Books, Couch Blessings and Secret Lakes

This past week was an eventful one.  First off, I want to send out a major congrats to my cousin Charity who just published her first novel, Ten Girls to Watch. It is getting really good reviews and I'm super excited to read it myself.  I went to a book reading featuring Charity at the Centerville Library.  Charity was charming as always and read a few sections of her book that had me cracking up.  Our family really likes to be witty.  I highly recommend you check her book out!  Plus, the main character, Dawn, is a tall red head, so you really can't go wrong there.

Charity reading sections from her book

Cousins!

My second adventure from this week was buying a new couch!  Danny and I have had this little Ikea love seat that we both barely fit on.  We decided now that we are close to 2 years of marriage, it is time to upgrade.  We went to various stores and checked our options.  We fell in love with this lovely sofa...

Isn't it a beauty?  It's so soft and plush, plus it is big enough to stretch and take a nap on!  Something that is a difficult feat on our little couch now.  We had some miscommunication with the sales guy.  We thought this couch was available to take the next day since it was on clearance.  We showed up the next day with a UHaul truck only to find out this particular couch was out of stock in the back and we had to wait 2 weeks for it to get here.  We were bummed for sure and I told Danny we should just go with our second favorite which was at a different store, since we had the truck that day.  The sales guy really wanted a sale, so he asked us how much the truck cost us to rent, which was $40.  He went and talked to his manager and took $40 off the couch to help pay for our troubles.  The best part was when Danny returned the truck, the guy at the UHaul place remarked "That was quick."  Danny explained to him what had happened and the guy at the UHaul place decided not to charge us for the truck, except for the miles, so it was only $13.  We got almost $30 off our couch and I wasn't even trying to haggle!  How awesome is that?!

Also, a couple of weeks I had a sweet visit with nature up in the peaks of the Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We hiked up to Cecret Lake (pronounced secret, because it is kind of hidden).  Here are a couple of my favorite nature shots from that hike.