Motherland or Gosh, I Love Cache Valley!

I steal away to Cache Valley whenever I can.  For me it's like coming up for air before having to go back to a hard swim.  I'm fairly certain I'm not cut out for city life, adolescent yearnings be damned.  The first thing I do when I get out of my car at Mom's house is to just stand there.  Just stand there and listen to...silence.  It's wonderful stuff for sure, and highly underrated.  

A portrait of a young artist.  I think we are all artists until someone tells us we aren't creative, that's why every preschooler enjoys finger painting.  No one has told them they aren't artistic yet.  

All the grandkids love painting rocks at grandma's house.  Ava is no exception.  Mom always finds them appropriate painting frocks AKA one of the hundreds of race shirts my parents have collected over the years. 

She has an artist's temperament.  Serious.  Sensitive.  Philosophical.  Prone to emotional outbursts.  Demanding. 

Goofy.

Grandma Debbie's dedicated to her craft: playing with the grandkids. 

The view from my brother's house.  I do believe Mt. Sterling is Cache Valley's best kept secret.  On a clear day you can see to Franklin...well almost. 

I've decided that Cache Valley is very geographically well-endowed.  The downside to all that beauty...nine months of blistering cold weather.  Okay I might have exaggerated a bit.  Eight months. 

More painting.

 More cousins.

 More cousins.

More cousins.

You get Ava and Ellie together and you have a recipe for giggling and teasing and a few crude references to bodily functions. 

Brielle was a big fan of Lily.  Everything she did fascinated her and she would crawl after her.  It's always hard to leave Cache Valley, especially because so many of the people we love live there.  But sometimes as I'm exiting off the freeway into SLC it almost...almost feels like home.  But not quite.