mountain leaves, family, and some beautiful art

I have a crazy love for Fall leaves. Who else is with me? They are incredible, and I yearn for them every year.

I am SO GRATEFUL I have made it a tradition to go hike with my sisters each Fall so I can luxuriate in their beauty (both the sisters as well as the leaves).

This year I missed the high-tide glory and majesty of the height of “the best year yet,” but I felt lucky beyond words to get to see what I did, to have Charity, fresh from London, and Julie, who was living in Utah for a short stint, along this year, to be huffing and puffing up that mountain through Rock Creek Canyon, talking through the world with those favorite friend/sisters of mine.

And I DID catch some gorgeous beauty.

Oh man, gotta just drink that in!

Muted colors blanketing the horizon.

I love the dried up leaves that have folded into themselves. So beautiful to me.

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I was at a mental point in my brain where I was fuzzy and stressed, too many things trying to lasso into a row in my heart to make sense of, especially with mothering, and as we hiked I could almost feel so much of that lift off of me.

Love the gray sky against the muted golds:

We hit snow at the top, loved it in all it’s glory.

It was exhilarating to get to that view at the top of that mountain:

Love that we could see Julie and Charity’s houses from that tippy top point.

Here’s Julie trying to show Eli where we were waving her coat around. Ha!

Love these girls!

Now, a picture cannot do this rock canyon justice.

Believe me, I tried!

There is something about that rock lining those canyon walls that is so incredibly beautiful to me, so craggy and rippling and almost like a sculpture.

We got down the mountain right in time to meet an oncoming storm, and the colors were so beautiful:

Had a nice leaf collection by the end.

We had dinner at Eli & Julie’s complete with a spread of Indian food and joined by my Mom and Dad and Eli of course.

I loved that Max & Abby joined us for a little bit as well.

And that we got to talk about deep things and feel the love surrounding us all in that room.

I loved sleeping over at Charity’s new house, all of us sisters together, helping her figure out what to put where (her husband was on a little “daddy date” with her big boys), yoga in her little basement room twice with her sweetie twins crawling around our legs, a scrambled-together breakfast and the glory of that MOA art museum there at BYU.

You guys, this exhibit at the museum at BYU is INCREDIBLE!! It is called “Photographic delusions” and we were all mesmerized.

Stuff like this:

Made with powder.

Stuff like this:

…you may have guessed it, Mona Lisas made out of peanut butter and jelly.

(Muniz, the artist, made all these canvases and these are pictures of his creations.)

Loved this one from far away:

And even more from up close…so incredible he could put all these pieces together to make one coherent whole.

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This one was perhaps my favorite, called “Jerusalem:”

A close-up:

I loved it because I love Jerusalem, but I also loved it most because of this description:

(“While we tend to think of our memories as solid and secure, the things we remember are in fact more akin to these textured collages…” so much to think about in those words!)

Heres Frankenstein made out of caviar:

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Marilyn Monroe made out of diamonds:

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Another incredible “powder” creation:

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He made a whole series of children created completely from sugar:

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How incredible is that??

Loved this toy soltier:

This:

…made from this:

Yow.

It feels almost like I can’t even move on from that, isn’t that so so amazing??

But since we can’t stay here all day, I’ll just say there is other art there, as usual, that I adored:

And my favorite, that I think is always on display there:

I just love this museum.

And even more, I love these people who love the art just as much as I do:

(well, maybe not Evie quite as much as the rest of us, but hey, gotta train them young.)

On my way out of town I got to meet up with my high school girls. (Some left before we took the picture, and a couple others couldn’t make it…missed you guys!!)

I am so grateful they are mine and I’m theirs and I hope I could share some of my deep love for them sitting at that table for a couple hours spilling out our stories for a “quick” catch-up.

Got home just in time to JUMP in my car waiting at the airport, head straight to Claire’s game, got there in time enough to see them get beat by a team they should have beat, with a fire drill right in the middle of play, but so happy to be there, and then home to sort out addresses for Elle’s 80s prom dance party coming up.

It was a quick day and a half that I’m soaking up in my memory book of good days.