it's all about me

Good Morning everyone and Happy Monday! It is for me at least, thanks to my friend Cindy who bestowed upon me this Beautiful Blogger Award :) Thank you Cindy! I will tell you 10 things you don't know about me and then pass it on to a few unsuspecting bloggers... bwa-ha-haaa :) And oh! I hope everyone had a lovely Father's Day!

10 Things MOST of You Don't Know About Me:

1. I was adopted as an infant

No, I have not met my birth mother, though I think I found her once. Yes, I am curious. Yes, I have always wondered who I looked like. There. I answered some of your questions for you so you don't have to ask them.

2. I broke my tailbone on a roller coaster

It was that famous wooden one down near San Diego, before it was restored

3. I was almost kidnapped in Hawaii when I was 12

4. I was voted 'most kind' in the 9th grade poll

5. I was very fond of a certain weed

I am speaking in gardening terms of course

6. I was in the 12 member cast of Godspell in high school

7. I started BYU when I was 17 years old 

I didn't have a clue what I was doing or any direction whatsoever

8. I had an original song on Billboard Magazine in 1986 (the stone ages, I know)

9. I prefer the company of my dogs Luna & Angel to pretty much anyone

Do NOT take that the wrong way - it does not mean I don't like you! I love and adore my friends and family

10. I am afraid of a lot of things

It took me a lot of years to figure this out. Luckily, I have been blessed with a lot of faith.

 ~ ~ ~

Thanks for reading my quirky little list :) I'm going to pass this award on to some deserving friends now. Bev, Sara, Sabina, Bree, Lisa, and Maria! No pressure girls, but I'd love to see your lists! Hmmm - maybe I'll even bug a few new bloggers I happen to know and love - tee hee hee :) Liam, and Alissa :) heheheh :D  Beautiful Bloggers!

❤

sandpoint the town

Happy Sandpoint Friday :) 

Today we are visiting the actual town - a town so quaint it could have almost been named Mayberry. 

Even the local Radio Shack looks cool. How often does that happen?    

I really liked the town of Sandpoint, and now of course I wish I had taken a lot more pictures 

of some of our favorite places. I loved walking around the streets and visiting the different stores. 

The Main Stage Cafe (at the lovingly restored movie theater) had the thickest slices of pumpkin bread ever -  

you could grab a window seat and watch the town go by as you ate it. Oh yum... it was so amazingly good!

Pack River Potions, next door, had all kinds of wonderful handmade lotions. They would even customize it!

Snow River had All Things Ugg and had handmade items also. The owners were the nicest people ever.

In fact, just about everyone in Sandpoint was nice. One of the reasons it was so enjoyable to visit each store. 

This fun locally painted mural was outside the Potato Bar - an awesome restaurant - and the local Starbucks

more quaintness...

We came reeeeeelly close to purchasing Romeo's Pizza, which was such a cool place.

It stood across from a small city park where they had the most awesome Farmer's Market every Saturday.

Walker's Donuts

What can I say... I thought it was an omen. I thought it was written in the stars. I still think it probably was.

We actually DID buy Walker's Donuts. I think we owned it for maybe an hour before we chickened out.

The inspection terms were shaky and it's true - instead of being adventurous and jumping in, we weenied out :(

Such a great place - John helped me get all my antiques fixed up so nicely in here and the staff were awesome.

Plus there was an adorable little cafe attached to it on one side, and an amazing home decor store on the other!

Looking from the back side toward the town, this is the famous Coldwater Creek Bridge, 

where the first Coldwater Creek clothing store originated (and still is). Few people know their main headquarters 

are actually located in Sandpoint. There also happens to be a killer sandwich place in there too :)

The main city park and beach, located on the water's edge (yes, that's Lake Pend O'Reille out there).

I hope you enjoyed your tour of the town! Stay tuned for more Sandpoint next Friday!

Have an awesome weekend! xoxo 

my gurl

HaPpY 24th BirThDaY to my niece KaYLee ~ the best niece on earth and my favorite girl in the world!!!

and COnGraTuLaTioNs on her recent GrAduATioN from college ~ I am so proud of my girl!!!

