god bless the u.s.a....and roosevelt, ut

i was at phillip vaughn's house, waiting for him to give my friend

marissa and i a ride to school when i saw the plane hit the second

tower.  and then we heard bits and peices of updates that day at school.

but the thing i remember most about those weeks and months after the

attacks is watching the news in tears with my parents as families posted

signs with pictures of their missing loved ones, or waited

 for them to be found in the rubble.  heartbreaking.

this year, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks,

my family took a trip down to sandy to visit the "healing fields."

it was a touching experience, and i was glad that we could pay our respects

and honor those who lost their lives, loved ones, livelihood, or sense of safety

on that day, which will also live in infamy.

hard to believe today that we also found and/or gained some things on 9/11...

a renewed sense of american pride

patriotism (regardless of your political party)

god

a love for our public defenders/employees

hard to believe because in only ten years we've forgotten that although we

got into a war that we didn't all agree on, we were able to get over

ourselves for half a second to work toward the greater good of our country.

i digress...

this was a good day.  even though we were remembering something

horrible.  hopefully we'll be able to learn more than violence from

our past.  because i tend to think that if we continue to live in a world

where the villains with money face no consequences and our politicians continue

to win with campaigns promising that they'll vote "no" no matter the issue just

because the guy who proposed it is represented by dumbo rather than an ass

that history will probably be repeating itself somewhere down the road.

i have hope that things will change, because for awhile there they did.

 

a few weeks after our trip to the healing fields, i took a little trip

to roosevelt, ut.  not because its the number one tourist attraction

in the beehive state, but because i needed to spend a little quality time

with this lovely lady:

mrs. kaycee blake anderson, my dear best girlfriend from the good old

days of high school and club volleyball, where we wreaked for days and

sang our conversations to the point where we nearly lost all of our other

friends.

its funny (and sad, sometimes) how things can change between friends

after high school.  but i have to say that this is one friendship that has only

gotten stronger.  not because its been easy...we haven't lived within 3 hours

of each other in over five years, but that's what the phone is for!

we're still in pretty different life phases of life, too, but that's how you know

its true love!

i went out to roosevelt to spend the weekend with her, her husband and little

boy, and the other little guy who is due to arrive the day after my birthday.

it was great - watched a bunch of youtube videos that made us laugh until

we cried, we spent money our husbands will never know is missing on antiques,

 she made some delicious food for us to devour, and we watched

the U wipe their behinds with the byu football team.  what more could a girl ask for?

well, i thought nothing until i saw that the leaves were starting to change color

on my drive home (yep, i risked my life to take this picture out of my car window

rather than pull over.  smart.).

the real start to my favorite season reared its beautiful head,

and then my perfect weekend was complete.