We're all a little Nutty

One year ago today I was given a responsibility that I selfishly thought would ruin my life. Not really of course, but I was not expecting the change and it overwhelmed me emotionally. I kept thinking, "I'm not a NICE person. How on earth can I be nice to others on a continuous basis, let alone TEACH niceness to others?!" I was sure that I was going to ruin the lives of all those around me, and/or live each day in shameful recognition of my inadequacies. Now, in my defense, I do have my moments where I think before speaking and hopefully say and do the right things. But, my self-esteem in this department is lacking due to so many foot-in-mouth experiences and constant opportunities to apologize. And then there's the honest indisputable witness of anyone walking by our house when the windows are open....it's embarrassing to think about. Repeatedly, people ask me how I'm doing in my responsibilities, and depending on the day I've been known to rep...

The past month, my friend and I have been meeting 3 mornings each week at 6am to work our way up Slate Canyon -- the steep march of death that has always defeated us in the past. Unable to measure how far we had made it from Google maps images, I decided that I'd hike the loop that came DOWN the canyon so I could see it in reverse and understand what was up there. So, on July 4th, we (my family) hiked hard for 3 1/2 hours and I can finally say I've been to the top of the canyon -- in reverse. It's pretty cool to look at the towering mountains and realize "I've been on top of that and around behind." It is a whole other world back there, lush and densely vegetated, and cool...not brown and crispy like the view from here. As it turns out, my friend and I were only about 30 minutes away from reaching the top, so maybe we'll still meet our goal on our own before the summer is over.

Due to the wildfires burning all around us, the air quality last week was horrible and we were living in ever-increasing fear that our mountainside would be the next one to go up in flame. What a blessing when the weather miraculously turned rainy -- for 6 solid hours of beautiful drizzle. And then came the perfect double rainbow. Always a good reminder of divine power and miracles.

Ian had a birthday, shout hooray! I love watching Dillon in the long jump. This is him at the Regional Hershey Track meet: I usually curse the quail during the spring because they destroy my garden, but these were so cute to watch last week as their mother chirped at them from the garden wall, trying to get them to hop up to where she was: Sam was everyone's hero at young women's camp. She creatively portrayed the Muppets' "Animal" in their camp skit. Don't you love that smile? And then it was time for my family reunion. The next two pictures are Ian and then me, climbing at Lisa Falls. What a great name. Tanners Flat Campground has become a happy place for me. It's so thickly vegetated that you sometimes forget there are others camping nearby. Here's our family's little tent city: The kids loved the novelty of s'mores with giant marshmallows, even though they weren't always professional toasters. Lee too...