salem city's new mayor:

dear dc, you look great in fall colors.

my new headboard

even though my bedroom is oddly shaped and sort of reminds me of what I imagine anne frank lived in (seriously, you could hide a whole family of jews from the nazis in my two side closets alone), I love it.  I love how the slanted ceilings make it so cozy; I love my massive closet; and I love the built-in book shelves.  

however, I did not love how I had to give up my headboard because it just wouldn't fit (don't worry--my roommate hannah is taking good care of it).  So I made one myself last week out of a board, fabric, and some foam.  It was pretty easy and I really love having a real bed again.

It's hard to see the details, but it's white velvet and has two rows of matching buttons.

also I should probably iron my pillow cases.

the maine event

so I went to maine last weekend and stayed at a lovely house on mt. desert island. it was beautiful, amazing, and almost began with being arrested.  (thanks adam and jennie for being such good sports about being scared to death at 4:00 am)

anyway, we made it there, hiked around, played hearts, and ate a lot of food. blah blah blah. here are some photographs:

pretty lighthouse


hannah and me at wagamama's in Boston where we stopped for a bit on the way back. we were both appropriately dressed for our stroll around harvard sqaure and cambridge in our argyle cardigans.


I just can't get over how pretty the coastline is


it was really windy on the top. I think this is the highest point on the island.


the coast by the lighthouse



more pretty views.







gorgeous leaves.  sigh.  I love fall so much.


cute little islands everywhere.

lake by our house.

playing with our dinner while it was still alive (so sad! yet so tasty).

eating our delicious lobster dinner.

walking around charming bar harbor.

hats are way more fun in maine.  

way more fun.

these last two crack me up every time I see them

endings and beginnings

last week was full of highs and lows.  I went home to Utah because my grandma was really sick. Jonathan flew out as well and it was great to see him and the rest of the kids. Unfortunately, she passed away before I could get back (I missed her by half a day), but I did get to attend her funeral.  It was nice to take the time to remember what made her so special.  She did so many things: she was a pilot, a musician, a traveler, a professional softball player, and made the best homemade jam.  But she was also one of the kindest people I've known.  

One of my favorite stories of her is when I went to take care of her when she broke her hip.  She was in her late seventies and was gored by a bull when she was feeding cattle (that should say something right there) and broke her hip on a Friday afternoon.  As soon as she got out of the hospital that evening, I stayed at her house to help her since she was bedridden (she only got up to use the bathroom and she needed a lot of help to do even that).  Or so I thought.  On Sunday, I left her just to go to church for an hour and I when I got home, she was toddling about the kitchen. Her accident had occurred fewer than 48 hours earlier and she couldn't move without experiencing excruciating pain, but there she was fixing her 18-year-old granddaughter lunch.  It was just another example (among thousands) of how she was always doing nice things for others.

grandkids at the burial site

lucy and olivia

lucy again

After the funeral, I headed to California for Heddie's wedding.  Heddie is one of my best friends from BYU--we were roommates for two years and were always doing crazy things.  Like the video we made all freshman year where we would re-enact events for the camera (it was entitled "the campus is our world"), or when we were roommates in the tiniest room and decided we could maximize space by pushing our beds together to make a massive king size bed.  on which we would frequently have dance parties. 

Or when we got in trouble with the honor code police (by that I mean our crazy RA who threatened to turn us in to the honor code office) for plastering our room with bare-chested abercrombie models (in our defense, we drew fake missionary tags on their chests--they were all named Elder A. Fitch).   Anyway, she's one of my favorite people ever and I was really happy to be her bridesmaid.

I also got the chance to hang out with Aunt Nancy which was so fun.  We had chile relleno burritos that were to die for.  We always have a good time.

heddie and her husband

Heddie's awesome orange shoes.

my bouquet--I loved it!  

Redlands temple.  

Rachel's Big Fat Italian Wedding

This weekend I went to Rachel's wedding (for those of you who don't know, she was one of my roommates this past year.  I've had a lot of truly great roommates over the years, but she's been the best of the best).   Her wedding was so beautiful--she's been planning it for two years and her hard work paid off.  It was such a fun event.  I think my favorite part was the wedding mass.  I'd never been to a Catholic wedding before and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. 

