Silver Lake with Melissa

It has happened. Magic. An autumn fairy visited the Utah mountains and changed them from glorious summer greens to AMAZING autumn golds. I can not wait to go back with E for some new header photos (however, some of these might make the cut!).

Melissa and I had such a fun day, nothing was rushed. Before we left the house James and Melissa read stories, mixed a potion in the backyard (dirt, water, and leaves) and then we drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Melissa gets it. She is just like me. She understands the unreal beauty we live in. Both of us kept saying things like "it almost doesn't look real, it is just so beautiful" and "is that even a real color in nature? It's neon!".

Added bonus? James adores his "Sisssa", as he calls her.

I struggled a bit with which photos to post and which ones to leave out. I ended up deciding to post a lot of them. So get ready for photo overload. There really are quite a few. :)

Smiling at his Auntie. Golds in the background? They don't look real, do they? It was unreal.

My sweet boy's lashes.
Walking down the boardwalk. Perfect "hike" for a toddler.

There are wetlands below the boardwalk so Melissa and James stopped often to look for frogs. They never saw any, but did spot some bugs. ;)

Little inlet.
Little boy in the big woods. Reminds me of this photo from earlier in the season.
I love his flippy nap hair. He wakes up with nap hair almost every day, and I only smooth it down about half the time.
Warm enough for sandals yet cool enough for a jacket. Perfection.


I will never tire of golden aspen leaves.
Hiking with his tongue out.

My dad joined us up there and I didn't get a single photo of him. But I did pass the camera to him to get a photo of me and my boy. It isn't the greatest (grumpy-faced James), but thought I'd include it anyway.
There is a group of very active beavers at Silver Lake, two beaver dams and more in the works.
Like all little boys, James's favorite part of the hike were the puddles and the sticks (and the rocks and the ducks).
Sticks are very serious work.
Happy October.
And this I shot with my cell phone from the car on the drive back down the canyon. Glorious.