Logan Adventures-Come to and End

I told Jared, I knew I wasn't going to cry leaving Logan. I didn't love Logan. There was no need to cry. Everything ahead of me was looking great.

Well, I cried. But not as we were leaving Logan. It was as I was saying goodbye to those friends we have made here. While Logan isn't perfect, the friends we have made here are.

When we came to Logan, it took me especially a really long time to adjust and to make friends. I didn't want to be here. I had just had my baby and left a job in Cedar City I had loved. Not to mention 6 years of memories and friends there. By the time I started feeling comfortable here, it didn't seem like there was any reason to make friends. We only had a little over a year left. What would it matter?

Boy was I wrong. I remember very vividly the moment that changed my attitude to Logan and making friends. I looked up from snuggling baby girl to see the quote from President Monson that says, "The future is as bright as your faith." Which got me thinking of Elder Holland's quote, "Don't you quit. You keep trying. There is hope and happiness ahead." From then on I realized I needed to make friends. I wouldn't be lonely and despise Logan if I could just make a friend.

Flash forward to now. I made friends. Some of the best friends I have ever had. I have shared my soul with these friends and now I can't even imagine leaving them. Yet, here I am sitting amongst all my belongings in boxes, crying over leaving these friends.

It is just another reminder to me of how mindful the Lord is of each of us. He put these friends in my path when I would need them the most. He knew they could help to teach me things that would help me for the rest of my life. I will forever be grateful for these friends.

Not only do we have some of the best friends ever. Jared and I have learned so much together from our time in Logan. The biggest thing, as long as we have each other and our little family we will be just fine. The spirit whispered that to both of us Sunday night after we said goodbye to the fine folks in the picture above.

We have also learned that we can do hard things together and with Christ. Vet school is not easy.

We have had lots of great adventures while we have lived in Logan. Some of the highlights include























Pumpkin Walk

SUU Gymnastics vs USU

Feeding the ducks
























The Sand Park

Plus many, many more adventures! I mean I came to Logan with a three month old and I am leaving with a sassy spunky two year old.

I feel as if there is so much more still to say. But in the end, Logan has been good to us. It wasn't what we would thought it would be in some ways and in others it was so much more than we could have ever dreamed. So our time is Logan has come to and end. Pullman, here we come.

Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

Well here it is. I have decided to conquer, or at least attempt to conquer this reading list. It is in fact the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. It is said, this challenge comes from every book ever referenced in the show. So, here is my whack at it. I'll keep updating it with what I have read. Wish me luck! 
1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Read in 11th grade 
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Read October 2015
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger Read November 2015
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White Read November 2015
The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Read December 2015
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 
Cousin Bette by Honor'e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber 
The Crucible by Arthur Miller Read in 11th grade
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv Read Januart 2016
Dr. Jekyll &; Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook Read January 2016
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol Read January 2016
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom Date Unknown 
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling Read Summer 2015
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling Read Summer 2015
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III 
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss Date Unknown
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo 
The Iliad by Homer
I'm with the Band by Pamela des Barres 
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys' Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Date Unknown
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Read in 9th grade
The Love Story by Erich Segal 
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It's Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo's Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson 
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton Read in 8th grad English 
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe Read in 11th Grade 
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert's Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White Date Unknown
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee   Read Several Times
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth &; Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath 
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney's Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Out With Summer, In With Fall

As I sat pondering today, I realized summer has disappeared right before my eyes. We have chilly days, almost all the day, almost everyday now. I realize I don't share the same sentiments as most of those on social media. Fall is nice, but summer is way better.

 I keep wishing for summer to be here again. I miss going to the pool with friends and the good time that we had. It also makes me wonder what my little will be like next summer. Will she enjoy swimming? What will her favorite food be? Will her hair turn blond again from the sunshine? How will she adjust to moving? What will it be like to have husband home more and less stressed?

I always looked forward to the new school year when I was in school. Now that I am not in school and husband still is, I hate fall and the start of the school year. It means we lose him to his study room for another 10 months. They are my least favorite ten months. But oh summer, summer I love you! The freedom, the fun, the change in attitude.

Don't get me wrong, I love all seasons. I really do. Lately, summer has just been my favorite. More family time, more play time, more more more. Summer is just more.

Summer will be back again before I know it. I guess I should just look around me and see what fall has to offer.

DIY: Farmhouse Table Up Cycle

Well folks, this project we totally lucked into. We happened into DI for a reason I can't remember. We always take a pass by the furniture in case something catches our eye. Well, something did. We picked up this table for  $50.

I know. It looks terrible. Trust me. It was even worse than the picture shows. We both seriously doubted the potential of this table.

We started sanding and we couldn't believe what we found.

All hard wood. No laminate. We realized what a nice piece of furniture we had after a day of sanding by hand.

Now, I had a vision of what I wanted this table to look like. So we headed off to our favorite DIY store, Home Depot. We bought ebony stain. We took it home and we were so excited to get started. As soon as the little was down for the evening, we went to work. We learned two things this night.

