Mucho Crapo

Sooooo....

We are moving. 

Into a home. 

Woo hoo!!!

We had some other plans actually...like going away for Mike to go to grad school...

But sometimes the Lord leads your life in a different direction than you expected. And that is perfect. 

We are super excited for what the future holds. Even though we have no idea at all what that is going to be.  I think I've learned a lot in the past six months about not trying to plan everything myself and letting our Father in Heaven do the planning. He's a lot better at it than I am anyway. Sometimes I find my mind going crazy about how much we need to save in the next three months, or what bill I want paid off by XX date, or when we are going to have a little one, etc. 

And then I realize I am a mental case.

So I have been learning to slow down, enjoy life, and let things work out the way Heavenly Father wants them to.

That being said, we have accumulated a whole lot of CRAP in the last few months. By crap I mean ugly furniture that has great potential to be beautiful.

I don't have pictures of all of our crap, but I have been trying to keep things updated on the blog so that everyone knows how ugly furniture isn't just ugly furniture!! And how super easy it is to paint things up and get it looking beautiful. I promise--me and my husband are not talented at all. We like to have "projects" so we keep buying crap. But anyone can do this stuff for sure!! If you ever have questions, please ask!!  I really love doing projects so I am super willing to help with anything too. :)

Okay let's see what pics I've got on the camera that I can update....

"Unnamed"

I am super excited about this find. :) She came from a garage sale last saturday for $30. It's one of the things we've spent the most on with our projects, but I was in love with all the detail so we will see how things go...

I really don't know what I am going to do with her yet though... Any ideas??? I would love some suggestions, because I don't have a vision AT ALL for her.

 Pink Lady

Mike basically did this entire project. The staple gun and I never became friends so he did almost all of it. Good job to him huh? His mom is helping us with the cushion so that will be replaced shortly. :) I bought the chair for $10 and the fabric ended up costing about $50 so the chair total is maybe going to be about $70 with the pins. See??? Cheap! And that's one of our most expensive projects!!

Little Red 

Mike has been a champ on this project too. I got this at a thrift store for $5.99. We bought a few cans of paint, did some glazing, and covered it in polyurethane and that was that!! Probably took about 2 hours total...if that. Oh and we repainted the handles and put them back on, but I didn't get a picture of that. Oops. 

Ralphy

This little guy was also a pick up from the thrift store. $4.99 was the price. I don't really know why I liked it but for some reason I just thought he was so cute. I forgot to take a before picture but it was just an ugly brown color. The glare on the camera sort of takes away the color in the picture, but Ralphy is bright blue and super cute. I have no idea what we are going to do with it right now, but we'll find a place.

Penelope

This was one of my favorite projects. Reason being: I had NO IDEA what to do with it and just made something up. I found this gal at a yard sale for $5. Yes only $5!!! I didn't plan on purchasing anything of this sort, but I fell in love so I had to have it. :)

So we got a little green paint....

Did some glaze....painted the drawers white....painted the handles...and....

I still have to replace the handle on the other drawer, but not bad eh? I have a vision for this one. :) We'll see how it goes.

And last but not least...

The Twins

I have been wanting to find two matching night stands to go in our room for my bedroom makeover, and I finally found them!! For a great price too! $4.99 a piece!! I am real excited for these two. :) I will keep you updated. 

Splendor!

Alright here it comes...the long cruise post. Although, we've been home for a few weeks now and the vacation excitement has worn off for the most part so it probably won't be that long after all. I'll do a little explaining and then overload the post with pictures. :)

Getting there:

Friday, we started our journey to California right after work. We drove to St. George and stayed the night with our dear friends, the Schillers. We love them so very much and were happy to see them. 

The next day we got back in the car and we drove straight to Long Beach. It was so great to feel warm weather. We forgot it existed!! We got to the hotel, unloaded our stuff and we got back in the car to go to Beverly Hills!! We went to H&M in the Beverly Center and then a few other stores, and had some dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe. Love that place. 

Sunday was Mother's Day and we got to spend it with the nearest ward we could find. We went to Sacrament meeting and heard some great talks about Mothers. I love the church so much because no matter where you go, it is always the same. Different buildings and different people, but I can always feel the Spirit within the walls of the church building and there is always a special energy about the members. I'm really glad we were able to attend church there. 

After Sacrament meeting, we went to the ship and boarded!! Wahoo!! The night consisted of eating a lot of food...way too much. It was like we'd never seen food before. We also went to a few game shows and spent a lot of time walking around the boat. 

Monday we were on the ship................that's really all I can remember. haha

Cabo:

Tuesday we were in Cabo! We rode a Mo-Ped around for a little while. That is until we crashed it.....into a curb. That was embarrassing. Stupid tourists. Although according to my husband, we just tipped the mo-ped a little bit and it never hit the ground or crashed. Even though he was bleeding from his knee and foot. haha I love him-he's such a boy. We also laid on the beach for awhile and got some sun and then we walked around and got some gelato. 

That night the ship sailed in a little circle...

