The best evenings are Utah summer evenings, and after hot, smoky days, the sunsets burn ribbons of orange and red across the horizon. Just as we have adjusted to a slower pace after the frenzied weeks of travel, missionary preparations, and goodbyes, this week ushers in busy school life. I feel nothing about the school year. It just is. Today as we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon to piano lessons, there were leaves on the hill which have lost some of their verdure. We wonder, will the autumn colors be more or less brilliant after this dry summer?
Today is Paige’s twenty-second birthday, and I am on my second attempt at a three-layer cake. The first three layers sit in the trash. I remember the effort for her first cake and my skills are still shaky for her twenty-second cake. My best girl. She is here for a few weeks as she shuffles her plans for housing.
We accomplished a lot this summer, and by we, I mean the kids. There was Paige’s internship in New York and Daniel’s mission, but here’s a shout-out for Timothy who finished drivers ed and Mark who learned to swim properly. Here’s a shout-out for the books we read, the conservative documentaries Timothy and Richard viewed, and all the water in which we have dipped our toes. Our necks craned to see the tops of Redwood trees and skyscrapers. We stopped on the sides of streams to throw rocks and sketch. We boated, biked, hiked, climbed, drove, and swam through this summer. We entered holy temples more often than usual. Summer of 2018 has been one of our best. It’s like we lived the lyrics of This Land is Your Land.
