Love This Place...

 The picture, I admit, is subpar. The composition is bad, the foreground is not picturesque and it does not enhance the main subject of photograph, that is, the Teton mountain range.

Still...

I do love that valley.

This past weekend my wife and I traveled to Southwestern Idaho to visit family and to celebrate a birthday--and a life. Driving into the valley from the west on a clear winter day is a sight that takes your breath away. I've seen the mountain range during all four seasons of the year...there's something about winter that is special.

Of course, make sure you have somewhere warm to stay because--though beautiful--it's also one of the coldest places on earth.

We arrived early to help out and gather with family. After arriving I realized if I wanted to get a photograph of the Tetons (because we didn't get one driving in...), I needed to do it then because it would be too dark when we were leaving. I went outside and took a photo. The view you see if from the LDS church parking lot in Tetonia. 

I think the first trip I ever took as baby was to Driggs, Idaho. I could be wrong, because I was very little at the time. But, growing up, we took annual trips to Driggs to visit my mother's father...the only grandparent I ever met. We ran around on the small dairy farm, watched my grandpa milk the cows, and sleep in the family home.

Now, my cousin resurrected the Driggs homestead for his family. The home, the valley, all of it...it's a special place, blessed by God, but not for the uncommitted. It takes a hearty person to accept the valley and thrive therein.

No, the photograph's not perfect. Like the valley, it has its flaws, but it's also beautiful and majestic and timeless.

I love this place.

Give Thanks...We've Got Family History Hanging On Our Wall

 One things we have avoided after being in the new house for just over five months is hanging things on the walls. In our old house--since we were going to live there forever--I didn't care about putting holes in the walls, which was evident by the way the walls looked after we cleared out.

We're a little gun-shy about recreating that look here.

But, yesterday, I felt I needed to hang a picture that was passed down from my mother to me, a painting of Mt. Moran, one of the picturesque beautiful mountains in the Grand Teton National Park, a painting created by a family member.

Today, I'm thankful for several things. I'm thankful that my Uncle Claude (actually, he was my mother's uncle, so my great-uncle...) made the decision to take up painting and put the time and effort into the craft so that we--along with others, I'm sure---can have beautiful art to enrich their lives.

I don't know the date of the painting I put up yesterday. I imagine it was done in the 1950s or 1960s. I also believe it was done while Charles Claudius Dalley sat next to the lake and painted what he saw. I could be wrong--he could have taken a picture and painted it from that, or from memory, but when I consider how the painting came to be, I can see a man, born in the nineteenth century and having survived two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression, sitting humbly with paint and brushes creating art.

I think I only met Uncle Claude once. I was young so I don't remember much. There was an art studio, or a place with art supplies. Maybe that's when we got the picture. I don't know for sure. I do know I can't remember my childhood home without the painting of Mt. Moran. We took it from that house when my mother died, and we took it with us when we moved last year. Yesterday, I hammered a nail into the pristine, hole-less wall and hung the picture.

I wish I could have known him better--I read some of his history online this afternoon. Because I hung up his painting, the house is a better place because of my decision, and we are better for having a relative work so hard to create something so lovely.