Monthly Archives: December 2013

Happy Anniversary and Happy New Year!

Six years ago December 31st I married the man of my dreams in the most beautiful wedding imaginable.  My husband wanted us to get married on New Year’s because he said that would ensure that he never forgot our wedding anniversary – smart man 😉  … On that day we were surrounded by family and […]

Build Your Sky Castle! – Now is the perfect time

When my children were young I would lay down with them on our trampoline outside in our backyard and we would look at the sky together and play a game we called “Sky Castles”. In our game we would take turns building our pretend sky castles by saying what we saw happening in our life […]

Twas the Day After Christmas

I hope all of you had a marvelous Christmas Holiday!  For me it was a marvelous day because we were able to be together as a family, with my son joining us on Skype.  It was amazing to see his sweet smiling face on the video.  It was also fun to watch he and his […]

I Wish You A Merry Christmas!

We made it!  It is finally upon us – Christmas Eve followed by Christmas Day.  My favorite holiday of the entire year.  I am so excited for tomorrow.  I even stayed up late wrapping every gift tonight so that tomorrow I can enjoy my time with my family without stressing over the mounds of gifts […]

Families are Like Fudge…

“Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with lots of nuts!” As we head into the home stretch before Christmas Eve’s traditional gathering together of families everywhere, we ought to pause a moment to prepare ourselves to deal with the chaos ahead. I come from a very large family of ten children. My husband comes from […]

Last Minute Gift Ideas

So for those of you out there who are like me, and who are still struggling to come up with a few more gifts before Christmas next week, I decided to put together a list of some last minute gift ideas that could help you if you are stuck trying to find a few more […]

I Hope We’ll Be That Cute When We’re 80!

Tonight my mother and father-in-law arrived to stay with us for a few days.  They came down from their farm in Idaho to visit us so they could come to see their son (my husband) tomorrow night when he will be singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.  […]

Tips for Coping With Holiday Stress

Today I was feeling the stress of the holiday creep in and I decided that I needed an action list of things I could do to help take the stress off during this holiday season.  Here is the list of ideas I came  up with to help all of us cope with holiday stress: Make […]

A Time To Close Your Book of Grievances

Christmas season casts a truly amazing spell on the world. People’s walls come down, their hearts are softened, they notice the needs of strangers, they have the desire to care for their fellow man, and hurts anger seems to get let go and be replaced with the Christmas spirit of love. It truly has an […]

True Christmas Joy

Only 10 days til Christmas!  I can’t even believe it!  How did that happen so quickly??!  Good heavens I am not even kind of ready yet!  Thank heavens for Amazon Prime two day shipping is all I can say! Maybe I am the only one that feels this way, but picking out Christmas presents is […]

“Doubt Kills Dreams More Than Failure Ever Will”

Today I was humbled and honored to receive the UVEF Entrepreneur of the Year Award.  At the awards lunch they asked me to share a few words about the things that I would like to pass on to other Entrepreneurs from the lessons I have learned from my own journey.  I struggled deciding what lessons […]

A Sneak Peek Into the Upcoming Sundance Film Festival!

Sundance Film Festival is coming up from January 16th – 26th, 2014 and I am super excited about it, especially after getting a sneak peak tonight into the list of films that will be shown at the upcoming festival. For those who may not be as familiar with the film festival, it was originally started […]

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Victoria Quintanilla is an angel, serving other angels.  Let me explain why. Tonight we took a group of our youth to volunteer at the Road Home.  The Road Home is a non-profit organization that operates the largest homeless shelter in the state of Utah, providing beds and warmth to men, women, and children.  They never […]

Be A Dreamer!

As we are nearing the start of a brand new year here in less than a month I just wanted to remind everyone that this is the perfect time to start thinking about what you want to put on your 2014 Goal Poster!  For those who don’t know what I am referring to here is […]

Always Remember That Life Goes On

I came across a poem that has a great message and wanted to share it with all of you: What a great poem to read, especially at Christmas time?  It reminds us that life is short so why waste a moment of it being unhappy?  No matter what goes wrong, life is going to go […]

More Inspiring Stories from the TED Women Conference

Today was another great day in San Francisco at the TED Women’s Conference.  Here are a few inspirational stories to share from today: Diana Nyad:  In 2013, at the age of 64and as her fifth attempt to do so, Diana swam all the way from Cuba to Florida.  A total distance of 110 miles in […]

People Who Change The World and the Help Media Exposure Has Given Them

Today I am in San Francisco for the TED Women 2013 Conference.  I am here because several months ago I was blessed to meet Pat Mitchell at the home of a friend for dinner where we spent the evening getting to know one another.  Pat is the CEO of The Paley Center for Media.  She […]

The Most Beautiful People I Know…

“The most beautiful people I know are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.  These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion and a deep loving concern.”   -author unknown People who have been […]

Shopping, Shopping…oh, and More Shopping

“How much shopping can one person do?!?”, my husband called out as my fingers clicked madly away on the keyboard jumping from one cyber-deal to another as quickly as I could. “It’s almost midnight!  Don’t distract me!  I am working against the clock here!  Just wait til you hear how much money I saved us”, […]

Welcome Home, There is Only 23 Days Til Christmas!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.  We went to visit my husband’s family in Idaho on their family farm.  There is very little as fitting as celebrating Thanksgiving on the farm.  We had amazing food (all homemade of course!), my daughter learned to drive the front loader tractor, and they went shooting clay pigeons.  […]