Thankful Day 30 - Love

I am thankful for those who show love to me.  My husband, my daughters, my family, my friends...thank you all.

Thankful Day 29 - Traditions

I am thankful for our family traditions.  I love this time of year, and our traditions have evolved over the years into events that we all look forward to.  My girls would rather spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home with family; I love that home is their happy place.

Thankful Day 28 - Teaching

I am thankful to be a teacher.  For the past ten years, my calling at church has been as a teacher.  First in Sunday School teaching 12 and 13 year olds, then in Young Women teaching 14 and 15 year olds, and for the past two years as a Relief Society teacher.  I love to teach and am thankful for the blessing it is to me.

Thankful Day 27 - Creativity

You can't use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have.  

Maya Angelou

I am grateful for the creative genetics I inherited and for other who are willing to share their creative inspirations.

Misha's School Pictures

Look how she's changed!

Thankful Day 26 - Exercise

I am passionate about exercise and grateful that most of the time my body cooperates in allowing me to exercise, strengthen muscles, and stretch.  There are days when I definitely don't want to exercise, but I am always grateful when it is done.

Thankful Day 25 - Daughters

I am blessed to have three beautiful, adventurous, fun girls.  They enhance my life and bring joy to my heart.

Thankful Day 24 - Christopher

I love this man.  I am so grateful for the day he walked in to my life. 

Thankful Day 23 - Warmth

Chris will likely nod his head at this, but I like to be warm.  I am grateful for fireplaces, socks, fleece jackets, heated car seats, heating blankets, heating pads, rice warmers, home heating systems.  I am grateful for them all!

College Visits

Is it crazy or what that I already have a daughter old enough to be considering college?  Chris flew to Utah with Amy and Misha to make college visits to Utah State University, Brigham Young University, and Utah Valley University.  Their flight took off Sunday afternoon (Nov. 27) after church.  They spent the night with Julie and Patrick Ransom in Layton, Utah.

The girls always enjoy spending time with Aunt Julie.  Kristen was disappointed that she didn't get to go visit as well.

Before leaving for the first campus visit in Logan on Monday morning, Chris and girls took Julie and Patrick out for breakfast at Kneaders.  I heard it was delicious.

Both girls enjoyed the visit to USU and felt as though it would be a good fit for them.  I think the smaller size was one of the factors that impressed them.

After optometric appointments on Tuesday morning for Chris and Amy, the three headed to Utah Valley for the visit at BYU.  Since we have made many visits to BYU throughout the years, we knew they would like this campus as well.

Utah Valley University didn't hold any attraction for them whatsoever--except for the new stained glass windows display that was just completed.

Chris made sure to show them the office/house where we met.

Thankful Day 22 - Very Happy Memories

I have been going through our pictures and organizing them in Adobe Lightroom.  Sometimes I see a picture and think, "Oh, I remember that day," and my heartstrings are tugged.  I am grateful for my sweet babies and little ones, and for all the moments along the way as our girls grow in to beautiful young women.  Happy memories indeed!

Mani Pedis

Another fun activity for Kristen and I while Chris, Amy, and Misha were in Utah was getting our nails done.  Kristen got bright red polish on her fingers and silver on her toes.  I chose a plum color for my toes.

Decorating for Christmas

While Chris and the two older girls were gone on college visits, Kristen and I thought we would surprise them by setting up the Christmas tree and decorating the house.  We had fun working together and only had one casualty--my fern got knocked over and the flower pot broke into pieces.

Thankful Day 21 - Uplifting People

I am thankful for people who uplift me with their words of encouragement, spiritual thoughts, smiles, gratitude, support, and kindness. You DO make a difference.

Thankful Day 20 - Temples

Our family was blessed to participate in the Fort Collins open house, Cultural Celebration, and Temple Dedication.  Knowing that families can be together forever is a blessing in my life.  I am grateful for the temple.

Thankful Day 19 - Spotify

I am thankful for our family's Spotify account.  Each of us is able to catalog and enjoy our own style of music; I love listening to Spotify throughout the day and adding or deleting songs as I like.

Rotating Tires

Chris is a great dad to teach his girls how to rotate the tires on their car.  (Shortly after he bought them new tires and could have had the tires rotated then, but it was a good skill for them to learn.)

Thankful Day 18 - Rocky Mountains

Except for when I was at school in Rexburg, I have lived in visual proximity of the Rocky Mountains throughout my life.  On a clear day, you could see a portion of the Rocky Mountain Range from my parent's kitchen window in Southern Alberta.  Provo was nestled at the foot of the mountains as they rose dramatically in the East when I lived in Utah, and now, this same mountain range majestically frames the western sky here in Colorado.  I am blessed to see their beauty daily (and thankful for the visual reminder that they are in the west).