Kaylee is no stranger to hard work. She has had up to 4 jobs during the summers to save for school. Not to mention she is a smarty, earning scholarships for her excellent performance. She's already started grad school :)

When Kaylee found speech therapy and audiology, she took off running. A girl of many talents, like many fellow students she was stressing about her college choices. She had declared a music major and graduated with her AA degree when a summer job she happened upon opened up a whole new world to her. She knew she had found something interesting, something she could really excel at - and a way she could make a difference in this world.

It is still so easy for me to remember this sweet little happy girl. Always a little ray of sunshine - she still is.

And you can take the girl out of California, but you will never - and I mean NEVER - take California out of the girl! Kaylee will always be the ocean/beach/sand/sunset/warm weather lover that is everything California :)

One thing Kaylee got used to early was being the only girl cousin on the Walker side. Whether she was always surrounded by stinky boys doing stinky boy things, or all of those boys endlessly clamoring for her attention..... 

..... she was always able to hold her own, and do it in style :) She could even make hunting clothes look good.

She even put up with their endless teasing because she quietly knew she was the higher species - heheh :)

It has been a joy to watch Kaylee grow up and do all kinds of wonderful things, and have all kinds of exciting experiences. She has been a youth counselor and an amazing example to many, many young adults. She has worked as the head lifeguard, swim instructor, and swim team coach at her hometown pool every summer, so there are many people counting on her. She studied abroad and got to tour all over Europe (the above pic being one of my faves). She has made more friends all over the place than you could possibly imagine. 

I love this photo of Kaylee because it's not only a beautiful picture of her, but it looks like it's been kissed with sunshine. And every time I think of sunshine I think of Kaylee. When I hear the song "You Are My Sunshine", that song is Kaylee. She makes everyone happy when skies are gray.

I love this photo too, because my oldest son Daniel and his cousin Kaylee are only 6 weeks apart and are still the closest of friends and partners in crime. They will take time to spend with each other, talk on the phone together, ask advice from one another, laugh together until their sides hurt, and buoy each other up when it's needed. It just warms my heart and makes me so happy to know they have each other and such a special relationship.

Kaylee, I think this is probably one of my favorite pictures of you, even though I know we were just goofing around that day. I love it so much because after so many years of seeing you work so hard to accomplish all your goals, and seeing how strong you really are, you really do embody this photo. I love and admire you so much!

YOU ARE MY HERO!

Last but certainly not least... the Mouse was able to transfer this onto You Tube for you. I had to put it on here 

so everyone could see it because it's just TOO CUTE to not be seen and enjoyed sweetie! And so I present:

~ Kaylee 'signing' Michael Jackson's Thriller ~

xoxoxoxo

randomness

So amidst all the main things I blog about, the undercurrent of life is always going on here at the Walkerville home. Sometimes it's more of an electrical overload with fuses blowing all over tarnation. But I'm sure you know what I mean. So this post is about some of the things that have been flying under the radar lately, so to speak.

First off, the above pic, which has been slightly mutilated, is my very first paycheck from ZAGG. WAHOOO!!! When they e-mailed me to say they were sending me a check, I didn't believe them. I thought, I'm actually going to make some money at this? People are really going to want my photos made into skins for their cell phones and laptops? And then I thought, okay, the check will be like 40 cents. Let's just say I was stunned. And I've had another check since then that has surprised me. And that's with my teeny tiny miniscule percentage. So ZAGG, I am making you a truckload of moola. You're going to have to up my percentage pretty soon, baby. Just sayin' :)

---------------> Megan Walker's artist portfolio/photo skins on ZAGG.com <----------------

5 pages of fun skins peeps! check 'em out!!! 

I also thought it would be *hysterical* to actually offer a REAL skin over at Zagg. A potato skin. Or not. 

my trumpet vines started to bloom in my yard again and they are sooo pretty! 

in fact, we had such a wonderful spring and *everything* was blooming!

my Martha Washington geraniums were so lovely... until one day it hit 100 degrees and fried everything :( 

the Mouse in John's Mini Cooper - the car he mainly learned to drive in... actually, the Mouse has been known to drive just about anything he could get his paws on... my Bug, his brothers' trucks, quads, motorcycles, tractors. 

the moral of this story is to never let the Mouse have your keys or let him "move your car" for you :/

the Mouse and his friend Brett as human yearbooks on the last day of 8th grade/junior high! on to High School!

