Happy Birthday Matt!

A few things about Matt on the occasion of his 29th birthday!

• When Matt was a little boy he wanted to be a 'garbage truck guy' because they got to ride on the OUTSIDE of the truck.
• He knew there was a difference between an alligator and a crocodile when he was about 2 but he couldn't remember exactly how to differentiate so he called both animals a 'crocolator'!
• Matt has a lot of musical talent that he keeps carefully hidden. He played the piano beautifully and surprised us by singing a solo at a Ward talent show one year.
• He got 2nd place in a Sonatina piano competition and take it from me, his unbiased mother, he should have won!
• His gift for languages took off in Spain. He speaks Spanish expertly and picked up Catalan well enough to work at a little bar in St. Cugat, the town where we lived outside of Barcelona.
• Matt is like his Dad. Anything that he decides to do, he does well.
• Among his many outdoor interests...hiking, rock climbing, camping, river rafting.....
• But his greatest and truest love is snowboarding!!!
• He doesn't really use a ski pass much because he prefers out of boundary wild scary stuff...at least scary to his Mom!
• I knew we had created a skiing monster when he wanted to skip kindergarten to go skiing.....later he changed to a snowboarding monster!
• Matt loves to go fast and is a daredevil.
• He also has a sensitive side. When he was 3 he went to a birthday party. After he got home he told me that he had gotten hurt at the party. I asked him if he cried and his response was, "My face wanted to but I didn't let it."
• He loves to read & now he reads novels in Spanish.
• Matt has amazing artistic abilities.
• Another of his passions is Football Club Barcelona! He is a true fan!
• Matt has more friends in Spain than any of us. He spent time with the families of his Spanish friends and they all loved him! He loved them too & not just their mountain & beach houses!
• We're so glad to have Matthew Walter Lewis as our son. He has brought joy to our lives & also has given us a few grey hairs and wrinkles. With Matt life is never boring!

Day #17 - I love to see the temple!

These pictures don't really do justice to the beautiful dark blue sky this afternoon when George & I went to the temple. Maybe I should have done some kind of 'vivid color' adjustment.

Day #16 Southern Treasure

I read this in "Southern Living" magazine.

"It belonged to Great Aunt Sally" is the Southerner's equivalent of "I saw one just like it at the museum...." TRANSLATION: It's priceless. Where 'shiny and new' hold sway in other parts of the country, we like our stuff "handed down in the family", as we say! "

So, I'm posting pictures of this 'priceless' item 'handed down' from my Grandma.

My Grandma married my Grandfather Arthur Marion Montgomery is 1911 when she was 17. They had three children, the last was my Daddy who was born in January 1916. Arthur died in December of 1916 so my Daddy never knew his father. This little trinket box was a gift from Arthur to my Grandma and although, she married again in 1921 and gave birth to three more children, she kept this keepsake on her dresser until she died in 1981 . One of the last three children was my Aunt Mary & she gave this to me a couple of years ago. That makes it more 'precious' to me than any museum piece!

Day #15 - An interesting language!

One of the teachers in my photography class is deaf so an ASL interpreter comes to class to interpret for him. Have you ever considered how you would use your hands to convey something happened in the past or explain that something might happen in the future? I am told that learning sign language is on the same difficulty level as learning Chinese. I found myself watching the interpreter and her extremely expressive face when my mind was too full of 'f-stop' and 'shutter speed' thoughts! During one of the breaks she told me that the facial expressions are an actual part of the language ASL. These picture don't do justice to her varied looks but you do get an idea of how fast her hands fly!

Day 14 - My excuse

I have been taking pictures for my 'picture a day challenge'. I just haven't been posting them because my computer has been in constant use by my official "cookbook editor". For more than a year I've been working on a family cookbook with my cousins on my Dad's side of the family. It has been interrupted by my several family deaths but it it is finally in the editing phase and who better to be the editor than George with his years of commercial printing expertise!

Day 13 - Mastering the Art

After seeing "Julie & Julia" I bought "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", then I read "My Life in France" so tonight I felt inspired to try the Julia Child's method of cooking an omelet. Usually I just make a sort of scrambled eggs with ham and cheese. This is my 4th one of the evening. Each one got a little better looking and I think this one looks ok! After dinner I googled Julia Childs and omelets and found a great video that shows the technique. I'll be better next time!

Day #12 - My camera can do videos