Misha's Talent

Misha can sit down and crank out a picture such as this in about a week.  Her talent with art is amazing.

Thankful Day 17 - Quaint Cities

Chris and I had the opportunity to visit two cities in Belgium--Ghent and Bruges.  Both were quaint and lovely and simply delightful to explore.  We happened on Ghent when looking for a hotel match that would work with Chris' hotel points.  It was the most fun and picturesque hidden treasure.  I am thankful for quaint cities the world over.

Thankful Day 16 - Pinterest

I love Pinterest.  It has been my go-to resource for house design, landscape planning, flowers and plant questions, Christmas ideas, decor ideas and so much more.  I am thankful for Pinterest.

Thankful Day 15 - The Ocean

I love the ocean, especially on the Oregon Coast.  It is my happy place. (Aren't those little peeps so cute!?)

Thankful Day 14 - Nature

I love to take pictures of nature and the beautiful scenery the surrounds me.  I am especially appreciative of flowers and love to capture their beauty on camera.

Thankful Day 13 - Medicine

I am so grateful for modern medicines that are readily available.  Chris was in Prague last month and became sick with a cold.  I suggested that he should find a pharmacy and pick up some meds to help ease the symptoms.  He said it was not that easy.  He would need to see a doctor to get a prescription for even basic cold medicine.

Thankful Day 12 - Learning Something New

I am thankful for opportunities to learn something new and for people who are willing to share their knowledge along the way.  Right now I am trying to learn Adobe Lightroom.  I used to love Picasa for making quick tweaks and changes to the pictures I took.  When Google decided to discontinue Picasa, I was pretty disappointed.  It was easy for me to use and worked great with my blog.  Now I am trying to learn Lightroom and there is a definite learning curve.  I do a lot of research online, I've requested books from the library, and I asked a friend for help.  Fortunately, the information and help is out there.

Thankful Day 11 - Kindness Counts

I am thankful for the people in my life who personify kindness.

Thankful Day 10 - June

I am grateful for June.  It signifies that summer is ahead, winter is long past, and spring has brought blossoms.  June is the beginning of summer vacation, lazier days, trips, more sunlight, swimming lessons, girls' camp, and no jackets.

Thankful Day 9 - Insist on Happiness

Insist on happiness.  These three words were signed by Chris' Aunt Lori on a wedding card to us.  It made an impression then and continues to be a theme in my life.  I also sign it on all wedding cards I give. 

But life can be both bitter and sweet. 

It is up to us to choose whether we want to reflect 

the voices of gloom or gladness.  

Marvin J Ashton

Thankful Day 8 - Hugs

Hugs.  Chris and I arrived home from Europe last week, and before I even had a chance to get out of the car, my youngest was out of the house and around to my side of the car engulfing me in a hug.  It was nice to know that I was missed. 

Thankful Day 7 - Mind the Gap

When Chris and I traveled in England, we saw the phrase "mind the gap" often as we stepped off the subway.  We also saw other variations such as "mind your head" or "mind the step".  Other signage on the ground that I appreciated was "Look Left" and "Look Right" on the roadways telling me in what direction to look for oncoming traffic (since it was opposite to what I was accustomed).  One of Chris' coworkers came within an inch of being smunched because he failed to look.

I am thankful for reminders, warnings, spiritual promptings, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and uplifting messages that provide caution, uplift, direction, and motivation in my life. 

Amy's Senior Photos

Our friend and phographer, Becky Payne, of BPhotogenic took Amy's photos in September for her Senior pictures.  We love how they turned out.  Here's a sampling of some of my favorites:

Thankful Day 6 - Favorite Smells

Do you have a favorite smell?  I am grateful for a nose that lets me smell so many wonderful things:

A baby
Cinnamon and cloves
Fresh-baked bread
My sweetheart
Peppermint
Rain
Clean

Thankful Day 5 - Each New Day

It is a blessing to me to wake up to each new day.  I am thankful for beautiful sunrises, for quiet mornings, for children who are making good choices, for good health, for love. Life is good.

