Freckle Eye Fancy

Sometimes I feel like the things I write about on here are better suited for a private blog that no one else needs to read, because basically it's just me spewing out my feelings and no one probably actually cares. So if you're reading this, thanks for caring. Or at least pretending to care. My goal for this summer was to finalize my novel and get a few query letters sent out to agents. After spending a nice couple days with family in Idaho Falls, I decided to hit it hard today and get the letter knocked out so that when I'm ready, I can customize it to the agent, and send it on it's merry little way. The letter is done, and the thought of it being done is actually kind of freaking me out. I still need to find agents to send it to, and need to edit the book yet again, but the letter is done. For now. This could be the very thing that gets someone to read my manuscript, and possibly get the book published! Ahh!! While I was writing the letter, I decided to print out a...

</div> Last week was my first official week of summer break, and I couldn't have asked to spend it any differently! Brandon and I had planned to go to London but decided that, since we still have a big vacation coming up, we would be better off saving the money for baby, and going to London next summer. He still had the week off, and we definitely made the most of it! Monday was cold and rainy, so we did some chores, ran errands, and bought bikes! We had been wanting to buy bikes since we moved into our last house, and finally had the time to do it. Tuesday morning we got up early and went to hike Donut Falls. On our way there, though, my low tire pressure light came on!! So we had to stop and get it patched really quick (downside of living in a neighborhood under construction I guess. Stupid nails.) but then we were on our way! It was a beautiful hike, and I loved that it was tucked so far back into the canyon. It was nice to get away from all the noise. That afte...

After the death of Christina Grimmie last Friday night, and the tragic shooting on Saturday night/Sunday morning, I feel overcome with grief and sadness. I have spent these past few days trying to wrap my head around these events, and I can't. I feel like I'm back in fifth grade, watching the footage of the planes crash into the World Trade Center over and over again. I was so confused then. Why did the planes crash? Didn't they know there were people in those buildings? How do you accidentally fly a plane into a building? Wait, it wasn't an accident? Someone did this on purpose? I thought bad guys were only in movies? This time, though, I know the bad guys exist. I have read countless theories as to why the shooter did what he did, but I still am so confused. I don't understand how someone-the shooter from Saturday, the coward from Friday, the shooters in San Bernadino, the men that flew the planes on September 11th, the countless tragedies that happen each week...

This past weekend was definitely a great way to kick off my summer. The weather was kind of crappy, but my family was able to come stay with us, which means we had family time with them two weekends in a row! I'm happy we have gotten to see them so much despite not living in the same town. They came to Utah on Friday so my brother could go to student orientation at Utah State. He was tired by the end of the day, but he seemed excited too. If anything, all the swag they bought from the bookstore shows just how excited they all are. My parents bought matching Utah State Mom/Dad shirts, how cute is that? And they loaded our little nugget up with gear too, so he's ready for his first Utah State game!  Friday night we got some ice cream and rented the movie 13 Hours. What I saw of it was good, but I fell asleep. Not surprising. Saturday morning we went to Gardner Village, somewhere I have been wanting to go since we moved here. We were looking for the farmers market there, but it...

Years ago, after Myspace was cool, I was sneaky and created a Facebook account, even though I wasn't supposed to. And for a while, Facebook was pretty cool. I got to see what my friends were up to, and share pictures of my own and have a place to keep them all (because either the cloud didn't exist yet or I was absolutely clueless about it. probably the latter). Then, at some point, Facebook flipped and became filled with nothing but articles and videos that were titled something like "they thought they found a mouse on their doorstep. what happened next...incredible" and news articles about all the awful things going on in the world. (side note: every time I see one of those bait articles i want to punch myself in the face.) And then, not too long after Facebook became filled with mostly other things besides friend statuses and pictures from vacations or graduations or whatever, people decided that it was okay to continually post negative comments on literally eve...

My baby bro graduated high school this past weekend!! He has been done with school for two weeks now, so I'm sure he has felt like a graduate for a while, but I can't believe that he is finally, actually done with high school. My mom had a poster of pictures of him since he was in kindergarten, and I realized this weekend that when I think about him, I still picture him as a cute little second grader. It's hard to believe he's all grown up now! But I am so excited, because he is going to Utah State in the fall, which means that we will live so close to each other!! He's going to hate how often I make him hang out with me haha. Graduations are one of the times that the whole family gets together. My parents were there, obviously, but so were my grandparents, cousins, and some aunts and uncles. It was great to have some quality family time with every one. It's always a little crazy when we're together! Being in Boise definitely made me miss it even more-liv...

Our Memorial Day weekend was spent the way most of our marriage has and will be spent: with Mickey. This was a nice follow-up vacation to our spring break (read post here ), because last time we only did the actual Disneyland park. This time, we did California Adventure, and also went to Universal Studios! Friday afternoon we hopped in the car with our friends Alyssa and Jake, and made the long drive to Vegas. It went quickly, actually, so it wasn't too bad! Saturday morning we were up at five, and on the road by six! We finally made it to the park around 10:30, and were so surprised that it wasn't even close to being hot outside. Thankfully, the sun came out a little later, which I was super happy about because 1: it had been pretty cool in Utah still until that weekend, and 2: I was able to enjoy my traditional Mickey ice cream bar! We got corn dogs, spent a ton of time in Cars Land, rode Toy Story Mania twice, and had bomb seats for World of Color that night. And we of co...