On Sunday, we drove up the canyon to look at all the fall colors. I love this time of year. It really is my favorite. I love the smell of the drying leaves in the air, the crispness you feel when you take a breath. I love how the tips of your ears turn as red as the leaves on the trees, but a hoodie is all you need to feel warm. I love fall evening walks, and I love to sit on the deck with a good book to read while my kids run around and enjoy the cooling weather too. I wish I could streatch fall out to cover more of the calender then just a couple of weeks.

While we were on the drive, we pulled over and took some pictures with Chad's new super cool phone that he loves and has affectionaltly named Ed-209, Eddie for short. When I got in the car and looked at the pictures, I just was so struck by how wonderful our family is. I mean, how lucky can I get? I have an amazing husband, who has seen my stains and shadows, and still loves me. And these three beautiful kids are ours, not by accident or regrete, but by love. They embody love themselves. It shines from their eyes, rings in their laughter, and melts my heart.

Of course, everytime I think of where we are now, I can't help but think back at where we have been. I stood, what felt like alone, at a very important crossroads. I was being pulled one way by my family and an other way by my heart. I am so thankful for a wise Bishop who saw our need and found the right words, spoken like thunder, driping with honey, to heal and help us. Because of one decision I had made, I stand, not alone on my road. It is full of the laughter of my children and the soft wispers of encouragement from my husband. But I lost my family, my mom, my sisters and my brother. I countiue to pray that they will one day come to an understanding, but untill that day, I am building what I lost, and eternal family. Starting with an eternal marrige.

Elder Dallin H Oaks said in the April 2007 General Confrence: Under the law of the Lord, a marriage, like a human life, is a precious, living thing. If our bodies are sick, we seek to heal them. We do not give up. While there is any prospect of life, we seek healing again and again. The same should be true of our marriages, and if we seek Him, the Lord will help us and heal us.

(Chad and I goofing around..the second picture is my laughing and Chad, trying hard not to. I love these pictures even though they are blurry because it just sums up Chad and I. We are just goofing off, laughing at and loving each other) President Spencer W. Kimball taught: “Two individuals approaching the marriage altar must realize that to attain the happy marriage which they hope for they must know that marriage … means sacrifice, sharing, and even a reduction of some personal liberties. It means long, hard economizing. It means children who bring with them financial burdens, service burdens, care and worry burdens; but also it means the deepest and sweetest emotions of all.”

(Ok, so those pictures have nothing to do with my post, but COME ON!! Look at the guy. He is hot, and he is taken..I love him) Chad and I have been through alot together and it seems like as the years pass, much faster then either of us would like, our bond that was forged in California, refined and tested in the early years of our marraige, just keeps getting stronger with age. He is my mortor. And I would hope that I am his as well.

"The kind of marriage required for exaltation—eternal in duration and godlike in quality—does not contemplate divorce. " (and, in reality, it was really my mom who was pulling for divorce for us, like a master puppeteer.. long story..very complicated) Of course, I understand that there are situations where divorce is the way to go. But for me and my house, I am so grateful that we found it in each other to say, hey..this isn't over. Even knowing about the lose of my mother and siblligs, I would go back and make the same choices. Standing in that golden light umoung the changing colors of the trees, watching my family laugh and play is all the evidence I need.

(I know I already have this picture posted, but it's worth a second look.)