Thankful Day 4 - Dads and Daughters

There is an amazing bond between Chris and his girls.  When he travels we all miss him, and when he returns, it just seems as though suddenly everything is all right with the world again.  Chris has the ability to be a great equalizer of emotions in our home.  From November 2014:

Sometimes there gets to be a feeling in our home where the hormones are taking over and my emotions and my girls' emotions just escalate.  At that point, I am not really great at being an understanding mom.  But what amazes me is my husband's ability to understand and diffuse and bring calm to these crazy moments.  I am thankful every time he steps in with his humor or logic or simple kindness and teaches my daughters about love.  And in those moments, I am smart enough to step back and let him work his magic. 

For Chris' birthday, as we each sat around the table sharing why he was so important to us, Misha said, "I like working with Dad." Just being with Chris is a treat.

Thankful Day 3 - Changing Seasons

I feel incredibly blessed to see the changing of seasons so vividly out my windows.

Thankful Day 2 - Blogging

I never imagined when I started online blogging that it would evolve into such an experience.  As a family, we all love going back and reading about past adventures, trips, and amazing moments.  I love to look at the pictures and stories of my girls as they have grown, and look forward to sharing our lives with their families.

Meet Me in Europe - Day 8

Wednesday, 2 November  Time to go home.  Our flight didn't leave until around 11:30 am.  We got ready for the day, packing, showering, and having breakfast.  I was pleased to see that the hotel breakfast had "perfect oatmeal" today.

I took a few more window pictures as well as a picture of the beautiful medallion on the ceiling.

We checked out and waited for our taxi to arrive.  There was this cool bike parked in the corner of the lobby.  Ambience for sure, and perfect for the photography enthusiast like me.

Our taxi driver was an odd driver as he constantly pushed on the accelerator so that I felt like I was in a constant jolting motion.  Chris said it was the way that many Asian people drove, believing somehow that it saved on gas.  I'm not usually prone to carsickness, but if I had to put up with that driving too much longer, I might have headed in that direction.

Fortunately we arrived at the airport.  The signage there wasn't great.  So great to have Chris' navigation skills.  When I pulled out my passport even before checking in, my drivers license must have been in the folds of my passport and fell to the floor.  I didn't even realize it until the agent tapped me on the shoulder to hand it to me.  Whew.  We checked our luggage and started toward our gate.  But first Immigration.  The lines were not well marked, so we got in the line that the agent directed us to for a US-bound flight.  It wasn't until 15 minutes later that we saw that there was a Premium line.  We scanned through to that line and were on our way much faster.  The Premium line had one Immigration agent for less than ten people, while two other agents were trying to handle an ever-growing line of hundreds.

This airport had futuristic looking covered walkways.  That was one of the things Chris remembered from his first trip here.

From Immigration, we went to security, each time showing our boarding pass and passport.  They were being extra cautious every step of the way.  We finally reached our gate with a little time to spare.  We were grateful that we had given ourselves enough time this morning.

As we waited in the Group #1 boarding line, we heard, "Would Mr. and Mrs. Kline please check in?"  Chris and I looked at each other and shrugged.  The agents escorted us to the front of the line and greeted us with, "You are the only Global Services passengers on this flight," and then allowed us to board first once boarding began.

We settled in to our seats.  And for the next 7 1/2 hours I watched movies and typed, and typed more while watching movies: Mother's Day, Jungle Book, Mamma Mia!  Chris was surprised that I spent so much time on the typing.  I was just glad that I was getting it done before arriving home.  I will have so much other stuff to catch up on and pictures to go through.  Chris worked the whole time on the flight as well trying to catch up on creating slides for his upcoming CA World presentations.

Our flight arrived 1 hour and 12 minutes early!  This was my first re entry using Global Entry and it was pretty slick.  We didn't have to declare anything and were through Immigration in no time.  Sadly, the agent did not say, "Welcome home."  I was a tad disappointed.

We picked up our luggage from this flight and checked it in a short distance later for our domestic flight.  Since we had so much time to wait before our next flight, we hung out in the United Club Lounge for well over two hours.  Too bad we couldn't have found an earlier flight home.  The time passed quickly enough and we were soon on our way to C Terminal for our flight from Washington DC to Denver.  And more typing.

We arrived home around 8:15 pm.  Amy and Kristen were happy to greet us.  Kristen came out to the car before I even got out and hugged me and started to cry.  This girl is and always will be a Mama's girl.  I don't know how I am ever going to get her to leave the house for college!  Misha was already in bed sleeping.  Don't mess with a tired girl and her bedtime.

So good to be home.  So good to sleep in my own bed.  So good.

I saw this cool quote earlier in the day:

We must take adventures to know where we truly belong.  

Anonymous 

Home.

