I just automatically put them in order of importance :0)), the crunchy leaves as I walk down the sidewalk, the crisp air...it's all great. So imagine my chagrin every year since I live in a place where often the autumn lasts a week or two if we're lucky, and then moves right on to winter, or sometimes it seems like we skip fall altogether.

Then imagine my (and everyone else who lives here) absolute delight with the beautiful and long and mild fall we've had here. It's been hovering in the low 70's-mid-60's now for over a month and is amazingly beautiful and pleasant outside.

Here's my view out my kitchen window:


I heard my 8 and 6-year-old little boys looking out across the street at these trees yesterday evening. Here's the conversation:
Daniel: "Look at those trees over there!"
Seth: "Yeah"
Daniel: "Those colors are amazing! You can barely even see any green!"
Seth: "Yeah!"

My sentiments exactly.

Isn't fall awesome? How's fall where you live?

RECOMMITTMENT

Yes, I realize that it's been about four months since my last post. Pretty sad. I have no excuses.

My reason, however (much different from an excuse, in my mind), is that my family and I have been experiencing some challenges the past six months or so and I simply decided to cut non-essential things out and blogging was one of them.

Unfortunately, I also have become more lax in my habit of looking for things to be grateful for, which, I'm being reminded, definitely affects my state of mind and level of happiness.

So this past week, I made a new committment to try to be more grateful. It's funny: one night I said to my husband, "I've realized that I'm not focusing on being grateful as much as I used to and I think I'm suffering for it. I want to get back to looking for and being grateful for my blessings." Then the next day I listened to a message from a man who I have infinite love and respect for, who is a prophet of God and the president of my church, and his message to everyone was this: Be Grateful and everything will look better and be better.

What interesting (but I believe not coincidental) timing. Time to refocus.

So here is my first post back:

NATURE

I love and am so grateful for the beauties of nature. I know, that phrase sounds so trite, but how else do you say it? Nature is absolutely beautiful! This weekend we went on a short hike to Bloomington Lake, which is a tiny lake up in the mountains of southeastern Idaho, with a 20-30 minute car ride up to the trail, along the picturesque Bloomington creek (above), and where many of the quaking aspens were bright yellow against the dark pine trees--wow.


But then the trail is only 1.2 miles to the lake and back, so it was easy for our kids (the youngest being 2) to walk there and back. And what a view! I realized that some people go their whole lives without seeing sights like this. The air was so clean, the sun was shining and the views were amazing.

What boys do not love throwing rocks into a body of water? Mine sure do .

And look at all the huge awesome rocks for climbing on!


I couldn't believe the clarity and color of the water. It was really a wonderful and beautiful hike and we had some great family time. Also, as a sidenote: who would have guessed that we could go hiking in the middle of October in the Idaho mountains at over 8000 feet and not even need jackets? Amazing!