Joshua's Modeling Career

We just discovered this beautiful print, Committent, by artist Julie LeFevre of Utah. Julie was a friend of Joshua's back in his BYU days who began painting this picture using Joshua, his brother Justin, and his roommate Bob, as models. It depicts Christ in Gethsemane with the angel, the moment of committment before the atonement. Can you see Joshua in this rendition?

This picutre is a few years earlier. Joshua was about 21 or 22 at the time. It's Brian Durfee's rendition of Galahad and the Holy Grail. Posing with roommates Bob Craghead and Brent Nielsen. Supposedly this is hanging in a church down in Alabama.

Montana Trip 2008

So we just got back from about 5 days in Montana. Joshua's Dad has some land up there, which I had never seen, so we decided to camp out for a few days. Given how spoiled I was at girl's camp (condo camping) this year, we really made up for it on this trip. There's much to be said about showering in the wilderness, almost stepping on a rattle snake while hiking and hearing birds at night that I swear sound like bears.

We did have a couple home cooked meals at Aunt Vonnie's one night and Uncle David and Aunt Dorothy another. We even slept over at Dave and Dororthy's one night so we could go to church with them. So we had a few breif intermissions in our wilderness adventure.

We took a drive up to the Bear Tooth Mountains, where you get up about 12000 feet--where the tree line ends if you can believe it. Breathtaking! We enjoyed absolute peace and quiet for 5 days, drank fresh spring water, read some, slept some, rejuvenated much!

The drive home...not so much our favorite. We detoured through Yellowstone, which added about 5 hours to an already long drive. That part was great, but then driving home through Wy-freaking-oming, behind major slowpokes, we couldn't get home soon enough! Other than that, this was an amazing trip and we can't wait to go back.

Near brush with greatness

So, do you ever have those moments when you think of doing something, you talk yourself out of it, and then you realize later that had you gone with your first instinct, the outcome would have been big (good or bad)? We'll last week, my boss and I took a business trip to San Diego. As I booked her flight home to match mine which had been booked for a week, I thought to myself...I should change my seat and give her the exit row. Not wanting to risk loosing both our our seats while switching them around, I figured, eh...I'll just trade her when we board that day if she wants it.
Well, being the gracious person she is, she declined my offer to trade seats and she took her seat one row behind me. Suddenly...on walks Governor John Huntsman, Jr. and he proceeds to sit right next to my boss. Dang...coulda been me! I would have loved to ask him about this freaking 4 day work week he's put in place.

We're debt free!!!

Yay for us and yay for everbody! As of today, we've paid the final payment on any and all of our consumer debts. We wont say how much, but in a year of tight budgeting and blessings from the Lord in our finances, we have pulled the balance on two credit cards and a motorcycle to ZERO! The next step is to find a house. Yikes. It may be short lived, but today and until we sign mortgage papers we are no longer slaves to someone elses money. Yippee!