Aw, my little Angel :) I don't often take many pics of Angel because she's just not as photogenic as Luna is, nor is she as hysterical as Luna. But she's such a sweet little girl and I love her so dearly. And now that it's really warm here, she and her heavy, heavy coat of fur are really shedding. She doesn't like being brushed very much but I know she's miserable. She tolerates it because she loves the attention. Both she and Luna will be bathed and shaved soon, but in the meantime, poor little Angel is drowning in her own insulation. 

I thought perhaps I could make a 3rd dog out of the fur I'm getting from Angel. What do you think? Any thoughts? This is about the third bundle of fur that I have aquired from Angel's hind quarters. And no, I'm not exaggerating. Yes, I know I'm know to exaggerate. But this is the absolute truth. I only regret not keeping the other masses of fur - I could have found someone to spin it for me and at least make it into a skein of Angel yarn :/

Speaking of pets, Davy has the crankiest, naughtiest kitty on earth. Yesterday Davy and I had to get up early and drive across the entire state of California in order to get to an appt. before the traffic was stopped for the rest of the month. Normally, I have a rule that I am not allowed to start my day until my bed is made and my scriptures are read - blah, blah, blah. That was not going to happen yesterday. So everything went well and we finally got back home, and WHO do I find nestled all snuggly and cozy inside my bed, right on my SHEETS? Exactly.

WHAT.

Last pic of the day....... Sometimes I just can't help myself! tee hee hee :D

left brain

Best way ever to start off a Monday! Enjoy!

XOXOXO

scenic sandpoint

Peeeeeps! A day late (and always a dollar short), I am finally swooping in to publish my Friday post on Saturday. In other words, all the Sandpoint photos that were supposed to be available for your viewing pleasure yesterday, you may commence viewing today. For the last 3 days I've been a co-chaperone up in Big Bear for 28 girls, ages 14 to 18, out of who knows how many hundreds of boys & girls from the 7 LDS church's in our city. It was a joy, it was a blast and it was exhausting! I love those girls - they are all so different and all so awesome :) But now I'm back and it's time to see some beautiful Sandpoint pics before I officially put myself out of commission.

The photo you see above was taken as I was driving home from church one Sunday. There is really nothing that unusual about it, but the sky was so beautiful with the fluffy clouds against the bright blue background...... For me it was as much about the moment as it was about the beauty.     

The *adorable* photo of the two fawns above is NOT one of my photos. However I had to include it because it is so reminiscent of our back yard in Sandpoint and a very special occurrence that happened there one morning.

One morning not long after we had moved there, I woke up very early. The sun had barely started to rise, and I went into the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table where the bay window looked out upon the back yard. I could just start to make out the shapes of the wild flowers and trees. To my surprise, I even saw some cute, furry bunnies here and there, nibbling on grass. Then out of the corner of my eye, to my amazement, I saw a tiny fawn walk into view. It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen! Still young enough to have it's spots, it walked along nibbling grass with the bunnies. Then quietly and seemingly out of nowhere, came another fawn - a twin! - to join it's sibling in the misty morning grass. It was every bit as precious as the first. I knew their mother would be close by, carefully watching over them, but I never did catch a glimpse of her. I watched them with delight until they were gone as quietly as they came. It remains one of my very most favorite captured moments in time. 

One of my all time favorite photos - it's the road that leads up the mountain to our home at the top.

About half way up the mountain, if you looked to the left, you would see this amazing view. The little city of Sandpoint down below, on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced 'pon-der-AY') - the largest and deepest lake in all of Idaho. In fact, the only access to Sandpoint, and northern Idaho, is by crossing Lake Pend Oreille by bridge. The next 3 photos below are similar views from a similar vantage point as fall arrives - note the trees changing and the snow starting to dust the mountains. And of course the sunsets were spectacular.

This last photo is an off-shoot of Lake Pend Oreille located behind one of the main streets of town - so pretty.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone! xoxo