{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember (or just look back and laugh).
Inspired by Soule Mama

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.


Inspired by Soule Mama

I'm a Food Network junkie. Yep, true story.

And because Brandon is amazing enough to allow me to hold control over the remote most of the time, we watch Food Network together. He tolerates Rachael Ray, Sunny Anderson, and nonsense like that. However, it's shows like "Chopped" and "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" that he will actually look forward to watching with me. (Obviously, he would rather be watching ESPN any day, but he loves me, so he humors me.)

With "Throwdown" it is inevitable that we will end up craving whatever food was featured. The fish taco episode was a real doozie. (Pretty sure that's the first time I've actually typed that word. Funny how something can sound so acceptable when said and seem ridiculous when typed.)

Bobby competed with the owner of the restaurant Mama Testas in San Diego (Mama Testas won!) and since we were in the area for Brandon's TDY we thought we'd pay the little taqueria a visit.

This was not Cafe Rio, folks, not by a long shot ... and I mean that in a good way. This was real Mexican food. It was delicious, fried, artery-clogging goodness. Not only were the tacos fantastic, the beans and rice were amazing!

Yum!

{this moment}

So one time ...

 ... at the end of April, my brother and his wife graduated from BYU.

 My parents were quite proud and rightly so. This is their 6th of 7 kids to receive a Bachelor's degree.

 It must said that he couldn't have done it without his beautiful sisters, naturally. (Missing you, Becky!)

 The happy supportive family, well, about 25% of us.

 The next day while the graduates celebrated with Alisha's family, we colored some Easter eggs. I should have known better than to only hard-boil 18 eggs. The kids could have kept going for hours and at .79/dozen it's pretty cheap entertainment. Note to self for next year.

 Dinner was brought to you by a favorite local pizzeria. For the record, pizza makes great boats that talk, so the kids say.

 The babies provided our entertainment while showing off their newest tricks. "So big!" and "Peek-a-boo!"

And that is graduation weekend in a nutshell, a really small nutshell. Perhaps a pistachio? Nuts are common around here, hence this picture of silly old Grandpa.

San Diego: Business and Pleasure

Brandon's first TDY of his career sent him off to Austin, TX and left me alone with William and Marie. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't wonderful either. My world is off balance when Brandon isn't around.

His next TDY found him in Boston and me in California at my parent's house. Better.

William, Marie, and me at Ventura Beach -- 04/2009

Next came a conference in Anaheim. We drove out to my parent's house as a family and spent a week together, then Brandon went down to Anaheim. I joined him for 2 of the 4 nights while the kids stayed with grandma and grandpa. Even better.

BFF Laura, Liam, William, Me, Marie at my parent's house -- 09/2009

This year took Brandon to San Diego. He volunteered for the conference, who wouldn't. Again, we drove out to  my parent's house. This time, I joined him for the entire conference. Three days and three nights, just me and my sweetie. The BEST.

Me and my love in San Diego -- 05/2011

Some highlights:

 We stayed in the Hard Rock Hotel which was also the location of the conference. That's it at the very end of the street on the right, just before you get to PETCO park aka the Padres stadium.


Looking out our hotel window at the convention center.


I spent my second morning wandering around Coronado and relaxing on the beach. This is a look down one of the streets.

Sunset Cliffs -- Brandon served his mission in San Diego and would often play soccer at a park somewhere along here. I was thrilled to see the beautiful vistas that he has often raved about. The real thing did not disappoint at all.

Ten mile bike ride around Mission Bay. Gorgeous!

The icing on the cake was attending an endowment session at the San Diego Temple. The last time I was in this temple was 9 years ago and it had been 8 years for Brandon.

{this moment}

Easter Best

Life happened the week before Easter. That life did not include very much time with the sewing machine. The trouble with this was that I had two Easter Sunday dresses to sew. By 9:00pm Saturday night I had Anne's dress mostly done and was just starting on Marie's. I was calculating how late into the night I was going to be up and running through my mind all the other stuff I needed to get done before 9:00am church the next day (including running to Kohl's to see if I could find a tie or something for William because I had completely neglected his Sunday outfit needs). I was panicked and nervous and wondering why I hadn't managed to get these dresses done any sooner. I bought and cut out the material back in January for heaven's sake!  Although I could come up with a number of worthy excuses for my procrastination and poor time management, those are useless and irrelevant. Was is relevant is the lesson I learned in that moment. As I furiously sewed and thought through how much each step would take me I thought, "This isn't what Easter is about." I didn't want to feel tired and yucky on Easter Sunday because I stayed up too late the night before. I wanted to be awake and alert and able to focus on teaching my children about our Savior and His resurrection. Giving myself permission to walk away from the sewing machine was a new one for me and totally worth it.

I must confess that I felt a bit of guilt as all the Primary children walked up to the front of the chapel sporting their new Sunday best. I got over it quickly, however, as I watched both William and Marie stand up there and sing, "I Wonder When he Comes Again."

AND ... with Brandon's patience while I sat at the sewing machine and help from my mom with the time consuming hand stitching details, I finished the dresses for this past Sunday (and my mom made a stop at the store and found the perfect shirt and tie.)

Phew.