Our Craftiest Project to Date

We mentioned that we were redoing an old dresser for Josh's room. Well, it is FINALLY finished. Here is photographic evidence that we are actually crafty when we put our minds to it.

Before:

Please note the awesome dinosaur contact paper. It smelled like old people. Or cats. And it had been there long enough to kind of stain the wood underneath with dinosaur outlines. Gross.
Dresser- $5. Paint (an 'oops' can at Home Depot)- $5. Goo Gone (to get off the yucky, icky, gooey mess under the contact paper)- $10. New drawer pulls- $8. Total cost: $28

Final product:
I know the pictures aren't fabulous- they are from my phone. The drawers say "PJs, Shirts, Pants, Socks" in case you can't read it... So- what do you think? Not bad for under $30, right?

The 24th of July (really long post!)

It takes all year to get ready for, and finally the 24th of July in Monroe has come and gone. We've been going to the 24th since we were first married simply because it's the biggest celebration that Kristen's hometown puts on, and everybody comes back for it. There was even a foreign exchange student from Germany who comes back every few years with her husband since it's so great. It's seriously a 2-day celebration!
So, early wednesday morning, our nephews Conner and Cannon came up with Kristen's dad on his way to work and we entertained them all day and night long. We went to the fabulous Manti swimming pool where I got beet red from not wearing strong enough sunscreen. The kids loved it, especially the lazy river section in the middle of the pool. Afterwards we had a wii bowling and tennis tournament, and we all really enjoyed making funny characters. Conner wanted to watch the Spiderman movies, so we watched #1 and 2 wednesday night and #3 on thursday morning. We would have done a complete marathon, but it was already 1:30 in the morning when we finished #2.
Thursday we headed down to Monroe to start the festivities. The children's parade is always fun to watch with all the children dressed up in their little outfits. The community barbecue was a smash hit as usual with their famous slow-roasted meat. Yummy! But the barbecue is where we get to show off the annual milk run t-shirt. I've been designing them for a few years since Kristen's mom is in charge of the race early Friday morning. It's always a big secret as to what the t-shirt is going to look like. People have been collecting them for years! Too fun.
Friday morning started early as we set up for the race and helped with registration. Kristen and my job is to man the water-hole halfway down the course. We've done this every year I've gone, and can't imagine what it would be like not to do it. Josh was a trooper and got up with us, but by the time the runners passed by and we got cleaned up, he was back asleep. Poor guy!
After the race is over, everyone gets ready for the parade, and I set up my booth in the park. I've been drawing caricature sketches for a few years, and this year was pretty successful as well. As soon as the parade ends, I have a line of people that want to get their pictures drawn and I don't even get a chance to stand up until about 2-2:30. Or eat my navajo taco which Kristen stood in a long line for. Sorry!
After the fun in the park everyone goes home and sleeps until the concert in the park/barbecue before the fireworks. Now, my parents decided that they wanted to come to the 24th this year. Last time they came, it rained so hard that they shut down the concert, and the fireworks were pretty much ruined. This year, just as the concert started, the rain came again. It rained hard enough to stop the concert for about 20 minutes, but it finally let up and it resumed again. We all wore ponchos and huddled under blankets, but the show went on and the fireworks were great.
We learned a secret to making the best fireworks show: WEAR 3-D GLASSES. It is so cool! The fireworks look so much more intense! My dad said that it was the most fun he's had watching fireworks in many, many years! Remember that for next year.
We'll get pictures later. this post is long enough. Suffice it to say, it was aother successful 24th of July. Whew! Now to recuperate for next year!

Cute Josh

I haven't done a picture of Josh eating in a while. What a cheesy grin.

I wanted to see if he would still do the 'biggest boy' thing (see previous post). He did, although with less enthusiasm. We went to the park just a block away from our house today... for about 5 minutes before it got TOO hot. (Of course, we chose to go at 1:30ish... bad decision. But we were just hanging out while Steve ran to his classroom for a minute.)

My little guy is getting so big. He loves to swing. He also loves to play with mommy's sunglasses and try to put them on my face. What a happy guy!

Snow College Mural

The Snow College mural is done. To see pics, see my mural blog here.

Picture Catch-Up

We've finally gotten around to uploading some pictures off our camera from the 4th of July- what few pictures we took anyway...
Here is Scott serenading us all before the parade started. His guitar is named Brenda. Not sure why.

My mom always has a large supply of those Pop-Its things, and they are always a big hit. Josh really loved tossing them on the ground.


And, as usual, Josh was less than impressed with the parade. This parade wasn't really particularly impressive anyway, although there were some guys in big black trash cans with the "Support Your Local White Trash" float. (The local trash company is called White Sanitation).

This past Thursday we went to the zoo with all the Mathie cousins. It was pretty fun, until everyone started getting hot and cranky, but we did get some good cousin pictures. (There is an extra girl in the pictures- Marisa's sisters little girl was with us. Her name is Brekken, but I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong)
And a couple pictures of Josh- who was much more into this bark near the "Large Ape" section than almost anything...

He did seem interested in the elephant. We got there just in time to see the elephant do all its tricks. Pretty fun stuff.
We are getting settled in our new house- pretty much all that is left is hanging the pictures, and we are having a hard time getting motivated to do that.

Steve just finished his mural for Snow College (pictures coming some time this week) and now his next project (besides finishing up his last 2 master's classes of the summer) is to refinish the piano, so we'll be sure to post some before and after pics of that adventure. I'm one step away from finishing the dresser, and then we'll post pics of that too- hopefully some time this week. Things are going super well for us and we are so happy!

The 24th of July is this week, which means tons of pictures will soon follow from that extravaganza, so stay tuned.

We are here, we are here, we are here!

Well, after a long week of moving boxes and packing/unpacking, we are moved in. Huzzah! We had some help from the elder's quorum to get the couches and the heavy piano, but all the...stuff...is finally in the house and we can put everything away now. We are also coming along surprisingly well on our refinished dresser project. We will have pictures up of it and the house as soon as we can get them. Not to keep you in suspense or anything...

Hurry Up and Wait

So we won't be moving until July 10/11th. There were delays with the processing of our application, but we found out today we should be good to go and ready to close by Tuesday or Wednesday. So the end is in sight, just a little farther away than we wanted.
The worst part is we have boxed up so much, and now we have to live without it for another week. Oh well. Who needs movies, games, pots, pans, dishes, books, and food storage, right? At least we have clothes. And string cheese.
In other news, we are embarking on our most crafty craft project to date: refurbishing an old, ugly dresser bought at a yard sale for Josh's room. I'll post before and after pics when it is done, along with the total price tag for materials, etc. Don't expect too much- remember who is doing the craft...