UTAH WATERCOLOR SOCIETY FALL SHOW

One of my paintings made it into the Utah Watercolor Society Fall Show and I was so excited! I just had to go to the opening. It's the first show one of my watercolor paintings has ever been accepted into. A milestone in my art career.

Me, my painting and my proud daughter, Sister S.

Sister S and my older sister, A, came with me to the opening and afterward we went out to dinner. It was some great girl-bonding time and we had a blast! I am so grateful I have such wonderful, supportive family in my life.

Waiting for our table at Mimi's...

We had a great time!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO FEEL LIKE FALL

Fall is one of my favorite times of year. The weather starts to cool and its so nice to be outside. We also have lots of family birthdays and it's a fun excuse to get together.

C Man climbing in Maple Canyon.

Princess P and I at a family birthday party.

C Man with baby W at the birthday party.

MY BIRTH MOM

I was adopted when I was 3 days old. I grew up in a wonderful family with 4 other adopted siblings. I always knew I was adopted and my parents were very willing to talk about it and open to the idea of us finding our birth parents when we turned 18 if that was what we wanted. I never felt the need. I had great respect for my birth mom and was so grateful she was willing to give me up so that I could have a better life, but I didn't want to interrupt her life and cause chaos if she hadn't ever told anyone about me. I've heard horror stories of that kind of confrontation going very wrong and lots of feelings being hurt. I loved my family and my life and never felt like anything was missing, but in the back of my mind I was always curious about my genetic line and where I came from. I was definitely open to meeting my birth mother if she should ever reach out.

Well, that's what happened! Right after we got home from our trip to Moab earlier in the month, I was contacted by an adoption PI who told me that my birth family was looking for me, particularly my birth mother. I was blown away. It was so out of the blue, but I was very willing to let her contact me.  We jumped through the legal hoops and she called me. I had big butterflies in my stomach, but otherwise was just excited to hear from her. She introduced herself and told me about her family and I told her about mine. We talked about how I came to be and the circumstances leading to and surrounding my birth. Much of the information my mom had been told had been inaccurate and it was so interesting to hear the real story. She is a wonderful lady and I am thrilled to know her. We set up a time to get together and she came to my house today. We went through my baby pictures and then to lunch where we talked and talked for hours. It was so fun to meet her and get to know her. We are friends on Facebook and I have even talked with two of her daughters- my half sisters. It has really opened a door for me that I never really thought would. I'm thrilled!

My birth mom and I.

FAREWELL, ELDER C

Another Elder from my side of the family has gone out! He got called to Arizona and is such a cute, good kid. I know he'll do wonderful. I'm sure my parents are up in heaven dancing the jitterbug in happiness!

Future Elders- cousins: M, M and C Man.

We had a good time in Price listening to him speak, eating at the luncheon, visiting with family and friends and saying good-bye.

Cousins: M, C Man, RM A, and the man of the hour- Elder C.

The family that was there from my side.

MAPLE CANYON DAY

We decided to go to Maple Canyon yesterday for the family to climb and me to paint. It started out a little rainy, but that passed after five minutes and it ended up being a pretty nice day. Most of Big C's family came too, so it was quite a group.

Princess P makes friends with a dog.

Big C lead climbs.

Yes, I actually belay sometimes.

Cute climbing cousins!

My small plein air watercolor.

APRICOT OVERLOAD

I'm not sure why, but this year has been an amazing growing year for our fruit. Our apricot tree has never produced more than a half a dozen pieces of fruit until this year. The tree was in danger of broken limbs because it was so loaded with apricots. Big C was so happy! He loves them. I don't like them so they were a irritation to me. More work- cleaning up the dropping fruit every day, making bags and bags of dehydrated fruit and dozens of pints of jam. It is safe to say we are done with them!

Family Night drying.

We got together for a combined family night and filled my in-laws' industrial sized dehydrator with every piece of fruit we could get to. It's actually pretty tall for a fruit tree.

My new niece and her mommy.

Who's going to eat all these? Not me!

GORDON FAMILY REUNIONS ROCK!

My husband's family really does put on a great reunion. We have such a blast even though we do almost the same thing every year. It just never gets old.

BREAKFAST IN THE MOUNTAINS:

Princess P holds her new cousin! Aren't they pretty in pink??

When your mom gives you a tattoo...

Awesome A, Sister S and Elder D wait patiently for their breakfast.

We sure do love cousin time!

The guys gotta mountain bike down!