And we were in Cabo again!!! haha I guess Mazatlan is too dangerous right now, so we stayed in Cabo for two days. According to the gal at the front desk, "we were lucky they weren't charging us for getting to go to Cabo twice" haha whatever. We really didn't mind though. 

The second day we actually swam with dolphins!!!!........well kind of. If you know us, we are kind of cheap. So instead of paying $200 to swim with dolphins we went up and watched the other people do it!! FOR FREE!!! We even got to go over and pet the dolphins and we were right by the pool so we could watch them all we wanted. haha suckas!! Little did those people know, they would basically be doing the same thing we were. Only difference was they were sitting on a ledge in the water. You see when they say you "swim with dolphins" what they really mean is that you sit on the ledge and watch the trainers tell the dolphins exactly what to do and then you get to do about a 5 foot lap with the dolphin while they take lots of pictures so it seems like you were doing it for hours on end in the pics. It was pretty sweet and the best part was it costed nothing!! Woo! 

I really can't remember the days on the ship because they all blend so there may have been a day in between Cabo and Puerto Vallerta.....but the next stop was Puerto Vallerta! 

Puerto Vallarta:

We didn't have any idea what we were going to do there. Not a single one. So we got off the boat and saw a tour for $25 and thought we'd give it a shot. Let me tell you...best decision we ever made. Well, besides a few others like getting married etc. So we get in this van with Aurturo, our tour guide, a gay couple, two sweet old ladies from somewhere that spoke spanish, and another couple from Mexicali. haha it was an interesting mix but they all turned out to be really nice people, even though we never actually conversed with the sweet ladies. We would just smile back and forth and they'd hand us their camera for a pic every now and then. 

On the tour we got to go through all the different areas of the newer city, the older parts of town, the rain forest, even a tequila making tour. Our favorite. haha not really. After we said no to the tequila for about the tenth time, the girl asked us, "Are you mormon?" We proudly said yes and weren't asked again to break the Word of Wisdom. haha I loved that. We were gone about 5 and a half hours. It was pretty sweet. And best part--$25. YES!

Booty Shake:

The next few days were on the boat. We had a lot of fun going to the shows and soaking up the....clouds. Yeah cloudy. Every. Day. On. The. Stinking. Boat. Darn it! It was okay though, we still found plenty to do and we got plenty of sun when we were off of the boat. Mike tried out for Carnival Idol. Definitely pulled out the booty shake. The crowd went wild. My husband is so hot. haha too bad though he got beat out by a guy who really wanted it, and it was his third time trying out. We ate lots more and had our fun at every trivia event ever thought of. If anyone asks us to play any sort of trivia game in the next few years, I will probably say no. Don't take offense. 

Anyway, that was longer than I expected! Here are the more interesting parts, the pics:

Catch up

Two days in a row? Oh yes. I have a lot of catching up to do!! Here is a few pics that make me smile. I'm still not ready to choose through the thousands of cruise pics but I will start getting those on here soon. Pinky Promise.

This was quite a while ago, but I found these pics on my camera and had to laugh. This is our sweet little nephew Tay. We were babysitting him and let him have an ice cream cone. (sorry Jen!!! Probably sugar loaded when we gave him back) But He just kept putting the whole thing on his face. haha He's such a little cutie.

This is right before we got on the ship! haha It was Mother's Day so Happy Mother's Day and yay for sunshine!!! I am already forgetting how that feels being back in Utah for a week.

Because it was mother's day, all the girls that night got a flower and a heart shaped cake. Me and Camille aren't mothers, but we sure liked the cake!

haha.... This one only makes me smile/laugh because this guy in the carnival suit sort of turned into our entertainment of the trip. He was just a super funny guy--mostly very awkward at times, but somehow he was everywhere we went so we all turned into the best of friends. Meet Jason, Entertainment Host. I'm sure there will be more pics of him to come. This is a pic of the boys playing some basketball on the top of the ship. When they were done, Mike had about 7 new blisters on his feet. I say new because he already had about 2-3 from the marathon a few weeks ago. haha no bueno.

And last, but not least here is a picture of pink lady's progress so far. She has not been super cooperative, but Mike has been super patient and has basically taken over whipping her into shape. Go my husband. And no, the pink bottom is definitely not staying.

Cruisin'!

Well you are probably thinking this post will be about the fabulous cruise we just went on....

Well I'm feel overwhelmed about all the fun things to explain for that so that will be coming shortly.

For now, because I've been a neglectful blogger, I am just going to post some of the projects we've done or are working on right now. 

When I say "we" I am serious. My husband is a stud. He seriously helps me with all the crazy project ideas I come up with. I think he likes it too even though he is too manly to get all giddy and excited like me. 

Here is a project I did while he was working on a Saturday night. We bought this coffee table at the DI for $25. Mike didn't like it one bit. haha but he sure likes me so he agreed to let me get it hoping that I could spruce the ugly thing up.

