Moving Forward. That is a concept I have been taught since I was young. Whenever I went to my father or my Grandfather for advice in life they would always tell me, “Just keep moving forward.” It was the solution to almost every problem I would take to them, and over time I began to […]
Tonight I received a phone call from one of my dearest friends who is out of the country right now traveling. He said he was thinking about me and my husband today because he realized I was probably saddened with my kids leaving off to college and he just wanted me to know he was […]
Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home. Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn’t change the fact that after today things will never quite be […]
Many of us grew up with a security blanket. It typically started as an actual blanket for most of us when we were small children, one we couldn’t go to bed without. Then as we grow older our parents and our home become our security blanket, the place we felt safe and secure. And then […]
Today was an amazing day – we had planned to take our kids out to the Lake to go boating with their friends, everyone got their swimming suits on and we packed the boat with snacks and we drove 45 minutes to the lake and got the boat on the water only to have our […]
Last week my family and I went down to spend a glorious week at Lake Powell with a group of friends. We had a great trip, and although we all came home with colds…yet again…the trip was worth it. We had gone down to Powell a few days before our guests arrived because we wanted […]
“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This summer has been such a special time for me. I have been able to have so much fun with my children and the memories we will walk away from this summer with will be with me forever. The most interesting […]
It’s hard these days to come up with fun ideas of things you can do together with your family that are inexpensive, fun, and get everyone involved at every age in the family. A few years ago I started to make a list of ideas for things to do with family by gathering ideas from […]
“In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us […]
Sometimes in life you are faced with a choice between two things that both matter to you. Today I had that experience. I will give you some background that will help explain the situation: My entire life since I was old enough to have a workers permit (which I think was 14 years old) I […]
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” -George Bernard Shaw There has to be truth to that. I really believe that if we can find a way to stay young at heart that it will affect our physical age. I can’t prove its true, but I do […]
The last two weeks have been crazy for me and my family! Let me backup and explain. My family’s favorite place on the planet is Lake Powell. Lake Powell is our heaven on earth. We started going there when my kids were just little at the invitation of some good friends. They invited me down […]
Growing up I wasn’t always the easiest teenager. I was stubborn, fiercely independent and ridiculously tenacious. I thought I knew everything. I thought I didn’t need anyone to watch out for me. And even though my parents were aware I didn’t want anyone watching out for me, every night I went out I would come […]
“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stifled. I want all the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi I absolutely enjoy learning about other cultures. I love learning about different traditions people […]
I want to start this week by paying a special tribute to all of the great dad’s out there. Like the title said, any man can be a father, but it truly does take a special person to be a dad. I have learned that lesson firsthand in my own life with my children – […]
“O thus be it ever, when free men shall stand; Between their loved homes and war`s desolation; Blessed vict’ry and peace, may the heaven rescued land; Praise the power that hath made and preserved as a nation; Then conquer we must when our cause is just; And this be our motto, In God is our […]
Back in 1999 a poem came out that I thought was cute, but not especially meaningful. Later they even made the poem into a song. As I read that same poem today I no longer find it just cute, I find it extremely meaningful and I can’t help but get choked up by it. Oh […]
Happy Mother’s Day! I had to get that out there very first thing because there is nothing more important today than stating appreciation for all the Mother’s and future Mother’s and single Father’s playing the role of Mother. THANK YOU! For loving us, inspiring us, putting up with us, taking care of us, fixing our […]
We did it! We actually spent our very first night in our new house. We are still surrounded by boxes and papers to unpack and put away, and there is still a punch list of “to be finished or fixed items”, but we have officially begun living in our new house. So I have to […]
Today was straight up exhausting. We moved for 13 straight hours without taking even a five minute break. It was nuts! And the sad part is that we barely made a dent in all that needs to be moved still. I have to remind myself every day that the mountains of stuff we still need […]
One of the most valuable assets we can have in life is to be trustworthy. It is worth gold whether in business or friendships or family. When you can trust a person it creates a bond of loyalty that runs deep. And when someone can trust you it gives you that same bond of loyalty […]
That quote comes from a talk given by one of my favorite speakers, Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Here are a few excerpts from the talk: “Over the years, I have had the sacred opportunity to meet with many people whose sorrows seem to reach the very depths of their soul…Often their grief is caused by what […]
Single parents carry an incredible burden. Only those who have been a single parent can truly understand just how heavy that burden is. For a period of ten years I was a single mother myself, trying to raise my two children who were around 2 and 5 years old when I got divorced. When I […]
“Family is like branches on a tree, we all grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.” I grew up in a family of ten children. Five boys and five girls. How my mother did it I will never know! Especially because we weren’t the most mellow of children to say the least. […]
My name is Amy and without a doubt, I am a workaholic. There, I said it. I admit it fully. I have a problem and I am taking the first step toward recovery, which they say is to admit it. Step one down, only eleven more steps to go :)…. I finally discovered I had […]
That is the inscription on the back cover of my Grandmother’s life history book. My grandmother passed away back in November of 2007. She was one of my dearest friends. And I am forever grateful that she left behind her written life history for me and for my children, and their children, and so on. […]
Today I met with Lisa Altman. Lisa and her husband are new to Utah and we were introduced by a mutual friend. Lisa and her husband are both former Opera singers who have spent their lives supporting and promoting the arts. They came to Utah for her husband to take a position as the Executive […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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