Confusion.

Our friend and neighbor died unexpectedly yesterday.
It's been sad and surreal. And like its hard to be happy or laugh.
I talked to several friends today and that was helpful for us to talk about our thoughts.

I found out yesterday while planning our Young Women Activity which was going to be "Chopped."
His youngest daughter is 13, in our young women group. His wife is a leader.

It felt uncomfortable to have the girls have a normal "party-type" activity this week. But I didn't want to cancel either. I felt like we needed to gather and talk.
I'm grateful for the prompting I received for the idea to tie a quilt. I hope it will be healing for all of us. I took one of my young women, who is a close friend of the daughter and family, to help choose the fabric so it will be a style and color she likes.

One friend asked today how I was feeling. Sad, obviously. But grateful for my family was also a thought that came to mind.
But that didn't feel quite right. I don't think we have a word in the English language to describe how we're sad for someone's pain but it reminds us to be grateful for our families, but also isn't selfish for being grateful when someone else is in pain.

So the closest I could come up with is "remember" and "appreciate." Remember how fragile life is. Appreciate the moments you have.

Cedar City Temple was Windy!

After breakfast and cleaning up, we visited Brigham Young's Winter Home.

Again, such a sweet spirit from the testimonies of the senior missionaries.

We drove to Cedar City and found a park for our picnic lunch near the temple.

A dad had just completed a rim to rim to rim run at the Grand Canyon, so met up with us and his daughter. Of course he showed up with Crumbl Cookies! 

Love this family who are always so generous!

Surprisingly, at the Cedar City temple, we had no one in front of us in line for baptisms!

They were very organized.

I especially felt a sense of urgency while we were there doing baptisms.

An urgency to take the time we can to make temple work a priority.

We don't fully comprehend how important this work is to people on the other side.

Look how windy it was! 

We literally were holding on to each other for support. 

The bark ground cover was whipping up and pelting our legs!

I've never been in such extreme winds! As much as we loved doing work inside the temple,

while outside I just wanted to get out of the wind and out of there.

Sensory overload!

Young Women's Weekend

I made it home from Jackson with a one hour window -- just enough time to cut up tomatoes, lettuce and apples for the picnic dinner I was in charge of, put my bags in the car and head to the church for our Young Women's weekend visiting the St. George and Cedar City temples. 

First stop was the Red Barn in Payson for ice cream. 

An hour later we stopped again at Cove Fort. 

This beautiful area was a church historic site and well worth the stop.

16 senior couple missionaries over see what is the 2nd most visited historic church site in the world!

(Temple square isn't considered a historic site. Nauvoo is Number One.)

The missionaries were so welcoming and eager to take us on the tour while we had enough light.

Their testimonies were one of the highlights of the trip. 

We were able to pick apples from their grove, and eat our picnic dinner on tables 

surrounded by grassy lawn as the sun went down.

It was so picturesque. I'm still on the hunt for apple orchards near us for 

apple picking in the fall!

We got to St. George by 10:00 but didn't get to the house were staying at until 10:30 because Apple Maps was leading us round and around the same roundabout.

It wanted us to turn left where there was no left turn and then kept rerouting us.

At one point I realized I was heading down an Off ramp -- The Wrong Way!

We finally pulled over and had the owner come find us so we could follow him to the house.

Win for Dan who always tells me to use Google Maps instead of Apple Maps!

As girls trips often go, we didn't get to sleep until 2:00 a.m. and were up by 8:00 a.m.

to start making breakfast. Lots of fun -- fun friends, fun girls, fun activities so I didn't feel tired at all.

View from the back porch.

We broke into two groups at the St. George Temple.

Half started with baptisms and the other half spent time at the Visitor's Center.

We were so impressed by the warm spirit of welcome we felt in both places. 

I was overcome by such a strong feeling of love.

One of the videos we watched in the Visitor's Center was about an

LDS Family, Japanese Rock Group, Bless4,

from Okinawa.  

After the girls in my group had been confirmed, an ordinance worker asked if I wanted to do a few as well. Sure. I sat down and wasn't I surprised that after I gave him my name, he spelled Shaeffer right!

It was his wife's maiden name!

He introduced her to me afterward and as we made connections she said she'd recently 

done work for Earl Shaefer. What a fun connection!

After the temple we came back home to swim and hangout.

But before the sun went down we gathered the girls for a hike and bike ride in Snow Canyon.

Night Sounds

Wow!!! I've never heard night sounds like I did last night! They were wild!

I mean, literally wild animal sounds!

We've been talking about the elk up here -- haven't seen any yet --

but we've talked about elk bugling.

Last night I HEARD them!

For like 30 minutes he was going on and on.

It woke me up, then I opened my window to hear better.

The elk was bugling, coyotes were barking and an owl with the deepest hoot was,

well, hooting.

It was so crazy and so cool!

I was very good about remembering the sound for the morning and when we googled elk bugle,

sure enough, it was exactly what I heard.

On our drive to our hike, we came upon this moose!

I got out of the car and took photos and video.

It turned and started walking straight at me (the above photo is NOT zoomed!)

so I also turned and started speed walking to the car.

