It's winter in beautiful Northern California

It is so beautiful here at this time of year. I love winter because the hills turn green.

Cliff and I just got back from taking Rayne to BYU Idaho. We were gone for 3 days and we drove for 2 of them--12 hours the first day and 19 the third day. Ugh. And we drove through so much snow. I felt a very deep dislike of snow. It's slippery, it's dirty, it gets in the way. Oh, and it's cold. I remember when I first lived in Utah I was amazed and irritated at the fact that the weather can actually force a person to alter travel plans. Where I live in California, when you want to go somewhere, you go. Rain doesn't stop you, and rain is as bad as it ever gets. I had never experienced the forces of nature controlling where I went that day.

Anyway, it was a good trip. We talked with Rayne, we laughed a lot. She ate her last In n Out for the next few months. We got to stay with our very good friends the Hutchings. Cliff and I, on the very long drive home to Sunol from Rexberg, talked about everything. My ipod ran out of battery very quickly and my charger wouldn't work, so all there was left was talking. It was intimate and nice. Just what I was looking forward to.

And of course I forgot to take pictures of the house Rayne is living in. Did I take pictures of her roomates? No. Did I take pictures of the Hutchings? No. Did I take pictures of the inconvenient, slippery and cold snow? No. Did I have my camera with me? Yes. Sigh.

So Rayne is gone for the next few months and we settle down into school and work patterns. Chase is now a permanent hire at Game Stop (as opposed to a holiday hire). Cliff starts his Leadership Development Institute classes all over CA for the next 5 months, he's got to get his students into interships and he'll start working on some stuff for my brother Gerald's school. I'll try to get a handle on Primary and attempt to become a better homemaker, spend hours homeschooling and attempt, yet again, to become slender and svelte without eating less (is this possible?) :D Ally and Zay will get back to the grindstone, adding to their brilliance. It's a new year. Let's get on with it.