david is apple

You Are Apple Green

You are almost super-humanly upbeat. You have a very positive energy that surrounds you. And while you are happy go lucky, you're also charmingly assertive. You get what you want, even if you have to persuade those against you to see things your way. Reflective and thoughtful, you know yourself well - and you know that you want out of life.

What Color Green Are You?

michal is olive

You Are Olive Green

You are the most real of all the green shades. You're always true to yourself. For you, authenticity and honesty are very important... both in others and yourself. You are grounded and secure. It takes a lot to shake you. People see you as dependable, probably the most dependable person they know.

What Color Green Are You?

blog-a-thon

i took a hiatus from blogging for a couple of months.  right around halloween my semester became very busy...it was my last semester of school, i was finishing up my two internship projects, applying for jobs, finishing research papers, and illustrating a book for a friend.  phew!  let me go back...

yes, folks, i am now a graduate.  i now have a bachelor's of science in community health education from utah valley university.  uvu only has one walk a year, so even though i am an official graduate, i'll walk in the spring.  this is a big deal for me--i graduated from high school ten and a half years ago, and although i have had many wonderful life experiences and lessons, i never thought a formal education was on my list of things to do.  i just didn't see myself capable of finishing something like a bachelor's.  now i am ready to go on for a master's!  i loved my experience at uvu, loved my health classes, maintained a 3.9 gpa, and loved writing research!  

i had two papers published in undergraduate journals, which was a super-big highlight for me.  the journals are being put online through the school's digital library collection, so here's the link for one paper entitled "mrsa and society: the sociology of biomedicine and illness", which was printed in the journal for behavioral studies.  the other paper entitled "legally free, socially imprisoned: the new south and the black slave" (printed in the journal of history) is not posted yet.  i'll attach the link when it is available.    

the other exciting link is for the book i illustrated.  it's a little children's story about an elephant learning his trunk really is valuable.  my friend's mother told them stories when they were little, and my friend wrote it down for her, asked me to illustrate them and had it printed through an online self-publishing service at blurb.com.  this is the first book, and there are two more to come.  

anyway, now that things have calmed down, i can take an hour or two and post photos from the last few months...enjoy the blog-a-thon!

    

christmas village

this is the only evidence i have of us making gingerbread houses.  there may have been more made, but i don't remember, and i don't have any other photos.  this was in 1985.  it was time to make some more!  i have a christmas cookbook i just love--and it had a recipe for not just a gingerbread house, but a gingerbread village!  i decided this was how i was going to spend my christmas day, and david was going to join me!  first order of business: after baking the gingerbread, cut out the house shapes and decorate the fronts.  the one below even has icicles hanging off the facade!

here's the secret to the village...it isn't a whole house, just the fronts!  ingenious!!
a couple more views of the village, complete with a pond, shrubbery, and a village gate.

beth goes on vacation

my mom is a busy bee--always anxiously engaged in many projects, work, and church activities.  she needed a break!  she came out to visit the week before christmas for some relaxing fun, but every day with mom was still packed full and busy!  maybe next time we can all go to a deserted island and make mom learn how to just sit and relax (wink, wink).  mom came with us to our early morning spinning class, and did the work out videos with me at home.  we spent one afternoon walking around the body worlds exhibit, which was simply fascinating. 

we went to our ward christmas party and were in charge of an activity table.  thanks to mom's experience and brains, i think we had the best table there!  we made a shooting star ornament and put a sticker on it with a poem about the star and baby Jesus being born.  

a festive mama helping out.
the lady on the right is holding up her ornament--you can see how it hangs down real cute-like;.)
on another day mom and i adventured up into the mountains for some snowshoeing.  we had a snow storm every other day while she was here, which really made mom happy.  the snow in the canyon was almost a foot and a half, but the trail was packed down fairly well, so snowshoeing was pretty easy going. 
we hiked up a trail in south fork canyon, which was so beautiful in the snow.
the following photos are examples the mother-daughter photos i have.  i decided it was time for an update, so i scheduled a mother-daughter photo shoot for one afternoon.  mom and i got all gussied up and went in for some fun.  the photographer was fun to work with, and made me laugh...he said he did mother-daughter shoots a lot, but "never with a daughter this old".  ha!  after he realized what he'd said, he backtracked by saying the shoots are typically with infants and newborns.  oh well, 28 years too late...anyway, here's the link if you'd like to check out our photos.  

birthday boy

requested birthday dinner: homemade tomato soup and a tuna melt.  

current panini press: two cast iron skillets stacked on top of each other

birthday presents: books, movies, candy...who could ask for anything more?

not this happy birthday boy!

thanksgiving in montana

 

david got the friday after thanksgiving off last minute, so we drove up to montana for thanksgiving with the coombs family! we left late wednesday night after david got home from work, and drove about half-way to rexburg to spend the night with ryan and rachael hagge (and their two adorable kiddos). ryan baptized david when he was 17, and he's always been a great friend. i just love rachael--she's inspiring, full of hope and faith, and is everything good rolled into one person. she's just amazing! give us another five years or so, and we think we'll be "neighbors"--they're planning on moving back to alturas, ca, and david and i are planning on moving to medford, or, just across the ca border. hang on, hagges--we're planning on having lots of temple dates and weekend biking trips!
a couple of the hagge boys and john (hagge dad)--a super family!
bob, eddie, david, and me out for a morning breakfast at perkins.  we loved seeing all the coombs family.  thanksgiving day was actually pretty warm for montana--lots of sun, no snow, and little wind.  yay for a nice  holiday!
thanksgiving dinner (bob--on the couch on the right--is getting ready for a post-turkey nap...hee hee)
catching up with cousins
dessert time!  yum!

allen family visit

in october my cousin, jen, and her beautiful family came to utah for a friend/family visit.  we had a fun evening of catching up, eating a super dinner, and having some good laughs about our childhood memories.  reminiscing definitely gets funnier the older you get!  
jen is a creative master with food and decorations (check this out for some of her christmas amazingness), and has a gift for making things magical and fun.  i love that about her!!  it was great catching up!    
my new favorite photo--i'm so in love!  david's so handsome!  mushy, mushy...now for some fun:
every summer we spent a couple of weeks at my grandparent's and cousin's house (they live down the road from each other).  jen and i grew up roller skating along their road and singing camp songs, swimming in their pool, making pickles and canning with my aunt, going to girls camp, and always making some sort of craft.  one summer we made pig houses (instead of doll houses), and the next summer we had a pig wedding!  there was always a cousin dramatic theater, as well--twists on fairy tales, productions of our own creation, and always costumes galore from my grandma's basement.  the photo above is actually at our house (1988), and i think we're dancing along to a raffi record.  i know i was dressed up as a frog for the "frogs jumping off a log" song, but i have no idea what christian was dressed up as...but isn't he buff?! 
this was at bethany beach the summer of 1986--the whole family took a vacation together.  there was actually a hurricane that year.  i remember we all went outside to feel what it'd be like to be in the middle of the storm--ouch...sand hurts!  my aunt was pregnant at the time with our youngest cousin, and she got stuck in the sand when the waves rushed up.  emily was afraid of swimming when she was little, and we all said it was because aunt donna got stuck in the sand during the hurricane.  on the back of this photo i have written--in my six-year old handwriting--that we were talking about becoming famous actresses.  i don't remember that...maybe jen can vouch for that conversation?  
1984 on the front porch
double pig wedding

the happy pig couple