Favorite Utah Pics - Part I

Here are the winners of the Favorite Utah Pics category. Sorry if your favorite did not make the cut, but it was so hard to decide. Anyway, here are my favorites -- which one was yours. Drop me a comment on the blog and let me know....

Utah Favorite Pics - Part II

Here are the last 4 of my favorites... Love them, love them...

Name them one by one...

So it happened - last Sunday I was released from the Primary after a 7 year stint. Wow! I have to actually talk to adults now. I am so sad. I loved my little kids and think of (most of) them as mine -- some of them I wouldn't own up to! (If you were my kids, I'd punish MYSELF*). I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have had to work with some of God's choicest. There were some very fine moments in there, including the time that Connor McPheeters answered the question of, "How does our church baptize differently than other churches?" with "We do baptism by ILLUSION". I just have visions of the baptizer baptizing the baptizee (?) and then stating, "And now for my next trick!". Anyway, I am thankful at this time for this opportunity to have served in the Primary.

I'm thankful also at this time for family. If I could be anywhere in the world it would be in my living room talking with my kids and family -- or in Mom's LR talking with my brothers and sisters. I include their kids in that scenario as I feel as close to them as I could. I love the nieces and nephews! I loved Wendy's quote she shared from President Monson which says, "But when we have sampled much and have wandered far and have seen how fleeting and sometimes superficial a lot of the world is, our gratitude grows for the privilege of being part of something we can count on -- home and family and the loyalty of loved ones" or the quote we have in our kitchen which says, "Having someone to love is family, having somewhere to go is home, having both is a blessing." Last night I had the opportunity to take the girls and a couple of the Holland girls to see the midnight showing of Twilight and although the movie was nowhere near as good as the book, it was just entertaining to watch the excitement of those around me. I thought Brooke was going to hyperventilate. I told her to be sure and write about this in her journal so when she gets older and has kids of her own, she will be able to relate to them when they go so crazy about something. I was glad to have children at home with which I could do this -- It was even fun to see JoJo there with his date (?) / family friend Tannith.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to help families preserve their "blessings" through photography. Things have finally slowed down just a bit for which I am grateful (another thing!) I love trying new things and have learned a ton but feel like I have SO far to go. I'm further than some and KNOW I am way behind others -- I'm just grateful for the journey. I am so excited for the chance to do our family pictures in Utah as I love nothing greater than to work with the pictures of those I love.

I am also grateful for my Savior and the peace it brings when I know I am on the right track. I watch others around me struggle with their testimony and feeling safe and I am grateful for the knowledge of what true happiness can be if I just do what HE has asked me to do. Now to just do it!

Life is good. Liz

*Little Rascals

Cache me if you can...

I know, I know... the Fourth of July is a holiday designed for families . . . after all that is the day we won our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of barbeques. In our family's case, we do most of our celebrating strange, we go to the fireworks on the third and spend time together doing fun things on the 5th. (We pretty much vegged on the 4th and watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium for about the trillionth time!)

Anyway, Kent and Joseph came up with a really fun thing to do called Geocaching. For those who have never done it, there are people who go into wherever and create a "cache" -- hiding it in plain sight. They put different things in this cache and then go online. On a specific website they list the GPS coordinates for everyone who see if they can find their "cache".

So on this crazy Fifth of July holiday the Kent Applegates turned into treasure hunters and headed out into the wilds (really we just four-wheeled across the wild terrain in our van -- I'm not too good without an air conditioner!) We actually looked for three different ones here in the Farmington area (out by the lake, up in the wilderness behind the high school and over by where they do the 4-wheel rock climbing competition every year). We were able to find 2 of them hidden pretty well (see the pictures), but the best part of the whole day was we really had a lot of fun doing it. We ended the fun day by going to the Gem and Mineral Show downtown that the city was putting on with the rest of the Fourth of July celebrations. It was cool to look at the different rocks, Kent had an in-depth conversation with one of the rock polisher guys / cutters and Tanner and Chelsea took a nice bonding time out sleeping in the hallway while we waited for Joe and Dad looking at the rocks after the above mentioned convo (okay, they did come in and look at all the rocks first).

We came home and had leftover steaks from the Fourth of July (oh yeah, we did do that) and ate a seeded watermelon (I know, I know Mom / Grandma -- I didn't buy it!).

All in all, it was a great day!

Ooh, Aaw and Ashes...

Okay, I finally have something that I want to share. I have had this blog for quite some time now but have never posted anything to it because I am not as clever as some other blog writers (you know who you are Kristi Bassett!), but I have finally decided that now is the time -- it is time to write.

The other day I decided I needed to hone my photography skills so I took Ashley out in the garden and we took some pictures (see the slide show). I kept the ones I really liked and even threw in a few of my (and her) flower pictures -- since Ash is part of MY "old-fashioned garden" Press Here.

Then last night, we had the delightful opportunity to attend the Fourth of July celebration up at the church. I know, it was really the Third of July but for some funky reason the city always does it on the third. So about 8:30 at night / evening we all headed up to the church because, after all, it is tradition. The streets are filled with people from every nation, kindred, tongue and people and quite a few of them land on our church parking lot / lawn. I figure it is good PR work for the church although we don't really do anything more than just water and mow our lawn.

Then let the show begin. For being a town of roughly 50,000 people (servicing around 100,000 if you count the reservation from nearby Navajo lands) the city puts on a FANTASTIC show -- rivaling any I have seen anywhere else -- including Disneyland. Here are a few shots from last night in my slideshow. The funnest part though, other than just sitting and gabbing with friends (who we consider to be our family here in Farmington) was listening to these two little kids who were sitting about 10 feet behind us. As EVERY firework would go off, they would ooh and aww like it was the only firework that had gone off or would go off. They were so excited. They were truly capturing the spirit of the entire evening and as I looked around at my family (even my big boys were there with us) I couldn't help but think, "ooh, aww" as I watched them interact with their friends and each other (the boys even let Chelsea come with them later to shoot off fireworks). It was truly a magical night.

You'll notice some pics at the end of the show of some hot air balloons. Kent got up at 0-dark-hundred and went out to Bloomfield to see the first balloon festival they have held. It definitely wasn't as big as the one I saw in Provo, nor even as big as the ones in Farmington on Memorial Day, but for a first time I thought it was a pretty good showing.

All pictures are posted on my Picasa web album page.

Fourth of July farmington 2008