Announcements

My brother Adam is engaged to Lynnette, we love her to death, she's SO awesome! Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the happy pair.

Also, Lance's brother Kempton is engaged to Bonnie, we also love her to death and so glad she'll be part of the family!

Our Backyard

Lance and I went on a double date with his brother and fiance. After dinner we went down the canyon and saw a little, and by little I mean narrow, falls. This one you can take a little stroll down and behind the falls, it's so pretty!

This is the view from inside the canyon. The Perrine bridge is about 450 feet tall and is open year round for any avid bungee jumpers, hang gliders, or dare devils.

The falls is so long we had to get it in two shots.This is from behind the falls looking into the canyon.

I Didn't Forget

Remember a few months ago I blogged about a family craft day in UT and I promised I would get you all some pictures? I haven't forgotten, I've just been so BUSY I haven't have time. But since I have a few minutes I thought I'd post them really quick.

This one is too cute and I love the fork easel. We got them at the DI, a dozen for $1 and with the tile and vinyl the cost is about $1-3 (depending on how much your vinyl is).

My aunt made this for a December craft day where we usually do a little craft swap game. Everybody fell in love with it and request that we make it for a regular craft day so we did. It has 8 different interchangeable plexi glass plates for the seasons and/or time of year.

Super Saturday

Since I'm on the enrichment board I was able to help put together the Super Saturday for our ward. It was definitely a lot of work but worth it and so much fun! Below are some crafts that we did and thank you to everyone that came to craft and visit!

We made flower hair clips of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

We made children's bracelets and a few pairs of earrings not posted.We did glass etching and since I didn't do a dish myself, I'm posting this picture. This is just a 4x4" glass tile with a flower although all the other ladies did their names and different designs onto 9x13" pans. HUGE hint: if you know someone that has a Cricut, use it! It saves you from having to cut everything out by hand, not to mention addition time and money. One thing that we found was that it didn't work on older dishes, older meaning about 20 years.

This is a place mat coloring caddy. Just put together two place mats and stitch. Pretty simple.

This is a 12x12 tile, love the font.

There were a few other crafts we did not pictured. One was a family home evening board with hanging name tags. Another was a craft board with a cute quote but since I didn't make any, I didn't get any pictures.

Celebration

Last day of the summer semester, Huzzah!!!!! And you better believe we're going to celebrate......for 2 weeks at least until Lance's program starts. Then it's back to the books and lets face it, at times I might as well be single. I'm so proud of him though, he's done an amazing job and has fantastic grades!

We Either Live in Hope or We Live in Despair

"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us....Hope sweetens the memory of experiences well loved. It tempers our troubles to our growth and our strength. It befriends us in dark hours, excites us in bright ones. It lends promise to the future and purpose to the past. It turns discouragement to determination.”
-Samuel Smiles

Yellowstone National Park

My family and extended family on my dad's side all went to Yellowstone this week. We try to have a family vacation once a year and it was a pleasant surprise to have all my cousins, aunts, and uncles from Arizona join us. I really missed Lance all week, he's still in school for the semester and was preparing for finals so he wasn't able to go. But I had a great time anyway!

Ever wonder why it's called Yellowstone? The views are so breath taking!

Although we didn't see any bears in the park other than at Bear World, we had a little visitor over night that left evidence all over camp

Eating the dutch oven greaseLeft over trail mix he left behind

Old Faithful still remains faithful

There are tons of these geysers, hot springs, and mud pots all over the park

The whole clan

My girlsPlaying games while waiting for the dutch oven dinner to finish cooking

Most of my nieces and nephews

We went to Bear World which is right before Rexburg. They had all kinds of sweet rides for kids - small and big alike. Oh yeah, they had animals there too.

Notice the empty bear face where Lance would have been

Thanks

I've been so busy getting ready for the jewelry show downtown and helping with Super Saturday, that I haven't had ANY time to do anything. Seriously, eating and sleeping and quality one and one time with Lance was put on the back burner. I was in survivor mode and came out looking pretty ragged. Thank you to everyone who came downtown to support me at the Quilt Walk event on main street. I had a great time out there even though it was a little hot and I caught the beginning of both storms right before I packed up. It was a pleasure meeting everyone and I look forward to future shows. Thank you!

Friday Date Nights

We try to have a date night every Friday and even though it doesn't always happen and we have no money at all, we try anyway. About a month ago we went down to see the falls since we'd heard there was so much water going over. It was so pretty! I've always been in awe of the snake river canyon we have here and the falls and when I was in high school it was my sanctuary so to speak. I loved being in and around it, there was just so much peace that I felt whenever I was there. Anyway, we got our dinner off the dollar menu at Wendy's, took our burgers down to the falls and had our date. We had a great time!