gathering in the midst of lots of beauty…Tuacahn, Fall leaves, and other good stuff

Here are my mom and Saydi with some lovely red lights lighting them up from the back of a car:

Ok, here’s a better look at those lovely ladies below:

We saw The Prince of Egypt, and it was quite a production, made even more awesome by that red-rock backdrop that you can’t see in these pictures, and the stars twinkling above.

 We saw a couple shows in Cedar City at the Shakespeare Festival:

(they were so good!)
…and we checked out this awesome art exhibit:

I talked about my favorite piece from this exhibit (“Glory in Now”) back HERE, but I think this might have been my first runner-up:

It’s titled “She is Again”…made me think about how we keep making {hopefully} better versions of ourselves as we move forward in life, as we tweak our thoughts and actions and become “again” renewed and more aware.

This one was cool too:

 “Initiate”

Makes you think, right?

(This exhibit is at the Southern Utah Museum of Art and the artist is James Surls…more about him HERE.)

We drove to Cedar Breaks where I had never been before.  The road to get there was gorgeous in and of itself:

And then we got here:

 Yow!

 We went to church on Sunday…

…and then headed on up to Provo.

There is nothing like long car rides to talk about the world.  Everything from women in the gospel to family reunions to parenting, to goals and dreams to sorrows and worries mixed with excitement and joy.

I was pretty excited to get to Provo and hang with Max and Abby who were getting pretty serious about their relationship status at this point.  Of course, Kristi and Noah invited us all over for Sunday dinner even though Noah had been out of the country on business for a while and Kristi had been gone and they finally got to be back together.  Those two have hearts as big as can be, and it was so fun to be there with all those people I love so much, Abby right there just fitting in so beautifully.  Noah, Kristi and my mom had met her before, but Saren and Saydi hadn’t.

(and they loved her, of course, because she’s just the type of person that you fall right in love with 😉

Before I left to come back home, Saren, Saydi and I snuck in a hike (we wished Kristi and my mom could make it, but they had prior commitments).  I have to bask in Fall somehow since we don’t get it the same way here in the desert, and Utah can show it off pretty beautifully I tell you!

So I followed these girls up through some pretty breathtaking beauty:

(This was a hike to Lake Blanche and I would highly recommend it.)

I’m going to go ahead and warn you right now that there are way too many pictures below, but I can’t help posting them…it was just too beautiful, and for some reason taking pictures makes me feel like I’m somehow appreciating it more. 

But I digress…here we go:

I love that most of these pictures show these sisters of mine ahead of me, leading the way…

…because I feel like that’s how a lot of life is.  Saren who is older and has always set a path for me, and Saydi, even though she’s younger, I feel like she’s guiding me always as well.

 …in all kinds of terrain.

I guess another reason they are ahead of me in every picture is because I was kind of huffing and puffing to keep up.  Was it the altitude up there in Utah compared to the desert?  Let’s go ahead and blame that 🙂

Here we are arriving at the top:

 Man alive.

It took my breath away….this time because of the sheer gorgeousness of it all, not that I couldn’t keep up.

One of the coolest things?  We ran into these guys en route to the top:

Why is that so cool?  You might ask?  Well, I’ll tell you:

THEY WERE FROM ROMANIA!!

I don’t get to run into Romanians very much, so it’s SO EXCITING when I do.  I had been trying to figure out if I should finagle meeting my parents there who are giving a speech in Bucuresti in November.  I had been looking for a steal-of-a-deal flights, and I figured meeting those guys there on that trail that day was a sign that I really should make it happen…

…until Max and Abby got engaged.

And then I think that was a sign to stay home.  Ha!

But man, I sure hope I get back to that land I love so much some day!!  Loved that those guys gave me such a great opportunity to realize once again how much Romanian I have forgotten…and how much I adore that place and it’s people.

It was a beauty day, followed by a quick dinner with my parents before I had to get to the airport.