Mindless Musings...and Life Snapshots

I used to be a really good journal writer. I started keeping "summer" journals when I was in the 6th or 7th grade. Then, in high school, I had an odd and eccentric, albeit fantastic English teacher named Miss Miller. She required us to keep a journal. So from my first day of high school, until the day that Aynsli was born, I have a daily account of my oft times BORING life. Yet I have that account. Since then I have been a HORRIBLE journal writer. And those have been the most important and exciting days of my life, and there is little written record of them at all. Thankfully, I am a picture taker. I love pictures, and much of that time can be accounted for in pictures. Not the daily funny things that happen, but many of the events of life. I have been looking at blogs today...its funny how circular life can be. You go to one friends blog for the first time, and find three more friends on there that you know and go to their blogs. There you find someone else to add to your blog list. And on it goes...and you see how different everyone is. Some are avid bloggers, some more like once in awhile. Others highlight their great vacations and travels, some the everyday funny things their kids do. But in the end, its at least a snapshot of our life. I need to get more snapshots of my life on here, I think. I don't have many pictures from our first year of marriage (we didn't get our digital camera until our 1st anniversary) but if I find some, I'll post some occasionally. Today's snapshots of life come from the year 2006. We were living in Lapeer, Michigan at the time.

In September 2006 we decided to take a fairly impromptu trip to Niagra Falls. We lived so close to so many neat things in Michigan, and didn't take nearly advantage of them as we should. But this one we did, and it was well worth it. I had been there when I was 8, but Chris had never been there, so it was an adventure for all of us. And it provided Aynsli with her first trip out of the country, (we spent most of the 8 hour drive driving across Canada) and added another state to her visited list--we crossed back over and spent the night on the New York side. Niagra Falls is an awesome place, figuratively and literally.

In July 2006 we made our second trip to Philadelphia, where Chris' sister Barbra and her family were living at the time. They were only a couple hours from the Atlantic Ocean, so one day we drove to the coast and spent all day at the beach just south of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Aynsli loved the water, and even more so playing in the sand. I loved her swimsuit and swim hat!

Wesley and Aynsli in August 2006--oh how they have grown!

We drove to Utah in July 2006--with a stop in Denver for the Condie Family reunion. After that we drove on to Utah where we spent 3 weeks. We got to Utah and Chris left 2 days later to fly to Boston for a work conference, and then back to Michigan to close on the selling of our home, before flying back to Utah. We came, because my youngest brother, Devin, was getting married. These pictures were taken on Temple Square the day he got married. We left the day after and made the 3 day trip back to Michigan

The week that we got home from Utah we moved out of our house and into an apartment. These pics are a sunset and fall colors from our apartment balcony. I have to say, the fall in Michigan is something you have to see! The colors are amazing and brilliant, and pictures don't do them justice at all!