In honor of the beautiful hydrangea that’s sitting on my desk right now from my sweet coworker, I thought I’d ask everyone what their 3 favorite flowers are! (Hydrangea is definitely one of mine!)
And — in honor of the fact that Superman reacted to my news of the hydrangea with the exclamation “Wow, did you tell her that was your favorite flower?” — bonus points if you can name the 3 favorite flowers of your significant other!
Happy Thursday, everyone!
I often come home from lunch and see Nate and his neighborhood friend sitting on our fence like this, or somehow “looking for something to do” (a.k.a., “one step away from trouble”). They remind me of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.
One time they were trying to fit each other into suitcases. One time they were building a precarious “ramp” out of a small cardboard box and a lot of daring. Many times there are chairs and upturned buckets around the yard, where they are building obstacle courses to fling themselves over fences and around trees in precarious ways. Many times they’re huddled around our hose, with either water balloons or squirt guns.
But it’s great to see them just being boys.
It’s one of those classic things about summer. …
What were some of your favorite things to do during the lazy days of summer when you were a kid?
Wow, what a beautiful campus! We just got back from Missoula, where we took a whirlwind tour of the University of Montana before checking Ricky in to his orientation. It’s really pretty, nestled at the base of Mount Sentinel.
Clocktower at the University of Montana
(Yes, that photo is a little crooked. No, it’s not you…)
Side view of the clocktower
I liked this shot through the pine trees. (I wish I had a scratch-n-sniff blog for you. Those pine trees lined several walkways, creating a stroll that was like aromatherapy.)
The Grizzly statue in the center of The Oval
One of the dorms
Sorry I don’t know which dorm that is, but they all looked really pretty from the outside — I just randomly shot a photo!
Jesse Hall dorm room
Funny, these dorm rooms look EXACTLY like mine did in the 80s! I guess dorm room configuration hasn’t changed much over the decades. …
Mount Sentinel and the Missoula "M"
A closer view of the Missoula “M” and the switchback that leads up to it. (You can even see some people walking up the switchback.) We heard that a lot of people watch the football games from there. (The stadium is to the left in this picture.)
The Griz football stadium, on the north end of campus
I always thought it would be cool to go to college at a place that had a football stadium right on the campus — at UCLA, we had to trek out to Pasadena to the Rose Bowl, which was always a little complicated since hardly anyone had a car. I think this will be cool for Ricky to be able to just walk over to the football games from the dorms! The view of the snow-capped mountains in the background is so pretty.
Athletic Museum at the University of Montana
They have a really beautiful athletic museum inside the athletic center (also where the basketball arena is).
Student Union and Atrium
The student union is enclosed in an atrium (which is probably really nice in the wintertime!). They have a few small restaurants here, the book store, travel services, student services, cafe tables for studying, etc.
And that concludes our tour of the University of Montana! It’s really a gorgeous campus. Ricky was excited. Now we just have to hope that a Southern California boy can handle those snowy winters!
Whoo-hoo! I just found out that next year’s Romance Writers of America conference is right in my back yard!
In recent years, it’s been in Dallas, San Francisco, and New York — and I’ve always wanted to go, but never have. But next year it’s going to be in Anaheim! How convenient!
Five days of workshops, books, speakers, author signings, agents, writers, bar meet-ups, pitches, books, books, and more books! Open to the public. Expensive, but you get to meet all your favorite writers. Here’s more: RWA Conference 2012.
I’m saving my pennies, starting now. …
Pretty Montana -- Photo by C. Sanchez, 2011