1. NEVER stain in the dark or even kind of dark.
2. ALWAYS test a small piece before you stain the entire thing.

In the morning this is what we found.

A black table. The intent was not to have a black table. Did you know ebony was black? I didn't. So, we went to work sanding again. But, did you know black is even harder to get off? So we had to borrow a sander. We also used paint stripper it was that difficult. Eventually, after much more work sanding than the first time around we got the table looking like a clean cutting board again.

We went back to the DIY headquarters and purchased another stain. This time we got espresso. We stained totally in daylight and we tested a small area firs to make sure it was the desired effect. It was! Thank goodness we didn't have to spend anymore time doing deep sanding.

This photo is from before we sealed it.

Did you know when up cycle a piece of furniture you should really seal it for longevity? This meant more sanding, but thankfully it was light sanding. So yes, you are understanding me correctly. We sanded the table after it was stained. But only after we had applied two coats of polyurethane clear coat. We used 220 sandpaper and lightly stained to take out the brush strokes from applying the seal. We then applied another coat of sealant and then we sanded this table to the last time using a 500 grit sandpaper. PS you can't find 500 at DIY Headquarters. You have to go to an auto store. Then after we sanded using the 500 sandpaper, we brought the table into the house and we applied the final coat of sealant. WAX. We buffed it on and then buffed it off. Now, we have a  beautiful dining set. Don't worry, I have plans to make benches to match!

If you didn't notice a recurring theme with this project it was this, I HATE SANDING. This is the most sanding we have ever done on a project. Mostly because of the error we made. But still, so much sanding. Most of it done by hand. If you decide to up cycle a table and have questions, leave me a comment!

Just Be Kind

I find myself in a weird place in life right now. I see things going on around me in the world. I really don't like what I'm seeing. After a few different incidences have occurred in my life I have come to a new motto:

Just be kind.

You don't know where people are coming from, what they are going through, or what has happened to make them act the way they are acting.  So just be kind.

It seems simple right? But for some reason, its not.

As I have tried to bring this motto to the forefront of my mind, I try to incorporate it in the different encounter I have with people daily. The new motto has really changed the way I look at people. More often than not, when someone is unkind to me, I don't know what happened with them that day to lead them to have a short fuse. So, I'm trying to just be kind. It isn't easy, but I'm still working on it.

What are you working on?

DIY: Reupholstery

Have you ever wanted to reupholster something, but weren't sure you were up for it? Well make sure you are up for it before you start.

Begin by stripping the your piece of furniture. For me, it was a chair. So, begin stripping the chair layer by layer. Examine the item and find the furthermost outer piece of fabric. Then using a screwdriver pull the staple out. 

As you remove each piece of fabric, number it. You will want to number each piece so when you start reapplying the fabric you can put it back on in the order it came off. 

Once you have your chair all stripped you will then be able to measure the pieces to see how much new fabric you will need to buy. Use the pieces you removed as your pattern and keep the patterned numbers also. 

We reused everything from our chair that we could. Buttons, welting, padding, etc. anything that was still in good enough condition to reuse. This helped to cut down the cost. 

There was quite a bit of sewing that went into place to assemble all the pieces back together in the correct way. 

I would say overall then project took 30 hours. 

Supplies you will need:

-Staple gun

-Staples

-Upholstery Fabric

-Muslin or another plain fabric to use for the pulls

-Sewing machine

-Screwdriver 

-Hammer

 Before

During

After

In the during photo you can see the muslin we used for the pulls as well as the chair mostly taken apart. 

Overall, this was a rewarding project, but quite a bit more work than we were expecting. Just make sure to take a lot of pictures and number every piece you take off the chair as you take it off. Happy re-upholstery! 

Moving On

I've been thinking a lot lately about growing up and moving on. It's weird to watch a new school year start and see the happy excited faces of new college freshmen. The weird part is to realize how many of those faces you have seen and come to know that you will never see again. We left our undergraduate haven of Cedar City over a year ago. Since then, many of our friends and contacts have too left that haven. I found myself realizing the other day, chances are I will never see the majority of them ever again. Life goes on, people move on, and unfortunately we grow up.

I used to love the quote about friends being silver and gold. I don't think I understood it before now. I have come to know people and then seen them leave and now I've seen myself leave. It just goes to show nothing stays the same for very long.

Here in Logan, we have made some of the best friends we have ever had in our adult life. We have a hard time believing we have already lived here for a year and have less than a year left. We wish we could shrink our friends and take them with us to Washington. But we know that we cannot.

I like the social media lets you keep a surface relationship with those people you have left behind as you have moved on. But at the same time I hate that it isn't the deep relationship where you knew the everyday joys and heartaches as you once did.

Growing up isn't all its cracked up to be. I wish I could have stayed little longer. But I've moved on. One day I want to look back and realize that while moving on was essential for me, it was also essential to those friends. Our paths in life are all different. That is why we have families to take with us so we aren't truly alone.