 

Because Rachel had lived with Mormons for 3+ years, she knew so much about us.  She can name any acronym, lingo, and mostly pretended to be Mormon.  If anyone ever asked her what her calling was, she would say that she was on the missionary committee--she thought it was hilarious.  Anyway, Jack gave her a CTR ring as part of a mormon disguise kit (also included were byu bumper stickers, sweatshirts, various church books, and chocolate-covered cinnamon bears) and she wore it on her wedding day.  Jack used to be one of our hometeachers and Rachel never missed a visit  but she could never figure out why she was a "hometeachee" so she called herself a home student.

sigh.

life in dc has not been the same without her.

Since we drove 5+ hours to get there, we decided to see some of the Cleveland sights. I had been there a few years before when Jonathan and DeAnn lived there (I passed dead man's curve on the freeway and remembered it from when DeAnn picked me up from the airport but that was about the only landmark I recognized), but I had never explored downtown Cleveland.  They had this amazing market that had a wide variety of food vendors.  It was awesome.

Hannah, Jack and me at Cedar Point, an amusement park famous for it's crazy roller coasters. 

waiting in line.  I went down so many terrifying roller coasters--bethany was so proud. and incredulous. I kept taking iphone pictures of various rides that I went on and sent them to her--she could barely believe it (she normally has to bribe to go on scary rides).  I'm sure there are children throughout Ohio who will be haunted for years by my blood-curdling screams, but I had a blast.

eating cleveland's best ice cream.  

at least that's what the sign said.

adventures in room cleaning

so I'm finally organizing my room (btw, I'm not allowed to buy anymore shoes.  ever.) and came across my "special papers box" which had some of the letters my mother used to send out to all of us.  She wasn't much of a phone talker (I once asked her for her cell phone number and she told that she wouldn't give it to me because she "didn't give it out to just anyone".  I doubt any of us kids had anything longer than a five minute phone conversation with her) so she would keep in touch through written correspondence.  even when I was a student at byu (twenty minutes away from home) she would dutifully write me every week. I am not even sure if she had my phone number.    

Anyway they made me laugh because:

 a) you can tell that she's writing these as quickly and thoughtlessly as possible so she can check it off her to-do list 

b)they're so full of minutia that I can't actually believe we would be interested (catherine's book fines? dry wall installation?) 

c) I think the February 2nd one is the last one she wrote because she was diagnosed with her cancer the following week which I was notified via email from my dad (an email I wish I had saved because it had like 5 paragraphs of boring family stuff with a p.s. that said something like this: "your mother has stage four cancer and it has spread to several places in her body.  but don't worry and have a great time in Morocco!"  I'm not sure if there's anything comparable to opening an email like that) and wasn't well enough to write them anymore.

d)I love her p.s.'s!  she was so worried about my being in the Middle East during the Iraqi invasion.  most of the post scripts involved her telling me to register with the U.S. embassy which I never did (yes, I realize now that it was a bad decision not to, but I was 20 years old and wasn't very good with the whole consequences concept).  she also wanted me to send my emails home in a code so that she would know I was safe and not kidnapped.  which I only did once because it was too complicated.  I was supposed to use the word frosting on whatever word the day of the month was (for example, it was the 5th day of the month, frosting was supposed to be the fifth word of the letter.  I only agreed to this because otherwise she wouldn't have let me board the plane).   as if kidnappers were going to let me send home cheery emails anyway.

e) she would send them in envelopes plastered in U.S. flag stamps.  to Morocco. right before an invasion when tensions were running so high.  I was always slightly concerned that one would fall out of my pocket or bag at the wrong time.  the funny part is that she wasn't trying to make a statement--she would just buy her stamps in bulk and then use them for a whole year to minimize post office trips.  

f) I love how she occasionally refers to herself in the third person

anyway, here are the last two that I have.  I think we should collect all the ones we have and compile them in a book.  Do any of the rest of you have them?