RED NECK SLIP-N-SLIDE:

One of the all time favorite traditions of the reunion.

Then, because going down on your bum gets boring, we have to go down standing up.

Sister S helps Little W.

Me with my cute boys!

Princess P, Miss G and Miss J- the Middle School girls.

SUMMER TIME

I sure do love summer! I wish it could go on forever! We have so much fun and can be spontaneous with our schedules. When school starts all that freedom goes away and I get sad. We've gotta enjoy the indulgences while we can!

All us girls at Girl's Camp!

Sister S got asked to be the Stake speaker at Girl's Camp this year, so I went with her. We went up and had dinner with Princess P who was already there and then we got to listen to my amazing oldest child speak. The theme was 'There's No Place Like Home', so it was perfect topic for her and she did such a good job! What a great example she is for those girls! I'm so proud of her.

All the old camp flags from years past were hanging up. We had to find our names.

We got invited to go to Palisade Lake for dinner with friends. It was fun and the weather was great for throwing siblings into the water- at least that's what my kids did.

Sister S, Princess P and C Man fight for the high ground.

One of my nieces came home from her mission as her sister is leaving and we went up to hear them speak. It was a hot day, but fun to visit and see everyone.

Elder D, Awesome A, Princess P and C Man- dang, my kids are good lookin'!

Sister S was on the forest fire crew this year. She loved it!

I think she started more fires than she put out... weird.

CHRISTENSEN REUNION 2016

I have a family that is very dedicated to reunions. Every other year my aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids all come to Ephraim to celebrate their heritage. They come from all over and stay for 3 or 4 days. I am impressed with their commitment. If it wasn't held in Utah, I honestly don't know how often we'd make it. I really do like my family though, so it isn't something I dread. I know, I'm lucky!

My family olympics team- Calmontahzona (we had people on our team from California, Montana, Utah and Arizona).

Traditional night at the church- eating pizza and this year we did family videos.

My boys ( the three on the left) and cousins.

We did a photo scavenger hunt. This is my team's pic from my grandpa's farm.

A rainy dutch oven dinner on the mountain- Philadephia Flat.

The olympic teams. This is only about half of our family, but a great showing none the less.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON HIKE

I talked Big C into going up in the mountains on Sunday afternoon. We went up to check on a spot for my reunion, but also to get out of the heat. It was a great way to spend time with family. We did a hike across the top of Blue Bell. That area is packed with memories for us, the strongest one being when Big C went skiing with his brothers and lost one of them in an avalanche. 

Big C reminisces about his brother at the top of the chute where he was killed.

He sat for a while and shared his memories with us. It was pretty amazing for the kids to see the place and hear his words.

Hiking the beautiful trail.

A spike deer.

The view of our little Ephraim.

Afterwards, we stopped and made s'mores.

We used some marshmallows that were at least a month old and they were the best s'mores we've ever had. I think it might be a new thing for our family- let the mallows get old before roasting! YUM!

FAMILY HOME EVENING

My kids absolutely love having combined home evening with my husband's family. All the in-town Gordons get together every 2nd and 4th Monday night and rotate teaching lessons and organizing activities. 

The cousins just love each other!

Playing baseball in the hay field.

Princess P and Big C admire the rainbow.

GREEN RIVER for MEMORIAL DAY

Our Green River trip didn't start out so hot this year. We got to the campground at Swayze's Beach and found that they have started charging this year, so they wouldn't let us camp on the beach anymore. It is very depressing when the government starts taking over everything and telling you what you can and can't do. Freedoms are being lost everyday and nobody cares. It's a sad sign of our society.

Hanging out on the beach, waiting to find out where we are going to go.

Then, our friend that was with us stepped into some melting sand where a fire pan had been and burned the bottoms of his feet so bad that Big C and I ended up driving him to the hospital back in Gunnison.

W with his new gauzy 'socks'.

He'll be okay, but he'll have to stay off his feet for a couple weeks and that's not good for him. He's a very busy person and now he can't work for Big C. He was not happy. I was so sick for him. It was terrible.

Big C and I drove back to Green River early the next morning with his parents and ran the river with everyone. It was a great river day! Nice and warm and lots of water.

Lots of people need lots of boats. We had around 30 people there.

Sister S and I- loving the sunshine!

Lots of family and friends make for lots of fun and great memories.

This isn't everyone, but almost...

This is the first year we took the SUP's down the river. C Man was pretty good at it.

Elder D stayed back the first run and built a sand castle. He's such a big kid! I love it!

Elder D with Little W.