One is Silver, the Other Gold

Friday and Saturday provided rare opportunities to visit friends from my college days (sadly, more than a decade ago).

On Friday, Tina, a gal I lived with in Jerusalem in 1997, brought her two-year-old daughter on Frontrunner to Ogden from her home in Salt Lake. She took my blog on fun things to do in O-Town seriously because she is smart like that. I picked her up at the station and we headed to the Treehouse Museum. Unfortunately, I forgot to take note that this just happened to be during the one week each year the Treehouse closes for cleaning. Luckily, the Dinosaur Park was just a short drive northeast, yet another catastrophe averted.

Our toddlers were none the wiser about missing out on the Treehouse while being amazed by the "live" robotic dinosaurs, feeding the fish, and playing on the pre-historic playground. Then, we headed down to Union Station for the annual Real Men Can Cook fund raiser. This is the clever idea of the YCC, a women's crisis clinic. Hundreds of men from the community volunteer to cook their favorite dishes and thousands of people show up and eat 'til their heart's content for just $10. There was a 45-minute line, so we opted instead for a sandwich shop called Kurt's on Historic 25th Street. The healthy sandwiches and fresh fruit smoothies were a great choice. Add that to my list of favorites.

It was nice to catch up with an old friend and find out the ways our lives have been not that different from each other since the glory/easy/enchanted days of living in a palace (aka Jerusalem Center).

Saturday morning, the kids and I headed up to Logan to cheer Photoguy across the finish line of The Top of Utah Marathon -- his 13th!?! The drive through Sardine Canyon was gorgeous and I almost caused several accidents from all the photos I shot (some of them while still driving). It felt like we were descending into paradise as we came into Logan, hometown to my alma mater.

After we high-fived Photoguy, we visited the home of Michelle, former roommate from the days of freedom, er, I mean college, for pizza and good times. We took the kiddies (my three plus her two darling boys) to Willow Park -- a park and a zoo. I don't remember the zoo part being quite so spacious and with so many animals the last time I was there. I thought it was fascinating, but, my kids, tired of being cooped up in the car, couldn't wait to ditch the zoo in favor of the playground.

Fun to catch up with two girlfriends in one weekend. Neat to see old friends as mommies and get to meet their kids (and, Michelle's husband who was very calming and had cool new boots). Speaking of boots, Michelle reminded me of the time when we were freshmen roommates and she took me to her home in Malad, ID and her dad let me ride a horse and round up their cows just like a real cowgirl. Good times!

It rained off and on the whole day, rendering the fall colors even more spectacular. We returned home around 5 p.m., and right when I turned up our street, we were treated to a wonderful rainbow. The colors were vivid and the arc extended fully from one end to the other. There was even a fainter double arc up above. The fall colors on the mountain were breath-taking, freshly rained upon, soaked in a break of sunshine, and framed by the beautiful colors of the rainbow. What a gift. Unfortunately, my camera battery had died by then. I'm sure the kids and I will remember it forever.