Snapshots: Pumpkinland

snap shots: my garden in october

i realized earlier this week that i had hardly any photos of my yard this season. even with some neglect on my part.... my yard continued to thrive and needed to be remembered. each season comes with new challenges, more knowledge and grand plans. this year i petered out mid summer..... i still have a handful of plants waiting to be placed into their new spots. weeds have over taken some areas and have made sure their presence will be there next season. the grasshoppers were overly abundant this year. {i'm still trying to convince mitchel that the solution for them is to have back yard chickens}. the slugs and snails... well if we had a french restaurant near by i'm confident that i could supply them with endless escargot. i have been fighting an internal war with myself about using chemical sprays or continuing on the natural route. perhaps learning little by little and implementing new practices is the way to go. at the end of this season.... i'm just grateful for a wonderful harvest, beauty and learning something new.

a mini getaway to california for spring trials

one of my goals this year was to make it to spring trials in CA. luckily mitch indulged me. {perhaps it was because we had sky miles that needed to be used and it was practically a free ticket for one of us.} either way i was excited to see 2014 plants. i spend practically every day at work so far this year.{the perks of being double duty manager and the only full time employee}. i made sure the store would be well staffed for the saturday i was gone. bright and early april 6th, mitch and i got up and headed to the airport. we arrived in LA around 9:30, headed to the rental car shuttle, picked up our rental car and headed north to santa paula. we had the option of upgrading from a full size sedan to a mustang convertible... of course mitch made the upgrade. partly because seeing how traffic was, he figured he'd be able to maneuver better. who are we kidding though.... a convertible mustang in CA!?! who wouldn't. we arrived in santa paula right around 11:30 and enjoyed a few hours touring ball's facility and previewing plants. so maybe i was the beside myself with excitement  {hello plant nerd}. once we finished at ball we drove into ventura and checked into our hotel. mitch felt underwhelmed with the trials. he wished we were able to see the growing facility too. i wished i had made arrangements to stop in at a couple other suppliers and see more plants. i guess there is always next year....

we freshened up a bit at the hotel and than headed to check out the beach and ventura pier. the sunshine was delightful and we fell in love with ventura and santa paula area. we day dreamed about living their and visiting the beach everyday. plus CA is so dog friendly. i wanted to love on every dog we walked passed.... i was obsessed with watching them play on the beach and chase the waves. the sound of the waves was heavenly. i was smitten with the all the plants too. perhaps i was {and still am} a tiny bit jealous of their growing conditions. the downside is there is no yards!! houses 6-10 ft apart from each other.... no thank you.

at the pier we enjoyed walking past all the docked boats, listening to the tourists, the sea lions, the water moving.... it was delightful. we had dinner at blackbeards {?}. we sat on the porch and watched everyone walk past, ate amazing food and realized we had a little too much sun. hello minor sunburn.

back at the hotel we curled up in bed and realized how exhausted we were. i kept trying to talk myself into getting back up and enjoying our evening {it was 6pm}. i couldn't manage though. i kept dosing. mitch was a sweetheart and let me sleep.

sunday morning we got up early again and decided to drive the coastal hwy back down to LA. our flight was at 6pm and we wanted to make the most of our day. we put the top down and the mustang... and soon realized that it was too chilly to keep it down. i'm pretty sure it screamed tourist to all the CA residents. lol. the coastal hwy was breathtaking.

i'll have to share more pictures from our trip and all of our mini stops along the way....

a start to my goals for the year

there are quite a few things i'm dreaming about accomplishing this new year. one of which is to learn photoshop. i'm so excited to have received photoshop elements as one of my christmas gifts and i really want to learn how to use it. and use it well. plus i finally switched my camera into raw mode and look forward to learning the benefits of shooting pictures that way. there are endless possibilities in the photography world and i really want to make some progress this year. thankfully there are fantastic tutorials online.

thank you technology. 

i do plan on writing down more of my goals, wishes and resolutions for 2013...
but it's time to get ready and head to work.

a few more highlights of temple square

i almost forgot to share a few more of my favorites from our temple square adventure this month.

{it feels good having the opportunity to catch up on things this week}

a little beauty

it's wednesday night

i'm beyond exhausted.

grateful to have accomplished a couple things on my to do list.

what better way to end the night then with a little beauty of the temple at christmas....

finally friday

the weekend is just about here. phew. i'm excited to have a little down time.
better yet, i'm closer to my vacation. hooray.
naturally i'm counting down to Christmas but i'm even more excited to have a week off
{Christmas to new years}

sometimes i'm thrilled to find a picture that is absolutely perfect and yet unplanned in the moment.
kennady wanted to do her own thing tuesday night...
but this photo is describes the night perfectly!!

a little preview

Abby and Russell

plus a little one on the way.

i think our little photo shoot turned out :)

more to come

i'm beyond exhausted and it's time to close my eyes

good night world

fish eye anyone?

a lovely new toy arrived for me

i'm already in love 

snow and a sad mister

mother nature gave us a beautiful blanket of snow this weekend.
it was a pleasant surprise.... but it's really really really cold

mitch came home early from training in slc friday
gratefully i was able to leave work and go with him to the doctor
my poor mister was absolutely miserable
turns out he is fighting kidney stones.
a few prescriptions later and two shots in the bum (pain killer and muscle relaxant) we were on our way home.
i'm so grateful for wonderful staff at work and being able to take the time to be with mitch.
i haven't ever seen my sweetheart in such horrible pain.

saturday i worked all day.
mitch was such a trooper and endured a day by himself
i was happy to get a text around 4 letting me know he passed his stone.
there was a cup waiting for me once i got home..... with his stone waiting to be oohed and awed at.
(good thing that is right up my alley)

today he still was feeling miserable.
i kissed him good bye and headed to church.
it was the primary program today.
i'm very lucky to have my class
they are such fabulous kids.
i was able to head home to take care of my mister during 3rd hour

i don't envy my sweetheart
i can't even imagine the pain he has been going through.
mitch has a very high pain tolerance too....
he woke me up from my nap today to let me know he passed another stone.
my poor sweetheart

the last few days i'm incredibly grateful for wonderful family, friends and neighbors
as well as medication to help with the pain and antibiotics.

Saturday

changes

smiles.
catching up.
dead ends.
moving forward.
happy.
hoping things work out.
one foot in front of another.