Mum's B-Day at the gardens

Happy America Day!!

Click on the upper left box at the end of the video(hamster in a monster suit) to see an equally great video about the Hamster Monster.

This one...

The Sky

"Even after all this time

The Sun never says to the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look what happens with a love like that,

It lights the whole sky." ~Hafez

Only from the heart can you touch the sky. ~Rumi

  God makes the sky for me everyday. 

Salt of the Earth

I saw this film today.  It was visually stunning as well as thought provoking, heartbreaking and hopeful.

Because what else would I do at a garden?

As I visited the Thanksgiving point gardens this week I realized that without a camera I probably wouldn't enjoy gardens much at all.  But with a camera, botanical gardens are an endless photo opportunity, a chance to capture an image and create something artistic.  Photography is my creative outlet and for me it's pretty therapeutic, a really good way to unwind and relax.  I spent 4 hours at the gardens and took 439 pictures which equals 1.8 pictures per minute.   This time I focused on "really close up shots". Thanksgiving Point Spring 2015.

Uptown "Dark Lord" Funk

Came across this parody earlier this week and thought I would share it.  It's fun.  The original song "Uptown Funk" is a good catchy tune written by Mark Ronson (famous British producer/song writer/singer) and is sung/preformed by Bruno Mars.  The Parody was done by some kids at BYU and became famous when J. K. Rowling apparented tweeted about it as a "work of genius".  I'm not sure about all that but it's fun so I'm sharing...

The original song:



Parody:

Trip to Disney!

Took a quick trip to Anaheim over the weekend.  We didn't plan it but it happened to be "Dapper Day" one of the days we were there so we dressed up.  Over all we spent three days at Disneyland and California Adventure, ate a lot of great food and had lots of fun.  I didn't take tons of pictures but here's a few: Disney Photos

I don't know who these people are but I wanted to save this video because it shows some of the awesome outfits from Dapper Day.

It's My Year!

It's the year of the GOAT!(or sheep or ram, which ever you prefer.)   I go with goat because goats are obviously the coolest.  I mean who wouldn't want a pet goat?

So what does "year of the goat" mean?  Well here's some zodiac info for you:

-People born in a year of the Goat are generally believed to be gentle mild-mannered, shy, stable, sympathetic, amicable, and brimming with a strong sense of kindheartedness and justice.

-They have very delicate thoughts, strong creativity, and perseverance, and acquire professional skills well. Although they look gentle on the surface, they are tough on the inside, always insisting on their own opinions in their minds. They have strong inner resilience and excellent defensive instincts.

-Though they prefer to be in groups, they do not want to be the center of attention. They are reserved and quiet, most likely because they like spending much time in their thoughts. Goats like to spend money on fashionable things that give them a first class appearance. Although goats enjoy spending money on the finer things in life, they are not snobbish.

Sounds pretty good to me!  And guess what?  Brown is my lucky color!  I guess this might explain the 15+ brown hoodies I own.

Happy Year of the Goat Everyone!!

Getting Back Into the Trend

Some of you may recall the last time we did this little routine...

I love her little feet!

Maki started tearing holes in her stomach again this week so we went to the vet for our annual cortisone shot which will fix her need to bite her stomach.  The onesie is so that she'll stop licking her current wounds to death so they can actually heal.  Lucky for us the onesie on clearance at the store was hot pink and says "genius" on it.

Happy Christmas

This rendition of this story is something that I revisit each Christmas and I thought I'd share it today.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

A Magical Night

  I had the incredible good fortune of attending this year's Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert last night.  Honestly during the Christmas season there is little to rival this concert when it comes to how much I feel the magic of Christmas.  The entire production is so well done, entertaining, moving, and joyful.  

This year's special guests were the Sesame Street Muppets and Santino Fontana. Santino Fontana is a Broadway singer that recently won the 2013 Tony Award for best Male Performance in a Musical.(He was also the voice of Prince Hans in Frozen).  He's very talented energetic and sweet.  The Sesame Street Muppets in attendance were Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Grover, Abby, Rosita and The Count.  They were so much fun as they participated in the musical numbers, caused havoc back stage and taught the lesson that Christmas is about what is in our heart and how we share it with others.  

It was a fun whimsical night with beautiful music, dancing, special effects and the spirit of Christmas in abundance.  Some highlights of the night include: Mac Wilberg allowing Big Bird to lead the choir and orchestra which was quite a sight to see.  Cookie Monster's tireless search for cookies even interrupting the night to beg people to look in their purses for even a crumb of a cookie.  Santino ended up singing the "C is for Cookie" song with him and trying to help Cookie Monster think of other things that started with C..."C is for Christmas", "C is for concert", "C is for choir" etc.  

Shown here:

Don't worry he got his cookies eventually! 

Here, Santino, Ernie, Bert, Big Bird, and the children's choir are singing "Sing, Sing a Song"

Perhaps the favorite of the night was the 12 Day's of Christmas, of course counted out by the count and accompanied by Richard Elliot on the big Organ.  It was simply amazing!

It was a fun and inspiring night.  There were moments of laughter/joy/excitement and moments of being emotionally moved.  The magic of Christmas is real for all ages.  Merry Christmas!

"And Wonders of His Love"

Day of Thanks, Family and Food!

Tilly took this one.

Inside me a voice repeating the phrase, you've lost it you'll never get out of this maze!

Daylight Saving