Elves at Gardner Village

Gardner Village is one of the absolute best places to go during the Christmas Holiday. They really go all out with their decorations. Including the Elves. They are everywhere an they had them all this year: ice skating elves, bird watching elves, cookie making elves, a naughty and nice list, tree decorating elves, an elf band, and much much more. My mom and I went there after the Festival of tress the 1st week of December. It was a lot of fun looking for all the elves. Even if it was cold. Enjoy my pictures, there are Lot's, I could spend hours there just snapping photos.

Festival of Tress

My mom and I went to the Festival of the trees. It was nice to spend the day with her.

Anniversaries and Birthdays

Jared's Birthday and our Anniversary are exactly one day apart. I guess in a effort to keep him forgetting our Anniversary this date was chosen. Really that is the only reason why I can think that we were married they day after his birthday. Does it work? Maybe it would if I wasn't reminding him every single day.
This year Jared was working long hours again on his Birthday so it was a low key celebration. Just the two of us with dinner at home and cupcakes.

We shared one with the dogs too

I made sure the house was decorated appropriately

and I made him a card. I know he had a good day even though he really doesn't like his birthday for some reason.

The very next day these lovely flowers showed up at my work to wish me a Happy Anniversary.

We celebrated both occasions by doing something that we have discovered we both enjoy, watching the Bee's play baseball.

It was a great weekend and I really enjoy the time I get to spend with him. Some weeks he is super busy at work so it's nice to take time out and reconnect a little. We celebrated 15 years this year and it is so hard to believe because it only seems like 5. Maybe our life together didn't turn out exactly they way we thought it would all those summer night years ago but I love the life I have with him and couldn't ask for anyone better to share the rest of my life with. I Love You Jared, forever and always.

To all of our veterans in Utah and elsewhere, I want to give a heart-felt THANK YOU for all you've done for us.

And let us not forget why we celebrate Veterans Day on November 11. Originally called Armistice Day, World War 1 was officially ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. For years, all Americans were encouraged to stop what they were doing and observe a moment of silence on November 11 at 11am. I wish we still did that.

The casualties of WW1 were horrific. While the U.S. lost "only" 116,708 soldiers during WW1, look at what our allies lost:

Britain had 885,138 military deaths and 109,000 civilian deaths.
Canada had 64,944 military deaths.
France had 1,397,800 military deaths and 300,000 civilian deaths.
Greece had 26,000 military deaths and 150,000 civilian deaths.
Romania had 250,000 military deaths and 430,000 civilian deaths.
Russia had 1,811,000 military deaths and 1,500,000 civilian deaths.
Serbia had 275,000 military deaths and 450,000 civilian deaths.

And our enemies:

Austria-Hungary had 1,100,000 military deaths and 467,000 civilian deaths.
Bulgaria had 87,500 military deaths and 100,000 civilian deaths.
Germany had 2,036,897 military deaths and 426,000 civilian deaths.
Ottoman Empire had 800,000 military deaths and 4,200,000 civilian deaths.

In all, World War 1 saw the deaths of 10 million soldiers and 9 million civilians. 19 million people died!! No wonder people in Europe still celebrate November 11 as "Armistice Day."

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


Hats off to our veterans

It's Autumn time.....

Or it was when these pictures were taken. Towards then end of September Jared and went out to Tooele for the open house for our new call center (for work) On the way home we wanted to go to Salt Lake city so we decided to go up over the mountain so I could do some leaf peeping. They hadn't really started changing too much but the ride was still pretty.

We had some time to kill before we had to be at a friends birthday party so we decided to drive up to the copper mine and check it out. It had been a few years since we had been up there. For my readers that may not be from around here, here is a little information about the mine
The Bingham Canyon Mine, also known as the Kennecott Copper Mine, is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, in the Oquirrh Mountains. It's the deepest open-pit mine in the world. It is owned by Rio Tinto Group, an international mining and exploration company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The copper operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery. The mine has been in production since 1906, and has resulted in the creation of a pit over 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covering 1,900 acres (7.7 km²). According to Kennecott, it is the world's largest man-made excavation.[3] It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 under the name Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine.[2]

These dump trucks look so small when zoomed it but they are quite large as apparent in the picture of the tire shows.

Topographical map of the pit over the years.

The visitors center has a lot of information on the history of the mine over the years and people were coming in by bus loads. It was a nice change of pace from what we normally do.

Happy Sweet 16

My nephew Ryan turned 16 on the 11th of September. To celebrate my sister had a BBQ and invited people to come over.

Ryan wasn't around much as his little girlfriend was there so they hung out inside away from the adults. I took pictures of what I could. It was a nice night and a fun party. Ryan is a really sweet kid and it's nice to spend time with them.