Busy, Busy Summer!

Besides working on new paintings for next March's Art & Soup event and trying to coordinate the many spinning cogs and wheels of the Utah Watercolor Society as we started our 2017-2018 UWS year, I was also able to take a couple of days in early August to attend a plein air workshop in Logan, UT with the incredibly talented Brienne Brown. Now, as you know if you've followed my blog for a while, I am not much of a plein air painter. But, it was lovely to get outside for a couple of days and to spend time with Brienne and the other participating artists. What a beautiful state we have here!

Here is my plein air setup and the little sketch I did for my painting on the second day (the painting didn't turn out so well!)




Here is the wonderfully talented Brienne...

In mid-August, I also attempted to take my family camping in a cabin at Moon Lake Resort in the Ashley National Forest. As it turns out, my husband and sons are not so into the "great outdoors" when it comes to giving up our usual creature comforts. I think the boys enjoyed having Grandma (my mom) with us, and they had fun roasting hot dogs over a fire and making smores by "toasting" (burning) marshmallows over the fire. They enjoyed camp-made hot chocolate and snacks. I know they had fun playing at the beach and in the lake water. But, my oldest has also developed some kind of phobia of bugs and wakes up in the night worried about spiders - and every little noise freaks him out! We had a visit from a bear in our campsite one night - evidenced by the log bench at the fire pit being scratched up and an entire top layer of the log torn up to get at the bugs, with big claw marks and wood shavings (I forgot to take a picture)! We saw hummingbirds, squirrels, and chipmunks every day...and even saw deer almost every day right outside our kitchen window as they came through the campsite eating the bushes.

We had rain storms every day and spent most of our time in our little sloping-floor cabin playing board games (no TV, no Wifi). We declared a ban on electronics for the weekend (except tunes from an iPod). It was good family time as we played marbles, Mexican Train, Yahtzee, "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" board game (because mommy loves all things Peanuts), 2200 (a rummy card game), and Exploding Kittens (another fun card game...my 7-year-old loved this one!). It's great that our boys are now at ages where they can learn to play games with us that are beyond Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. :) I grew up camping in an RV and fishing lakes off the bank or trolling in a boat, and I tented while in college and into my mid twenties, but I have always been more of a "city girl" myself. Turns out my boys and husband are about the same. I think they would have mutinied if I had suggested sleeping in a tent on the ground in sleeping bags! Even so, the family time "off grid" was nice. We need to make those kinds of experiences more often! We are headed to Moab for Labor Day weekend. We'll be "camping" in the city this time (though still a cabin) and heading up to Arches National Park (our favorite!). :)














I hope you and your loved ones have had a great summer and are looking forward to fall! Our kids are already back in school, and I'm glad we had those few days of family time, unplugged, before we had to get back into the Fall routine.

As always, thanks for stopping by my blog!