1. Last weekend we took a quick trip to Nauvoo, Illinois. We hadn't been to the temple in awhile, and we wanted to do some sealings in honor of our anniversary that was coming up a few days later. There was a pretty sunset the evening we got there that I took from the doorway of the little villa we stayed at.
And a few minutes later...
A few other pictures from that evening...
I love the rolling green hills of the Midwest!
We didn't do anything fun in the Historic Nauvoo village area because we didn't have time, but the boys were content to hang out in our villa. And Peter and I were happy to get to go to the temple.
On the drive home, we stopped at a little Chinese place for lunch. In a pleasant coincidence, there was an Anne of Green Gables picture in the women's bathroom there. We went on our honeymoon to Prince Edward Island (home of Anne of Green Gables). Cool! I took this as a sign that we had spent our time wisely in the right place that weekend.
I've gotta pay it proper homage!
2. As I mentioned, we celebrated our 14th anniversary this past Wednesday on the 15th. Rather than write about how much I love being a wife to my wonderful husband (which I really do), I'd like to take this opportunity to focus on how much I enjoyed being a bride 14 years ago. I've always loved weddings and bridal things. I wish I could do it all over again (with Peter, of course!) now that I have more money and slightly more sophisticated taste (though I will always love my wedding gown, which was beautiful if I do say so myself...and I do!).
I read an article recently that featured modest wedding gowns, and this one was my favorite:
The only major change I'd make to this dress would be to switch it from tulle to satin. I love satin! And lace! And a defined waistline! I need to be a bride again.
I also saw this fun article this week about these stunning wedding dresses that these women made entirely from toilet paper! You have to see these; they're amazing! (I'll still take a dress made out of satin and lace, though.)
And related to that, this is another good article I read about an LDS woman who entered that very contest last year and again this year and has done very well in it!
Finally, these are the pretty flowers Peter brought home for me on Wednesday.
3. I mentioned modesty in #2. As a temple-going, fully active Mormon, modesty is important to me and I believe that dressing modestly is a blessing. I overall have no problems with it. But now I will contradict that last part a little bit by saying that my one "problem" with wearing modest clothes (which for Mormon women is clothes that go to the knee and have sleeves with nothing low-cut in the front or back) is that I don't like long shorts. I never have. One of the reasons I decided not to go to BYU was because I detested the strict dress code, which would have required me to wear those dowdy knee-length (or longer!) shorts on my cute 18-21 year-old body. No way Jose! I was a faithful good girl but I couldn't suppress my stubborn and mild rebellious streak when it came to shorts until I went through the temple for the first time before I got married. Then I was cool with it (for the most part).
So I've always liked shorts that hit at right about mid-thigh. I think they're so cute. In my opinion, knee-length shorts will never look as good as shorter shorts do, especially on my legs, where my muscular thighs balance out my slightly beefy calves. So that's been my one objection to dressing modestly, but I'm faithful and try to rock knee-length Bermuda shorts as well as I can (ha!). And there are some cute ones out there. I just got a few new pairs this week that I like.
But now I have a Bermuda shorts horror story to share with you. Gap, which has been struggling with its sales, is going to continue to struggle with these monstrosities that they're currently selling:
I appreciate that they're modest, but other than that I think these drapey Bermuda shorts are ugly, unflattering, and silly-looking.
But that's just me. What do you think?
4. My high school (Hopkinton High in Hopkinton, Massachusetts) honored my aunt Audrey this week by naming the cafeteria "Audrey's Place" after her. This is the newspaper article about it. She worked in the cafeteria at HHS for 38 years before retiring this year. I'm so glad that they did this for her. She totally deserves it! She's always been such a sweet aunt to me, and I liked having her work there when I was in school. It's nice to have your aunt work at your school. She was there for me and for my three younger siblings as well as many of our cousins.
(The newspaper article wouldn't let me copy and paste this picture no matter what I did, so I finally took a picture of it on the computer screen with my phone and emailed it to myself. Ha! I win!)
I'm looking forward to seeing Audrey and my other aunts, uncles, and cousins this summer. Speaking of which...
5. We leave to head East for the summer in about a week. I can't think about it too much or I'll get really stressed. I have so much to do before we go! I can't believe how much busier I've been and how much less time I've had over the last few weeks since school got out. I think I got spoiled this past school year by having eight hours to myself each day while both of the kids were at school. Now I'm having to re-adjust to having them home. It's not nearly as easy to get things done! My productivity, efficiency, and focus have definitely suffered. I often feel like I'm swimming with my head just above water, to use a well-worn but effective cliche. I have more empathy and remembrance for what it's like to live weekday life with your kids at home. It's a rather bemusing wake-up call.
Anyway, I wanted to blog about our adventures last summer in Massachusetts this week and next week, but I didn't have the time to get that done and I very likely won't have the time to do it next week either. I had to make a concerted effort just to get this one post done for today. So I'm going to have to blog about our summer of '15 adventures in the fall or some other time, which isn't the end of the world, but I would have liked to have gotten it done this month. It would be neater and more orderly that way. But life isn't always neat and orderly when you have kids! Though it is rewarding and very meaningful.
Well, I feel like I'm starting to ramble, so I'll end here. I'll try to do at least one more post before I take the rest of the summer off from the blogosphere.
