Fare thee well...

For those of you that don't know, I depart for Dublin tomorrow morning! That's Dublin, Ireland, I'm jumping the pond and then hopping over to England to stay with my Sister and family. It should be fun, we have lots of plans. We are going to have a Red Neck 4th of July BBQ and we are going to photograph her tiny village in England and then we are all flying back to Dublin right before I leave and driving around Ireland for four days.



I'm excited to see my nieces, I'm excited to see the Northern half of Ireland this time ( I went in '03) and I'm excited to get away for a vacation for a little while. Not that my summer has been too taxing or anything, but sometimes it's just nice to have a change of scenery. So wish me luck, the only thing I'm not looking forward to is 24 hours of traveling tomorrow, yuck. I hate airports and planes. But I guess they are necessary evils. To entertain me I have bought the 2nd in the Twilight series and the second in the Thursday Next series.



If you haven't heard of Thursday Next she's a character in a series of books by Jasper Fforde. There are really charming and fun, not like really any genre you've read-almost sci fi/fantasy/ mystery but not, with a little romance and a lot of humor and literary illusions thrown in. The first in the series is The Eyre Affair.

Ok so that's what's going on with my life lately. So I may not be blogging much, we'll see. Ciao!

Getting Back to My Roots

I am 1/4 Swedish, I am more Swedish than I am any other nationality and I'm very proud of it. So this Saturday I participated in a holiday of my forefathers and foremothers-Midsummers. Midsummers is a celebration held at the Summer solstice, the longest day of the year. There is music and dancing and food. You wear flowers in your hair and there is also a Midsummers' pole which you dance around. I was never raised with any Swedish traditions so it was fun to go to this festival and learn something about my heritage and feel at least a little Swedish. Here are some pics.

There were a lot of darling little girls dressed up in Swedish garb with floral wreaths, so sweet.

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I made this flower wreath myself with Birch twigs and Scabiosa, Valerian and Coreopsis Flowers.

I Want Answers

So today I discovered a really fun place on the internet. A place to go to get answers to just about any topic you can think of. I wanted to know what kind of food my sister in England and I could serve at her 4th of July party that was really really American, so I asked the millions of people online and in minutes I got many answers, ranging from apple pie to 3 Musketeers to fried okra. So what is this site called? It's simply Yahoo! answers (http://answers.yahoo.com). If you already have a yahoo account you're set, if not it's free to sign up.

Then I started to answer questions. It's fun and what a great idea to share knowledge. I mean two heads are better than one and millions are better than one too! It's really fun so give it a try, whatever you wanted to know the world is your oyster!

The Big Parade

Saturday was the big parade in my Hometown and it made me feel a little nostalgic for my childhood. I took my camera and tried to capture some of the fun, hope you can feel that same excitement as you look at the pictures. The kids were also loving all the candy people were throwing from the floats.

A Walk a day...

Poppy Buds

So lately I've taken to going on walks in the evening. I guess it's my form of exercise since I sometimes (ok a lot of the time) have a hard time making myself go to the gym. But I really love these walks. I live in a beautiful area of Salt Lake that was built up in the teens, twenties and thirties and most of the homes have a lot of charm-think Tudor cottages and California bungalows. But even better than that are the lovely yards they have. Around here people have really caught on to the idea of xeriscaping with native and waterwise plants, so instead of front yards with boring mowed lawns they have heaping mounds of delightful perennials like penstemons and yarrow and red hot pokers scattered about! I like to try to identify all the plants I see while I'm walking. There are so many things in bloom this time of year.

Love this House, Isn't a red door inviting?

Variegated Iris, Sage, Yucca, thyme? and something else

Sometimes I'll take my camera along with me just in case I run into something really divine. Also depending on when I'm walking I get a great view of the sunset through the trees. Tonight was a really beautiful one, mainly pink with golds and purples. You also don't realize how much wildlife there is in these suburbs-birds galore and also their nemeses, cats, who love to loll on their driveways at dusk. I saw this one cat tonight, the fattest black and white cat I had ever seen. It waddled up the driveway and let me pet it for awhile.

I try not to think about any of my problems as I walk, but to just enjoy life and summer and nature in whatever form I can find it. Ahh...

That's Just Swell

I'm going to let you in on a little secret I discovered this weekend. The San Rafeal Swell in central Utah is a dazzling place with breathtaking scenery rivaling both Arches and Zions National Parks! I had heard of the swell a few times before, but had never been there or known what it was like, until my new roommate Megan and I decided to go exploring. We drove down on Friday morning and proceeded to get lost on a few roads in the Swell, not really knowing exactly where we were, but really enjoying the scenery.

We made camp next to Muddy Creek and stayed the night. Megan provided the camping gear and I provided the transportation-a white mini van (not exactly a All Terrain Vehicle, but more than sturdy enough to make it through the swell). Now many of you know I'm not a big camper, but I might start changing my mind. It's refreshing to take a break from the world and just go to somewhere really remote and forget about everything. And seeing the millions of stars so clearly at night against the black sky was a really good perk.

The next morning after a breakfast of bacon and pancakes we found our way out of the swell and onto I-70, taking many photos along the way. At this point we were out of gas and had to partially fill up in Emery a very tiny town on the outskirts of the swell and pay $4.20 a gallon for unleaded!!! After going through a few small towns and stopping for lunch at Sherald's Burger Bar in Price, we made our way back to Salt Lake. It was a capital adventure! Megan told me that "an adventure is just an expedition that is poorly planned." Maybe that is true, we could have planned a few things better, but we had a wonderful time regardless. Now here are some pictures.

Megan contemplates the meaning of life in a rusted out truck

The Old "Lucky Strike" uranium mine (ps I now glow in the dark)


Family Butte

Hondu Arch and company