Luckily they sped over to pick me up.

This photo is as we drove by! Literally 20 feet from the car!

We squeezed in a short, one mile hike to Phelps Lake Overlook before I had to go home.

The water is sooo clear!

I had so much fun laughing and connecting and making new friends.

I loved hiking every day, making simple breakfasts and picnic lunches.

Thanks Jenn, my birthday twin. I loved celebrating with you!

Hitting the Trail

Today we slept in, ate breakfast and then did yoga!

After we were all stretched out,

we drove over to Teton Village to hike the Wildflower Trail --

a 4 mile steep hike -- 2600 elevation gain -- but a gondola ride down!

It was so, so challenging, but so, so fun!

When we got to the top I let out a whoop

and a whole crowd of people sitting on the couches overlooking the view 

started clapping for us! 

Super rewarding moment! Ha!

This is a face that is often captured in random photos. Not my favorite look! But clearly a common one! 😂

We ate our sack lunches at the top then rode the gondola down and finished 

with a hot tubbing excursion in our friends' other condo's hot tub!

Side note, chemicals had recently been added and we possibly all have lung disease now.

Tonight we had Thai for dinner back at the cabin,

played Skip Bo and Boggle,

laughed hysterically -- punch drunk hysterics --

to Jim Gaffigan's sketch "Camping"

and finished Walter Mitty.

The ladies also sweat in the sauna again, but being hot once that day was enough for me

so I skipped that part.

First Time to Jackson Hole

I did something I don't normally do...

I said "yes" when I friend invited me to her cabin with girlfriends for a few days!

I had to fly home instead of drive home with them to make it in time for 

our Young Women retreat to St. George, but I went and I'm so glad I did!

The Tetons are absolutely gorgeous with countless hikes to beautiful glacier lakes.

I think it may even rival Pagosa in beauty.

We left after the kids went to school and made the 5 hour drive.

We immediately changed clothes and hiked 3.5 miles loop to Taggart lake and another.

Wayyyyy across the lake was a moose... way to far away to get excited about.

But the folks with binoculars were excited to tell us about it.

The moose is the black spot in the middle. Hmmm...

Jenn was in charge of making dinner (I'm I charge of breakfasts),

and after we played Boggle, Double Ditto and watched one hour of Walter Mitty.

We had so much time to walk and talk during the day, we were ready for bed by 10:00.

Big hike tomorrow.

Funniest part of the day was taking a sauna in the teeny tiny sauna. It held the four of us, but barely.
Amy C. likes to be hot, hates to be cold, and breaks into a dripping sweat.
It was hilarious, really.
I had to focus, mind over matter to stay in the thing. I don't like being hot.
But I do like being with friends.

It's bear season. We kind of hope we see one, but we don't want to be mauled by one.

We were packing wasp spray (because someone said its the same as bear spray)

and heat. Amy has her concealed weapons permit. I'm not a big fan of guns,

but if its going to protect me from a bear, I'm on board.

We saw the moose from far, far away, a snake, and a bald eagle.

Which reminds me, the Snake River on the drive up was beautiful!

Canning Salsa and Beets

Chicken pot pie for dinner required a little harvesting from the garden first.

After dinner, worried my beets were going to go bad before I canned them, 

I canned them. It made ONE jar! 😂

Sometime in the future we're going to really appreciate those beets!

But I loved watching the how-to YouTube video with Wyse Guide.

He is so calm and easy to listen to, he makes you feel like you can do anything!

Once off and running, we decided to roast some peppers and can some salsa too.

Not too sure if we like the flavor of the salsa with the added jarred lime juice

(I guess to make it acidic enough for water-bath canning).

But it was easy and we have millions of tomatoes so nothing ventured, nothing gained!

 Marty and friends also came up for game night...

and played chess on the new game table!

Dream. Come. True!

Also taught on Grace today in YW. I didn't have nearly enough time 

to get through all the important things.

But throughout the last few weeks I've read some fantastic talks.

• Jeffrey R. Holland, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually” 
• J. Devn Cornish, “Am I Good Enough? Will I Make It?” 
• Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Gift of Grace” 
  and Marty turned me on to his favorite talk ever:
  Brad Wilcox, "His Grace is Sufficient"
  The best part of teaching is studying.

Surprisingly Productive

I didn't watch near as much TV or read as much as I'd expected 

while the boys were gone.

Instead I organized. Just when I thought one spot was done (charging station drawers and cupboards),

I opened another place and found chaos (game cabinet).

And then of course the normal swapping summer shorts and t's to bins and pulling out fall clothes.

I also went on a long brisk walk with Kershaw and

checked out the sinkhole that appeared last week

(but has been covered by steel plates until now).

I watched the BYU/UW game while working on the charging station and game cabinet organization.

Welcome duck! How cute is that?!

My friend Steph called and I had to clear my throat.

"Do you have a cold?" she asked.

"No, I just haven't spoken to anyone for 48 hours."

These are blooming all around our yard. Fall beauty!

I prepared my lesson for Sunday and Marty even dropped home for a little while 

so we got to catch up on life at college.

Dan and Nick got home at 9:30 p.m. Happy to be home.

Happy to have them.