Bragging Rights

As the mother of a young adult, it isn't often that I have something fun or exciting to write/brag about in relation to my child. However, this is one of those times. Rich loves photography. For Christmas we bought him a very nice, Canon camera. Not a "point and shoot", but rather one that will take him far until he can work his way up to what he really wants. He has taken classes in school and as his mother I think he is very artistic. His photo style is unique to him. As I reminded my mother, Rich isn't the photographer of smiles, butterflies, and flowers. His subjects are usually simple and different. Case in point -- last year at school Rich entered the Springville Art Show. This is open to all juniors and seniors throughout the state. Only two students per high school are selected to participate and out of those 700 students, only half are chosen to go on to the finals. It is quite an honor to be selected to participate in this art show. Rich was one of those 350 students. His winning picture -- a black and white door knob. This wasn't just any door knob mind you, it was a door knob which is several hundred years old and hand carved of wood. This door knob is located at the historical Cove Fort in Utah. When his photo was first judged and accepted, it was only an 8x10 matted and framed picture. In order for it to be displayed at the Springville Art Musuem, it had to be enlarged. It is now 24 x 22 and hanging behind my office desk. This was the first of Rich's winning photos. His next several photos were entered into the county fair, where each took first place. These pieces of "art" were weeds in front of the school, part of a unique spiral glass sculpture, and a plain (not his style) cactus flower. His spiral glass sculpture photo took fourth place at the state fair. Not too bad for his first couple of art shows.

This evening we spent our time preparing again for this year's Springville Art Show. Rich is submitting four photos this year through the school. His subjects -- a black and white photo of a very old claw-foot tub at the Huntsman Hotel located at This is the Place State Park; an old red & white barber's pole on a white and black building located on main street in Cardston, AB, Canada; half of an empty snow filled bottle in the blowing snow of Cardston; and our favorite, part of an old Pony Express station in Ely, Nevada. I will post later as to the results of this art show, as well as the pictures themselves. Good luck Rich! Keep up the good work.

A Perfect Day

Even though I spent it indoors, yesterday was a perfect day. The sky was gray, it rained lightly, it was fairly warm (for a January day), and I was in my favorite, comfy clothes -- my husband's jeans and one of his button-up shirts (oversized on me), and my long blue sweater. I even had a good book to go along with the day. The only thing missing was a diet coke.

Home Again, Home Again . . .

It has been just over a week since we've been back from vacation and it feels good to be home. We spent Christmas this year with Sterling's family in the great white north -- Cardston, Hillspring & Balzac/Airdrie, Alberta Canada. Temperatures here in Utah were about 25 to 30 but in Canada it was-25 to -32. Brrr! I thought of my brother Paul and sister-in-law Carmell, who live in Alaska. This is what it's like for them too. But for the time being we'll stick with visits scheduled for the summer months.

Even though I consider myself rather warm blooded I think that if I lived in Canada my heating bills would be outrageously high. This is the third time in six years that Rich and I have been to Alberta, but the other two times were during the summer when the weather was alot more mild. Sterling has talked about growing up with Canadian winters and I could never imagine how cold of a winter that was, but I can say that I have had a taste of one.

1. The Cardston, Alberta Temple at night

2. Chief Mountain
3. Blowing snow
4. Snow covered field

5. Blowing snow -- this is what we were driving through on our way back to Cardston from Calgary

We knew that Canada's prices were higher than those in the States, but we had forgotten just how high. For example -- Milk $4.19 a gallon, gas 68.5 per liter (times this by 4 and you have about $2.75 per gallon -- in Utah gas was only $1.39 per gallon), and cereal $6.29 to $10.99 per box!! I don't think that I will complain about our "high prices" here in the good ole' USA.

We spent our time visiting family (our main reason for going) -- "Mum", sister, brothers, nieces, nephews, uncle and cousins -- most of whom we knew and got to know better, a few that we had never met. Everyone knew we were coming except Mum and she was really surprised. That was our plan! On Christmas Eve we attended a live nativity in Calagry. It was sooo cold! Nathan & Kina (Sterling's nephew and his wife) were Mary & Joseph. The pagent was pretty awesome. The live Nativity is something that has been performed for the past 40 years and and though it was extremely cold (metal bleachers) it was pretty neat to see. The performances were every 15 minutes beginning at 7:00 p.m. and going until 9:00 a.m.

1. Part of the cast of the nativity
2. Kina & Nathan as Mary & Joseph
I was glad that we had made the time and sacrifice to make the trip. Rich especially enjoyed visiting with his cousins whom he rarely sees and though he keeps in touch through the age of technology with the assistance of "textmessaging" and "Facebook", it is not the same as being able to spend time together. Rich and I are truly blessed to be a part of the Martin family. They're a crazy bunch of Kanucks but we love them alot!