Ornamentea

I visited my dream bead store yesterday.  What, you don't have a dream bead store?  Well, you are missing out.  I have been watching Ornamentea's website for years.  They have such a fresh style and new ideas, I couldn't wait to visit.  I made Heber detour our ride home just so I could stop in.  Come on, I've been dying to visit for years.

It didn't disappoint.  There were so many great ideas and I felt so much inspiration.  I think I could have spent hundreds of dollars.

I think I can feel the creativity creeping back into me.  For a very long time even over a year, I just didn't have it.  I would sit down to make something and nothing would come.  There was even a few months in there that I packed up and put away my jewelry making supplies.  I put everything in the closet.  There has never been a time in the last 10 years that I haven't had beads close at hand so that was pretty significant.  Maybe it was exhaustion, stress, processing moves, worry...it was a lot of things.  This parenthood and I guess life thing is rough sometimes.  But, it's coming back, the creativity is here.  I take that as a good sign.

I sat down at my table and I made things I've never seen before.  I brought my glass into my work and created some pieces that I am more proud of than ever before.  There is so much joy in creating something beautiful.  It buoys me up and gets me through the days when everybody is melting down or just being toddlers (you know what mean). Here's some of the things I've been making lately. 

 

 

Outer Banks 2015

I have been in beach mourning ever since we got home from our trip to Outer Banks last weekend. I think I just want to live at the beach forever.

 

  Life is so much more relaxed at the beach.  There is always going to be sand everywhere so I have no expectation that it's going to be any other way.  No one worries about makeup, I don't blow dry my hair and I just let it be for a bit.  Maybe this is a lesson I need to take home into my regular life.  

Amy didn't sleep much the first night and was up very early the next morning.  I gathered her up and we walked down to the water together.  I stood in the sand and just thought about life.  There is something about the water, the waves that is the most calming thing to me.  In my life, there is very little calm so I steal these little moments.

 

The happiest part of the trip for me was watching the kids discover and play in the water.  Leo has always loved the beach and Amy had no fear.  We spent a truly blissful afternoon playing and laughing.  I'm going to tuck it away as one of my happiest memories.

 

 

 

  We rented the most beautiful beach house.  It was the nicest one we've stayed in, by far (lets not talk about the one with the half bath on the porch).  I admired all the little beach touches.

I think I have two little beach bums.  Leo hasn't stopped talking about being at the beach.  I printed up some pictures and Leo had to have all of the beach ones hung on his door.  I never thought I'd want to return to the same place over and over, I like adventure in my life but now I want to come back to the same place again and again.  I can't get enough of being there.  This trip, we were able to share it with my parents.  I have been talking about it for years so it was so fun to share it with them too.  I think they loved it as much as we did. 

 

An Ophir Easter

It's been years since I've been to Ophir (a ghost town) but I can remember so many experiences under those rocky mountains. We'd explore the caves, eat good food and run down to Minnie's, a small store that mostly carried penny candy.  This was even the place where we told our families that we were expecting Leo.  I can see myself as a young child picking wildflowers, as an awkward teenager, as a newly married adult.  It's been a place we celebrated big events and small and where I will forever picture my grandparents.  I learned how to love the mountains here.  It's been almost 4 years since I've been there.

For my whole life, I have gone to the same parties every year.  There was the Christmas Eve party at Grandma Lois' with so much Christmas magic, the 4th of July celebration at Grandma Barbara's with parade watching and cold cut sandwiches.  And then there was the Easter part in Ophir.  Even if there was snow on the ground, we were up in my grandparent's cabin hunting Easter eggs and eating dutch over.  I have been so lucky to have had a large close extended family. As I've become an adult, these parties have slowly gone away or changed significantly.  Homes are sold, loved ones pass away and life changes.  It doesn't stop me from mourning the loss of these special traditional memories.

My siblings

This year, we had an Ophir Easter.  I feel so lucky that my kids could experience an Ophir Easter complete with the huge Easter egg hunt and traditional trip to the Minnie's equivalent.  My little ones may not remember being there but I will.

The new Minnie's

The cousins shopping at Minnie's

 Ophir is deep in my roots and such a part of who I am.  There is something about being there that sparks in me a love for my family and for the past.  I could picture me there at all the ages and stages of my life.  It's a weird dichotomy lately, it all felt very much the same being there and completely different at the same time.  I'm thinking it's because I live in this completely different place than how I grew up.  Utah is such a huge part of me but not at the center anymore.

 

 

 I am stepping out to be my own person and start our own traditions but I still long for the past too.  There is a happy medium though, my homemade chocolate eclairs.  That's my traditional food at Easter, happy I could share it with those I love. 

 

This is how I remember Ophir, just sitting around and eating.

 

Chicago.

Chicago.  I flew out all by myself for a weekend away.  I don't know that I have ever been away from the kids.  To say this was momentous was an understatement. 

I met my sisters and mom to spend a few days seeing the sights, ok, really we were there to shop.  It's how we Lawrence's travel.  Heber doesn't understand that is what you do on vacation.  Between us all, we left behind four husbands and nine young children.  I can't believe that it all came together but we had the best time talking and laughing together.  I miss them so much that it was nice to be able to see them.

 We ate at some great restaurants.  My favorite was the Shake Shack.  Yes, it's a burger place but it was the best burger I've had.  Ever.  We really liked XOCO, a mexican but not traditional mexican food place. 

 

 

 

 

 We stayed in the Courtyard Marriot off the Magnificent Mile.  I usually don't put in hotels, but this one was great! It was so close to everything, all the shopping and good food and it was right by public transits spots to get anywhere else.  If you're going to Chicago, stay there!

It felt weird to be without my little family.  I'm so used to keeping an eye on little ones that it was a nice break to just look out for myself for a while.  Heber was a champ here at home and made it possible for me to go.  He said it went pretty well except for Amy seeing my picture and breaking down and pointing at me.  I guess it's not a bad thing to be wanted.   The time away gave me some new perspective on our life. 

North Carolina

Well...we did it again.  We stayed in a hotel this weekend.  I thought I'd sworn them off forever (not really, but do you remember the 32 nights we spent in one this summer?).  It was not that bad, we actually had a great time. 

This picture just sums the whole trip up.  The kids were troopers.  Amy is such a fun girl right now.

We took a road trip this weekend down to North Carolina to visit some old Logan friends.  We don't have hardly any family here on the East Coast but the Kudin's are like family.  Janette was blessing her new baby and we couldn't pass up the chance to support them and celebrate their new little guy.

I met Janette years ago in an Irish Dance class. She's known me through several variations of myself.  You know what I mean, right?  First as a newlywed, as a grad student, and now as a mom.   Don't you have variations of yourself?  I feel like I learn so much and grow in each phase of life that I'm a different person every few years.  We are still in the moving in portion of Virginia and few people really know me and my history.  It's nice to have a face to face conversation with someone who does.


We had a very low key trip with lots of good food and conversation.  I have to say that my favorite part was just being in the car with Heber and having nothing but time to talk.  We've reached a phase in life where there seems to be an infinite number of things to do and needs of little people to be met.  It all filled me up and made me feel happy about the world, even if we didn't see or do anything groundbreaking, well, except for that Mennonite Restaurant, that food was pretty life changing.  We enjoyed it all immensely.