{"id":3398,"date":"2013-07-07T21:59:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T03:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=3398"},"modified":"2013-07-07T22:02:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T04:02:10","slug":"the-happiest-place-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/the-happiest-place-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Happiest Place On Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

And no, I am not talking about Disneyland.\u00a0 I am talking about Lake Powell\u2026that is the happiest place on earth in my opinion!\u00a0 I was blessed to be able to spend the entire week there last week with my family and several of our dear friends.\u00a0 We spent the week wakeboarding and surfing (oh, and eating way too much!).\u00a0 This was our second trip to Lake Powell so far this summer, which is rare for me as I have never been very good at taking time off, but I promised my family when I sold my company last year that I would take a good chunk of time off this summer to just play with them and I am so happy that I made that promise because this is the first time I have been able to spend so much time with my family and we are building memories that will last a lifetime and beyond.\u00a0 It has also helped me to see how important it is to get time away with the people you love to just enjoy one another and to focus on strengthening your relationships.<\/p>\n

We get so caught up in our day to day being busy and getting things done that we sometimes forget to focus on the people we love.\u00a0 There is a song that states:<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you giving the least to those who matter most? Are you sharing your best with those who really aren’t that close? Well it’s time to turn around, and find out where your greatest joys are found.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those lyrics have always touched me because it is so easy to get sucked into giving so much of ourselves to situations that don\u2019t really matter in life at the cost of giving ourselves to our families and loved ones, and it is nice to have a reminder once in a while to step back and evaluate whether or not your time and attention is being given to the things that matter the most in life.\u00a0 I don\u2019t recall ever hearing of anyone, who in their final days of their life, that states that they regret not having spent more time at work.\u00a0 But almost everyone who shares their end of life thoughts states that they wish they had spent more time building memories with the people they love.\u00a0 That should serve as a lesson for all of us that are still in the middle of living our lives.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to wait until the end of my days when it\u2019s too late to fix the past to recognize the need to spend more time with my family.\u00a0 I want to recognize it right now while I can still do something about it, and hopefully all of you feel that same way.<\/p>\n

Summer only comes once each year.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let this summer pass you by without making time to spend it with the people you love.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have to be an expensive activity to be a great memory together.\u00a0 Often the simplest activities make for the best memories of all.\u00a0 The important thing isn\u2019t what you are doing, it is who you are doing it with.\u00a0 So get out there and spend some fun time making great memories this summer!<\/p>\n

Here are some fun photos from our vacations so far this summer – have a great day everyone!:<\/p>\n

\"1010682_480927805324924_1299479885_n\"<\/a>

Our Houseboat<\/p><\/div>\n

\"1063861_480929818658056_942496900_o\"<\/a>

My sexy husband!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"I<\/a>

I still got it \ud83d\ude42<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Our<\/a>

Our daughter Ashley with her cardboard cutout of her brother Dalton who is busy serving a mission for the LDS Church right now. We take his cutout everywhere<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ashley's<\/a>

Ashley’s first time surfing since her ACL Surgery – she rocked it!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Every<\/a>

Every girl needs a pink boat \ud83d\ude09<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Forever<\/a>

Forever friendships are formed at Lake Powell!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"My<\/a>

My little girl and I – except she is not so little anymore \ud83d\ude41<\/p><\/div>\n

\"I<\/a>

I love this man<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Goodnight...sleep<\/a>

Goodnight…sleep tight…<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And no, I am not talking about Disneyland.\u00a0 I am talking about Lake Powell\u2026that is the happiest place on earth in my opinion!\u00a0 I was blessed to be able to spend the entire week there last week with my family and several of our dear friends.\u00a0 We spent the week wakeboarding and surfing (oh, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,251,60,410,63,1447,1451,179,51,189,591,1446,55,180,1450,1254,1455,1453,35,596,1452,80,351,1454,804,1449,238,78,196,192,1253,1448],"class_list":["post-3398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ashley","tag-balance","tag-beautiful","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-boating","tag-bucket-list","tag-dalton","tag-family","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-happiest-place-on-earth","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-houseboat","tag-lake-powell","tag-lds-church","tag-least","tag-love","tag-loved-ones","tag-matter","tag-mission","tag-missionary","tag-most","tag-summer","tag-surfing","tag-thankful","tag-time","tag-utah","tag-vacation","tag-vacay","tag-wakeboarding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3398"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3421,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions\/3421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}