Recent Projects

 Luke went rafting today (no pics, but had lots of fun!) so I finished up some Pinterest projects I had been working on. I had decided my bedroom needed a little wall facelift so I saw some projects on Pinterest to try.

This first one turned out way better than I had anticipated. This idea I borrowed from bedbugs on etsy.

The frame I had for this print out was too big so I decided to make a homemade picture mat. It also turned out really cute. I am a little sad that it will be in our bedroom and Luke and I are the only ones who will see it.

This project was part of operation "add color to the living room." These are fabric wrapped styrofoam balls and repainted vase fillers that I already had. An idea I borrowed from Landee See Landee Do blog as well as my 4th of July decor.

I finally got my 4th of July decorations up. Our front entryway is now very patriotic!

The wooden plaques I bought from Landee on etsy. I have almost convinced Luke that I need a Cricut for Christmas. The wreath was super easy. Just a foam wreath wrapped with ribbon. I plan on doing one of these for Halloween and Christmas as well. The fireworks took a little more effort and a few failed attempts before they started looking right but also fairly easy.

Banner for the Olympics. Just to add a little more to the patriotism!

Circus

The Circus is in town!

We went with our friends the Petersons and their 4 daughters to the evening show. There are some forest fires creating the haze of smoke in the background and making the pics less clear, sorry.

The tigers were great. It is fun to watch such powerful animals paw at the trainer, yet do exactly as he commands. Also a little sad that they have to live in cages.

These dogs can really jump! They got a chihuahua out like it was going to jump the bar, but it only ran under it.

This guy had amazing strength and balance. Impressive!

Then there were the acrobatic rope swinging girls. It looked fun.

The closing number was a mother daughter pair of elephants doing tricks. We didn't think elephants were so nimble.

They seemed to enjoy the tricks more than giving rides to kids.

The circus people were smart to offer the kids free cotton candy if they filled up a garbage bag at the end, so the kids ran around cleaning up garbage. We love it when something new comes to town.



Peas!

  One of my favorite things about summer has always been fresh peas! They are sweet and delicious and better than candy. This is the first time since we have been married that we were able to plant our garden. The peas and the corn are the only successful part of the garden this year. Hopefully next year we will have more variety but I am super excited about the peas!

This is the first harvest of the peas. The picture doesn't really do it justice. They are filling up our huge popcorn bowl! Yum.

Fresh peas always remind me of my Grandma. For about a week or so during the summer we got to go stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house, which was also down the street from our awesome cousins. Grandma would spoil us rotten. We floated the canal, went fishing, played statues and sardines, and Grandpa even let me drive the tractor once. Grandma had a huge garden. The row of peas was forever long and us kids would help with the picking and of course the eating! I love that a simple thing like peas will always remind me of my Grandma who I love and miss!

Rock Climbing

 My friend Necia saw a flyer for a rock climbing class and thought it sounded fun and invited me to come along. I am always up for trying something new!

This was the rock we climbed. Necia is in the pink. Our instructor is in the hat. She is an instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School and was very passionate about rock climbing!



We spent 10 minutes tying and untying this knot. Mine looks beautiful if I do say so myself :)

This was our group. There were five of us plus the instructor and her assistant.

Here is me learning how to belay.



This was my first climb, which was also my favorite. The shoes were the worst part. They reminded me of Chinese binding shoes. The instructor told us we would get used to them. It was a lie. My toes hurt so bad!

This was my second climb. This one was super hard. There was nowhere to put your hands and feet. My face pretty much sums up how I felt about this one, which is "are you serious?!?"

Rock climbing was a different and fun experience but Necia and I decided it probably wasn't our thing. On to the next adventure!

Week Off

We took a week off from work to spend some time with family and get out of town for a little while! It is really nice to have a job that allows us to leave for weeks at a time.

We really wanted to go boating so that was the first thing we did! And good thing because the rest of the week the weather was cold. Courtnie's brother and sister were home for the weekend and came with us.

Western Days was in full swing while we were there so we had to stop by and get an Elephant Ear.

Elephant Ears are a family favorite. Yum!

We played a round of disc golf at the park. The course was ridiculously hard! We couldn't even find a few holes. Luke and Eric were the only ones keeping score. Lindsey and I were just there for fun. Eric lost a disc in the water hazard. It sunk like a rock and was washed down the creek. That didn't stop Luke from jumping in and trying to find it.

The rain and colder weather gave us plenty of time to hang out inside and play some games. Here we are in the middle of an exciting round of Spoons. (Lindsey lost by the way).

The sun came back out so we decided to go for a walk along the canyon with the dogs. We tried to wait for a couple of base jumpers but they took too long so we left without seeing them jump.

We stopped and did a session at the temple. We love to go to the temple as often as we can.

The second weekend we spent with Luke's family. Philip and Cindy went to a play on Saturday so we went with Zach and Jayme go-karting (since the weather ruined our boating plans). It was pretty exciting! The karts went 40mph.

We forgot to set the camera back to color photos after shooting some black and white around the temple. Oops!

Zach slammed me into the wall for the win. Jayme came in second with Luke in third. Then we met up with the parents and had some delicious dinner at Texas Roadhouse.