Celebrating Mom

My mom's birthday is at the beginning on November, so we all gathered to her house to celebrate her. Here are the pictures I love from that day. I sure do love my family; they make me happy.

Raking Leaves

Evan and Chance came over in November to help us clean up our yard of leaves. We had a bit of play time and enjoyed the nice weather. Got a few pictures of Chance playing.

Friday Night Videos

I hope that everybody had a great Thanksgiving. We had fun with two different dinners/desserts, so we ate more than we needed. We didn't mind.

Yesterday, before the dinners, I stumbled across the story of Stephanie Nielson and her husband, who were in a plane crash and survived; but not without the physical scars. I was touched by her story and various videos I found...I began to read her blog. My family was in a plane crash when I was four and I realize how lucky...lucky isn't the right word...we were protected. I have always known this, but never understood it. Stephanie's strength is astounding. Here is one of the videos on her story:
Click Here to go to her blog.

Rafael's Art Studio

Way back, at the end of October, one of my friends and I went to visit a little art studio. We'd heard about it and thought it would be interesting.

The studio is located at 1320 S State Street, and the tours are offered on Fridays from 12:00 (noon) to 2:00 p.m.

We didn't know what to expect, but I can say that we were surprised by what we saw.

Rafael is not associated with any religion, but he has studied the Bible, Book of Mormon and the Torah, among other religious writings. His art is based on the theologies he's read and interpreted. It was an interesting experience, if not creepy at times.

He has hallways, and staircases going off into narrow passageways. Many of those, were ones he didn't show us. At one point, deep into the "depths of hell," my friend and I looked at each other, and I could read that her expression was what I was feeling. We were very deep into the ground and I thought, I hope I've been paying attention because if Rafael was to turn off the lights, we'd have no way to know how to get out...it was a labyrinth in many places.

Although I didn't get a negative vibe from Rafael, I was relieved to get out of the building at the end of the tour. I felt pretty unsettled.

Here are some of the pictures I took that day.

The first of the many statues he showed us was this version of Eve, climbing onto the back of the serpent to reach the fruit.

This hellish version of the serpent is found deep in the ground, in the depths of Hell.

This is Eve as Lady Wisdom:

Rafael didn't explain this one to us, we walked past it and I wanted a picture:

Hanging on the wall are these old instruments. Rafael used to work at Summerhays Music before it burned down. This is what he recovered:

This is the only picture of Rafael that I have. He turned right as I snapped the picture.

To see more of the pictures, click here.

Farewell, My Friend

This past week, a friend of mine passed away from complications of pneumonia. It was shocking for all of us who counted him a friend.

He was one of those people, that other people want to be like. He was kind, generous, supportive and loyal to his friends. And he made friends easily.

There wasn't a time when I'd stop by his office that he didn't offer me chocolate. He always had a smile. He made the best homemade ice creams and various other desserts...which, he shared the recipes with me. I'm happy to have them.

It used to make me so mad that he would try to start a water fight at the most random times...because it made him happy.

When I was offered the position of trainer, we was more happy than I was expressing...he was so happy for me because he thought this would be a perfect position for me - that I would flourish. He was right.

I will miss running into him and seeing his smile and hearing his laugh. He was a very good man and he deserved a lot more than he ever had here, and I hope that he knows the impact he had in my life, and the lives of all those he touched. It sounds cliche, but he really did impact people with his kindness. I will have a couple of taco-stand-dollar-tacos with week in his honor.

There's so much more I want to say about our friendship and the influence had on me growing up, but I will leave it at: I will miss him.