Colorado Road Trip

With October flown by, we decided to take some time off in early November. Everyone's heard that if you want to really get to know someone and see how that person really is, you should take a vacation together. We chose a week in Denver.

October Fly Through

Yes, it's gone and I don't remember most of it: Sweet, fleeting, October... Since joining with my current employers, I don't really have much time to enjoy October with Scarecrow Festival being the major sucker of my time. This year was the same. It's a fun festival, with huge crowds. I'm always amazed to see our little organization pull it off! When you look out over the swarms of happy, festival goers and realize it's just us putting the whole thing on... and then it ends and your life becomes your own again. Scarecrow Festival 2009.

My niece was a chucky doll dancer this year in Odyessy Dance Theatre's Thriller production at Kingsbury Hall. It's a show you don't want to miss. Great dancers and spooky dances. Loved it.

While you are sitting waiting for the production to begin, the ghouls come out to spook you in the audience. Some of them are really good little ghouls that I wouldn't want to encounter! They would just come sneering right up in your face and spook you.

Conquering Your Mountains

Just got home from a parent retreat therapy campout with some clients. Our theme was Conquering Your Mountains, and I learned a lot about myself and some of the mountains I have left to conquer. I always walk away with special pieces of understanding about myself when we do therapy.
At the end of our retreat, we bussed up to Snowbird to take the tram to the top of the mountain.


It was actually the first time for many of us to make it to the top of the mountain. And we were awestruck from the moment we reached the top.

I can't obviously share pictures of clients or families I work with, but I thought I'd take this chance to intro some of my favorite fellow female therapists. We are all working on our own mountains these days...

Tell me it's not amazing to sit in the clouds with views of such vistas. It was so dang inspiring. We hiked down a bit, found a rock to write the issue we personally were going to work on conquering, and then hiked it back to the top of the mountain. Personally, I was happiest to end the hike back up the mountain and get back on the tram... Perhaps that's why it's part of my mountain.

Mississippi Gourd turned Drum Project

I've been working with some of my boys on a project that I'd wanted to do for years. In our Recreation Therapy Group, we had Mississippi Gourds shipped to us all covered in beautiful stinky Mississippi mud. After scrubbing them down, which isn't the funnest task with 8 twelve year old hyperactive and not-wanting-to-take-turns boys, they were all prepared. We processed a lot how important it is to do our best in the beginning to prepare for the best outcomes in life.

The gourds seemed really happy chillin with each other waiting for us to return the next week to continue to the next step.

The biggest mistake we made was sitting in a confined, non-ventillated room, when we cut open the gourds. As adults we never considered the gourds would be full of dried up gourd dust that was a bit moldy that immediately found it's way into all of our lungs... dang, we coughed for days!

We cleaned them up, cut off the other top, and began the design process. We all had to choose Native American symbols that represented and applied to something we were trying to become. After burning in the symbols, we cut up the grody rawhide, and laced it onto the top of the drum. And BOOYAH, we had drums!

HOOTIE!!! Side Stage with Darrius Rucker

It may seem like from the singularity of the posts that all that happens around here anymore are concerts, but really, life is full.

Last nights concert with Darrius Rucker had a suprising spin. A super fantastic connection got us backstage to meet and greet with Mr. Hootie himself (AKA Darrius Rucker) which led to an invite to chill side stage a few feet from the band.

Unfortunately, I only had my phone to snap photos on and I had to crop the connection out of the shot, but here are pix of the night.

It was amazing to listen to Hootie sing like a king. Talk about serious talent!!!

A Night of Honkey Tonk Badonkadonk with Trace Adkins and Toby Keith

All summer J's been looking forward to this night and it did not disappoint. Trace and Toby were the main influences that brought J over to the right side of the tracks of country music. Thank heavens for Toby and Trace.

J is proudly showing off our tix that he painted a baseball mural to get.

Absolutely Trace put on a show worth seeing. He's a performer and has the voice to make any lady melt... He was the highlight of the night.

Below Toby delivering a great concert.

As with all Toby concerts, my favorite moments are always his encore, which is super patriotic and brings tears everytime... man, I'm happy as an American girl, that's for sure.

Stuck in parking lot traffic for an hour deserves a grand finale just like this Brad Paisley moment...

THEN.

One Lovely Night Out

I love all my clients, I really do. There are times though that some can be a bit more challenging than others. Recently one of my more "super special challenging" boys' folks gave me a dinner gift card to Silver Fork Lodge at his graduation from the program. We took advantage of their great kindness and headed up the canyon for dinner this week. To say it was beautiful would be minimizing how beautiful it really was. And the food was just as great as the view. Nothing like a relaxing night out, especially when the bill is being footed by others.

After dinner I got to watch this scout pull out all his tricks and demonstrate a "one match light"... it didn't happen with just one match but in the end the scout gave us fire and the evening was topped off perfectly.