Paris Inspired Outing--Almost a Bust

While driving to pick Michelle up for book club last Tuesday evening, I was struck by how much orange was on the mountains. I immediately decided I needed to go to Sundance the next day or else I'd miss Fall in the mountains. I didn't know if Michelle would go because she has always professed a fear of heights (this outing involved riding the ski lift), but upon proposing it to her she immediately agreed to go. We were so excited about it, and I said, "I almost don't want to speak it aloud" because I feared something would turn up and ruin our chances to go.


Sure enough, I was checking our bank balance all morning waiting for Randy's paycheck to be credited to our account, but by noon it still wasn't there. I called him in a panic, and he informed me that we don't have direct deposit yet because of a computer error at work...of course I handled this gracefully by bursting into tears and proclaiming, "I don't even have enough gas to get where we're going!" It wasn't my finest moment, but I blame the cumulative stress of the past couple weeks of poverty along with the near relief of his paycheck coming but not being credited yet. Randy handled it like a champ and left work (luckily it's close by) to bring me some money so we could still go. Phew! Crisis averted, but my emotions were raw.


I picked Michelle and Eva up, then we dropped Eva at school and made our way up the canyon. Michelle snapped photos while I drove.


You know you have a good friend when she crops your chins out of the pictures she takes of you!


It's rather sad that we don't drive in the canyon or go to Sundance more often because it's only like 15 minutes away from Michelle's house.


We started snapping photos as soon as we were out of the car. I love it that we share a passion for photography, otherwise this outing wouldn't have been nearly as fun.


Even though we were right next to each other, we captured photos of different things.


How sad is this sign? I understand why it's there, Sundance is a resort for rich people and they don't want huge Mormon families picnicking all over the place, but still.

Then sings my soul!

Does this look like an engagement photo location or what?


I love the sound of running water (unless it's a leak in my tub like we currently have) and was quite taken with this river.


There were some butterflies floating along from flower to flower, so I got out my zoom lens.


I decided that if I were a butterfly, I'd like to be a Sundance butterfly.


After wandering around taking photos for 45 minutes or so we got on the ski lift.


Michelle had brought us water bottles, a granola bar, a string cheese and a bag of peanut butter M&Ms...she's good people.


We had a hard time getting the background in our self-portraits.


None of the Aspens had turned yellow yet, so it was a symphony of orange and green.

It was difficult to soak it all up.

Michelle had to text Max to let him know she'd be a little late picking him up.

Peanut Butter M&M's taste great at the top of the world!

Even though the ride is leisurely, it always goes by too fast. I would have liked to go around again.

I love these chairs outside the store.

My final photo of our outing.

I was so proud of us for going. We never do stuff like this and it was almost spontaneous and involved overcoming adversity, so this felt like a hard-won victory.

**Do you fear that you'll miss fall?
Is your gas tank ever this empty?
Are you afraid of heights?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I have a job interview tomorrow, so today feels like it could be my last day of freedom.

It's Good to be Alive

Yesterday was such a gloriously beautiful day that I felt like skipping around shouting "It's good to be alive!" I didn't do that though (have you ever seen a fat girl skip? It's not pretty), instead I finally took myself to Thanksgiving Point for the Tulip Festival. It has taken me years of good intentions to finally get myself there and it did not disappoint.

{This reminder helped me get there.}

I revel in the beauty of spring in general and take great pleasure in the meager spray of flowers growing in my own yard. I check them out each day for progress, document the stages of their development and am sincerely sad when their time of blooming is gone. So for me to be somewhere as glorious as the gardens at Thanksgiving Point was euphoric. I would like to live there or maybe have an annual pass so I could go there often.

{Tulips at our house}

My outing was almost ruined because my camera was acting up. It was giving me an error message and wouldn't let me take pictures. I've been feeling like it's in the winter of its life as it is, so I feared it was giving up the ghost on me. Thankfully I looked online (thanks to a panicked call from Michelle who encouraged me to do so) to see if I could find an answer to the error. It took me two minutes to Google the issue and resolve it...it's a good thing I hadn't been using my camera for 5 days eh? Idiot!

That meant my camera was in good form for my outing, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it. I know that's silly, but not to me. I love nature photography and would have felt like I'd lost a limb if I'd gone there without a good camera.


It felt great to have actually followed through on one of my intentions and to be outside enjoying the gorgeous weather (76 degrees and breezy).

I'd like you all to vote for your favorite photos (I labeled them under each picture for you) and thought it would be fun to randomly select a winner or two to receive an enlargement of their favorite photo.

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After an hour and a half of wandering the grounds I found a nice bench and read for awhile. The only way it would have been better is if I'd had an ottoman and a waiter.

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I've noticed that I've become a little shy with my self-portraits lately due to the ugly period I'm going through. I think that's rather sad.


After further wandering I found myself up by the vendors and treated myself to a churro and sat down to read and write for awhile. There were kids running wild and rolling down the hill (I even saw a couple grown-ups do that) and everyone just seemed happy to be there.


I wrote in my Paris-inspired outings journal and talked myself out of buying a burger (they smelled so, so good).

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It's a good thing I went yesterday because this is what it looks like today! I'm fine with rainy days if I've taken advantage of the sunny ones.

**Have you had any days like this recently?
Do you like taking pictures of flowers?
Which photos do you like?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I hope it's not presumptuous to think anyone would want an enlargement of one of my photos. I just really like doing giveaways and would be happy to receive something like this from someone else, so I'm doing it myself.

Paris-Inspired Outing #3--Mini Outing

I took myself out for a mini Paris-inspired outing last week before my photo shoot in Salt Lake. I ended up going to Hagermann's Bakehouse for lunch and a very pleasant hour of reading.


I ordered a fantastic sandwich (the Real Roast Beef I think) which had grilled bread, melted cheese, tomato, onion, cucumber and roast beef. It was perfect. We really need to be more inventive with our sandwich making skills around here, that cucumber added such a nice crunch. I had a blondie for dessert, and stayed until I finished my book. Good times.


After lunch I checked out the clearance racks at Old Navy (didn't find anything I had to have), checked the bargain shelves in Barnes and Noble hoping to find the next book in the series I'm reading, but struck out there too.

Then I did a quick limp through Target to buy dum dum suckers to stock my camera bag (prizes for kids). It was a very budget-friendly, nonexciting outing.

So while this wasn't my best Paris-inspired outing, it was still good. Why haven't I ever gone out to lunch and read before these outings? It seems like a no-brainer to me now, but that's not something I ever used to do.

**Have you started doing anything different lately?
When was the last time you took yourself out on a date?
What are you reading?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Seriously, we're 2 days away from Thanksgiving and a month away from Christmas Eve...what's going on?