Lair o' the Bear

 

Yesterday I was thinking we were working at the temple but James reminded me that it was a 5th Saturday, not 1st or 3rd, so naturally, I wanted to go hiking.  I was thinking we could go hike Carpenter Peak, a 6.4 mile hike, but it only gains 1000 feet.  James wasn't having it, he convinced me to go to Lair o' the Bear, which is a small park near Morrison, CO.  It has a bunch of little trails, and we did find a good one that goes along the creek, but if I was to guess the name of the park, it would be "Lair o' the Bicyclists" because they were passing us every 3 minutes or so.  Most of them said, "On your left," but I don't think I'll go back there unless I have a bike, because it's kind of annoying when you're walking a dog to have to keep checking over your shoulder for them to come zooming by.  It was nice, though.  James got some good pictures of the creek.  I was thinking we would still see some fall leaves, but they are almost gone in the mountains. 

My Quilt

This is the quilt I have been working on (with my Mom's help and fabric).  It turned out so good, I love it.  We have it covering a window in our bedroom that the sun shines through in the morning, making it impossible to sleep past 6:30am during the summer. 

I followed an Art-to-Heart pattern by Nancy Halvorsen that my Mom had. 

Conference Weekend

I forgot I had all these pictures that we took while spending Conference Weekend with Laura and Jeff, my parents and Jeff's parents in Utah.  We had a great time.  We drove there Thursday after work so we got in pretty late.  We got to stay in Laura and Jeff's new place, which is really nice.  If we ever move there and they move away, we want to rent there.  Friday we went to see my old roommate Emily, and got to meet her kids and see her new house.  It was really nice to see her and made me miss old times back in college.  Wish I had taken pictures of that.  Then we went to the Jordan River Temple, which was beautiful.  We are starting to consider ourselves connoisseurs of temples, we keep trying to go to ones we haven't been to before.      

We also went to my mission reunion on Friday night, which was really nice.  We got to see President Foulger and some of the missionaries I served with.  It is weird because I had two mission presidents, and both for about half of my mission.  So the last reunion I went to was with President Banks and I felt kind of young at that one, but at this one with President Foulger, I felt really old because some missionaries had just got home and I've been home for 3 1/2 years now.  Wow, I am old.  Wish I had taken pictures of this, too.

Saturday morning we watched Conference at home, then went to Salt Lake because we had tickets to the afternoon session.  We had pretty good seats and it was a great session.  We really enjoyed the family choir during that session.  Laura and Jeff and my parents both came but Mom and Dad came up separate from us because we didn't all fit in the same car and they had better seats than us.  So I don't have a picture of them.  

 

Working on it

I've been working on losing weight, with some success.  I have lost 5 lbs in 3 weeks!  This is very exciting because most of the time when I try to lose weight, I just don't, or the "trying" period only lasts a couple weeks and I forget about it, or I get sick and stop working out, etc.  I think what's working is I am really trying to make sure I eat less calories than I expend, exercising a few times throughout the day, and I have been (privately) blogging it, which keeps me on track.  If anyone is interested in reading my "weight loss blog," please comment and I will invite you to view it.