Meet Me in Europe - Day 7

Tuesday, 1 November   All Saints' Day   It was a holiday and perhaps the last of a four-day weekend for many Parisiennes.  We knew that some sites would not be open, but were happy to see that La Basilique du Sacre Coeur de Montmartre would be open for visitors.  We didn't rush quite so much this morning.  There was an obvious decrease in the vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic with the holiday.  We were usually out a lot sooner than many of the tourists, but noticed a remarkable increase around 11 am.

We left the hotel around 9:30 am, stopping to take a picture of the clock statue outside the hotel. Our train took us to Montmartre.  We had the option of taking a funiculare to the top of the hill, but opted for the stairs instead.  That is, after waiting in line to use the WC.  You had to wait for each person to enter the toilet, make use of it, exit the toilet, wait for the washing of the toilet, and then the next person could enter.  If you were desperate and dancing, this process would have made for a long wait.

This was the loveliest of the chapels we visited and not so dark and musty-smelling as many of the chapels were.  Chris had remembered it from visiting so many years ago with his dad and brother.  We spent a little time just enjoying the quiet of the church and then wandering around the grounds.  It was such a beautiful morning, a little chillier than yesterday, but still nice for the first of November.

This cute little girl just wouldn't smile for me.

We walked in to a more touristy area where men carrying large drawing boards asked to draw our picture almost at every turn.  We instead walked around the small courtyard checking out the artwork of other French artists.  I would have liked a few, but transporting would not have been so easy.  The neighborhoods here were just delightful and picturesque.  

I saw this character of a guy wandering around and thought, "Man, I want a picture of him."  I spied him posing for a portrait a short time later and sneakily tried to get this shot without him knowing I was really taking a picture of him and not the building behind him.

We found a fun wall that offered free slaps.

And Chris found the "I love you" wall.  Sadly, we didn't find "I love you" in Tagalog.  Chris had lost a lot of his steam today.  He had been going strong with a cold for over a week, and finally today he needed to take rests more often.  Chris also had texts from work coming in, so he would sit and take care of work stuff every so often.  

Here's the cool lettered walls in the Concorde Subway Station.

As we exited the Concorde station we could hear men's voices singing and instruments playing.  It was a tremendous sound in the acoustic subway.  Chris and I both looked at each other with excited smiles.  We rounded a turn to find a group of seven men singing away.  It was amazingly beautiful.

We planned to stop at Notre Dame again.  But first a bathroom, and that wait took at least a half an hour.  I'm sure it was a little easier for guys since they didn't have to worry about not getting their clothing wet against the freshly cleaned toilet.

We should have gone in to Notre Dame first because the line was so short.  When we came back, the line had grown and grown.  So we wandered around looking at the book sellers along the Seine and then ended up in the park area behind the Notre Dame.  Chris rested and I watched a photographer going to great lengths to photograph a couple getting married and wanting to have a huge veil covering both their heads.

Miraculously as they walked to another area in the rear gardens, my view of Notre Dame stayed empty for a time, and I was able to capture a few pictures of the chapel.

We also toured the Sainte Chapelle.  It was originally built to house relics brought to France by King Louis.  The relics today are supposedly housed in the Notre Dame and brought out on display every so often.  But Sainte Chapelle was amazing with 1,113 Bible stories depicted in stained glass in 15 stained glass windows.  We picked out Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, and the crucifixion of Christ.

We lunched at an Egyptian restaurant called Au Pt'it Snack.  The owner convinced us to have a chocolate and strawberry crepe for dessert.  Twisted our arms really.

We found the Luxembourg gardens and the Pantheon.  Lots of walking again today.

I needed to find another toilette.  We figured that surely McDonald's would have one.  I found the bathroom, but it required a code to get in.  I slipped in just as someone was exiting.  Meanwhile Chris was upstairs buying a sundae to get a code.  He was still able to use it, but after our late lunch and crepe, it was about all we could do to eat the sundae.  I had two bites and stopped.

We took the subway back to the hotel around 7 pm stopping in the Executive Lounge to grab a few snacks for later.  Chris had work stuff to take care of.  I chatted with the girls for a bit, but they were at the grocery store.  Responsible kids.  Gotta love them.  They asked how to tell if a cantaloupe was ripe or not.  I missed their later text asking about cutting it, but I'm sure they figured something out.  

We were leaving in the morning, so I worked to pack my things for the trip home.  I wasn't looking forward to a long day of travel, but I was excited to see my girls.

I was so worn out, I couldn't even stay awake long enough to talk to Kristen.