“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 […]

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 […]

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.  […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

“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”, […]

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.  […]

T’was the night of Thanksgiving, But I just couldn’t sleep. I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep. The leftovers beckoned, The dark meat and white. But I fought the temptation, With all of my might. Tossing and turning, with anticipation. The thought of a snack became infatuation. So I raced to the kitchen, Flung […]

And there is no better week to take the action of giving thanks and showing gratitude than Thanksgiving week.  This is the perfect week to extend a helping hand to someone in need.  And we can always find someone out there who is in greater need than we are.  It’s so easy to get sucked […]

Several years ago my family and I were down visiting the small town of Bicknell, Utah with our dear friends.  We went to a church meeting down in Bicknell back then and a very humble young man got up and gave a talk on perspective and gratitude that was awesome.  In his talk he shared […]

So much to do, and not nearly enough hours in the day to do it. I get so frustrated when I work my guts out all day only to come to the end of the day feeling like I have barely scratched the surface of what I needed to get done.  When that happens day […]

What a day today was!  I started my day at 5:00am this morning so I could get downtown for an early morning meeting with President Wheelwright, the President of BYU Hawaii.  He and I had a wonderful talk about the Entrepreneurship activities going on at his University in Hawaii.  They are doing some really incredible […]

For new readers to my blog – every so often my 17 year old daughter Ashley will write a blog to share with my readers.  Over the years her blogs end up being everyone’s favorites and I am certain this one will be no different, so enjoy today’s blog written by Ashley.  ~Amy —————— Work […]

Relationships are a tricky thing.  Men and women are so drastically different in so many ways that it is a serious miracle that we actually end up together in many ways.  We communicate differently, we show love differently, we have different expectations, we have different emotional responses…we are just plain different. And is if our […]

The Leonardo in Salt Lake City has been selected by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) to display the largest collection of scrolls and artifacts ever to tour outside of Israel.  Only 10 cities will have the honor of being selected to host this exhibition – and Salt Lake City has been selected as the 5th […]

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.   The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.   You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. […]

Today I was invited to attend a luncheon with Ann Romney, Mitt Romney’s wife (former governor and Presidential candidate).  Ann recently released a cookbook called “The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes and Favorite Traditions,” and she has been traveling across the country to share stories about her new book.  She was incredibly warm and […]

Tonight my husband and I were invited to go to the Governor’s mansion to celebrate Diwali.  Diwali is a five day Hindu festival known as the Festival of Lights and it is one of the biggest holidays of the year in India.  This festival is as important to Hindus as Christmas is to Christians.   During […]

Today started out rough.  I had to deal with a situation related to someone from the past that I once considered to be a friend, but who turned out to be an incredibly dishonest person who did a lot of horrible things that caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. Not exactly […]

Saturday night my husband and I were invited to an event honoring Robert Redford.  The event was called:   “The Governor’s Salute to Robert Redford: A Utah Tribute to an American Icon.” The event kicked off with a group of Native American Indians performing a ceremonial dance in their full attire.  It was incredible!  It was […]

“Never be afraid to fall apart because it is an opportunity to rebuild yourself the way you wish you had been all along.” – Rae Smith Ya know every now and then you just have to have that momentary break down…that day when you break down and cry…when you fall apart just a little bit…it […]