I sanded it down and painted it (by hand--not a good idea--I forgot the beauty of spray paint for a small second but I will never again) and then I painted it again....and again. This thing required like 10 coats of paint. Then I just did some glaze to antique it up a bit. After that, I tried my hand at some glass etching. I used some stencils I found at Michaels and a "frost" spray I got at Lowes. I think it turned out alright. I had to re-do it a few times but luckily, some rubbing alcohol and a razor blade took it right off. After I figured that out, I did it on the bottom so it won't rub off from normal wear and tear. It was finished off with a clear coat of poly-urithane and we were done. :) I think her potential was finally met. Mike agreed. 

 This one below I haven't started quite yet. Last night I covered the glass and cleaned it up a bit so we can start painting, but we have a long journey ahead of us for this guy. And yes, that is big red peeking in the back there. We seriously have nooooo room in our house. But I keep finding things I can't live without somehow. haha Our house would resemble someone trying to pour a big gulp into a dixie cup. (Andrew and Camille should appreciate that.)

Also, I got this hutch from a gal who does some pretty awesome stuff. Her site is  www.justinmysparetime.blogspot.com.

Check it out. She's got some great stuff!!

This pink lady looks sweet and simple, but has really put up a fight. We are actually almost done with her, but I don't have any updated photos. I will post them as soon as I have them. Mike honestly has been doing most of the work on this because I do not get along with the staple gun we have. It causes me much pain and distress, so I cut out the fabric and have mike go at it. Not an easy task. If I even do another chair like this....well I might not....but if I do it won't be any time soon.

This is the fabric I chose for the chair. I really like it, but the more I look at it the more I am reminded of St. Patrick's Day. We've grown a love hate relationship. More love than hate though, so hopefully that doesn't change. 

I found this beauty at Savers on Monday for $5. I don't know what I'm going to do with it quite yet, but I'm loving the detail on the doors so I think it has great potential. 

And about the cruise---It was great!!! I will post lots of pics and the highlights here shortly! It was a blast and my husband's skin color is about 6 times darker...as far as me--this whitey is still pretty white. 

Big Red.

Let me tell you all a little story.

There was once an obsessed girl with a cute husband who had a bright idea for a piece of furniture. This piece of furniture was once an ugly frog, and turned into a pretty handsome prince. Named Big Red.

Don't believe me? I'll prove it.

Here is the ugly frog. He had a rough life. (I don't know much about his life, but from the looks of it it was pretty hard.) There are two pieces to this monstrosity but we'll focus on the bottom piece first.

We gave him a little TLC, some sanding, a lot of paint, antiquing glaze, some new handles, and nice shiny top coat and this was the result.

The next hurdle came with the top part. The poor guy had been left out in the rain for long periods of time and had been water logged. It required some extensive re-constructive surgery on the top and bottom baseboards and the shelving. (thanks to my strong husband who performed the surgery)

Above is prior surgery and below is post.

We used the same materials on the top as we did on the bottom and then added a little fabric to the backing on this guy...

Here is the unveiling of the new and improved, Big Red.

It was such a fun project and Mike helped me soooo much. He basically did all the hard stuff for me. What a stud. Now we are done though and we need a new project...if anyone has any grand ideas I'm open to them. :) Thanks for all of your support.

Shiny Little Stones

"And thus the Lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women, and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness." Ether 6:3

When we read this chapter in Ether last night, for some reason this sentence really stuck out to me. It seemed as if it were louder than the rest of the words of the chapter and as soon as I got up the next morning, I was still thinking about it. I love how the scriptures can bring so many meanings to just one sentence. Of course when Moroni was writing these things, he is telling about the physical light and explaining how the Jaredites were able to cross the seas in literally the dark. But it really stood out to me in a more symbolic way and I started to think about the importance of recognizing and being grateful that the Lord is always giving us light so that we will never cross the "great waters" alone or in darkness.

I'm so grateful for that light and for those little "stones" that make all the difference.

I've been thinking lately about the ironic nature of life. This life is to test us, but it's also to bring us closer to experiencing true joy. I've always thought of these two things separately, never occurring at the same time and always opposite in nature. Although, as I'm growing up a little bit (yeah still pretty immature..) I think I'm starting to realize that these things happen simultaneously.

I've had the opportunity to see a special lady battling breast cancer every few weeks for fundraiser meetings and spent a little time with her family in those meetings. I went to a meeting like this last night, and something really hit me when I came into the house and saw Cyndi. She glowed. It was almost as if she were literally illuminated. I think the Lord has brought so many physical and spiritual blessings to her and so many of her own characteristics have been polished and perfected, I could see light shining through so clearly.

So many things shine through the darkness in my life and I'm grateful for those. I think a lot of that light comes from the children that God has placed on the earth to be part of my life. I'm sure if you are reading this, you probably are classified as one of those sources of light to me. So thanks. Thanks a whole lot. :)

PS Is there like a website people look up great titles for their posts. Because, seriously, title choosing is becoming very obnoxious. "Shiny Little Stones?" Yeah it really is the best I could come up with. And that is sad.