24th of July!

This year for the 24th of July my parents and my brotha Ben came up for a visit. It was fun to have them. Here are some fun shots from their visit.


Ben loved my duck. He slept with it all the time.
Ben taking a nap on my bed.
Ben sleeping outside. (he says it was because it was cool out there, but I think it's because he wanted to sleep next to his bike)
Ben was sitting on the counter in the Kitchen, so Ethan climbed up next to him.
Ethan and Jacob beating up Ben
The group lined up feeding the fish.

Jacob getting a ride on Jeff's shoulders. He didn't like being up that high.
Susan dividing up the fish food.

I think it was Jeff that taught Kevin the nasty trick of putting weeds in people's ears. Kevin loved it. I didn't.

Ethan was pretty pouty most of the day. He would often walk off by himself and sulk.
He was pretty excited when he finally found a pet grasshopper. He didn't want to open his hand up very badly so I could take a picture, but I finally talked him into it.

Ethan's grasshopper - I can't remember what he named it, but I think it was "grasshopper" I'm surprised it survived with how tightly he had it in his hand.


Dad taking a nap with his Harry Potter wand.

Summer of Before and After

This summer I decided not to get a job. I decided instead to stay home and work on my yard and various other projects I have been wanting to do. Here are a couple pictures of some of them. Some of them are not finished yet.

This first one many of you may recognize as the old coffee table from mom and dad's house.

Before
After

There was a big crack in the top where the wood was warped. I was trying to figure out a way to fix it but then Ben had a genius idea to cut it into strips. I think it turned out great!
Another project I did was add another flower bed in my yard. I don't like the chain link fence, so I wanted to plant some tall plants to cover it up.
Before

After


I'm not sure what all I planted. I took some red flowers from Jeff's house and some columbine and daisies and a couple different kinds of flowers from my friend Kelsey's house. They kind of died out a little after the transplant, but they're coming back again. I'm excited to see them next spring. They are all perennials. It was nice because Jeff was taking out a flowerbed at his house so I didn't even have to buy my border... I just stole it from his house! :)


You've already seen the before picture of my next project, but I had to post it with the after picture so you could see the difference.
Before


After


I picked beans for the second time yesterday. I got probably half a grocery sack full off of only 25 plants or so. My garden is doing really well. It makes me really happy.



This isn't a before and after picture, but this was a bulb I found in my yard while digging around so I planted it and I'm sure glad I did. I think it might be my new favorite.

A new Piano

So I've wanted a real piano for a really long time, but haven't been able to let myself branch out and buy one. However, my roommate is taking piano lessons and really wanted a new piano to practice on. She didn't like my keyboard for some reason.... So she went and bought a new piano. She will probably be mad at me for posting this picture of her, but I like that it shows how excited she was to get it. This is the first time it was played after it was delivered. I'm really excited about the whole thing too. I've spent a lot of time playing it. So it's really nice....I have a brand new piano at my house...and I didn't have to pay anything for it. :)

A different Chukar's game

You've probably already seen on Susan's and Darren's blogs that we went to a Chukar's game but a couple of nights before they were here, I went with some free tickets from the city library. As a joke Jeff and I were putting people's names in for the little games they play between innings. Well we put my name in the game called "Hillbilly Horseshoes" It is where you take toilet seats and toss them like horseshoes around a toilet bowl plunger. We laughed pretty good when they called my name....and even harder when I won! I almost got a ringer with the toilet seat. It was the closest either of us had ever seen anyone get with the game. It was funny. I won a t-shirt from one of the local radio stations and a cd case. We put Susan's name in the night they were there, but unfortunately her name didn't get called.

Game On!

Several others have this up..... I thought it sounded like fun so I'm going to play too!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory (or more) that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing (but you don't have to) and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Weddings

I had three weddings to go to this weekend. The Idaho Falls temple has been closed for cleaning and since this was the first weekend after, it was a pretty busy one. I only have pictures from one of my friends' weddings - Briant and Melissa


Brooke, Chris, Me, and Gina waiting for them to come out of the temple.The happy couple

All of us with the happy couple!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I celebrated another year this past week. It was over all a pretty good day. It started off with a softball game. I'm coaching a city league softball team for girls 13 -14 years old. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, they won their game so that was a great start to a great day.

Then my brother Gary and his family were in Idaho Falls so they stopped by to see the house and take me out to lunch.

After that I went home and finished a book that I had to return to the library. It's a good one too..."Finding Faith" I don't remember who it's by. Susan will know.

After that, I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends. There are three of us in my branch that have the same birthday, so we all got together for dinner. They even had a cake there for us. This is only half the party. I didn't know most of the other half, so I didn't post them.
Us blowing out the candlesWhen we left the restaurant, my bag was stuffed to the rim will all the cards and such I got from my friends. And the mints that I took off the table at the restaurant. Our waitress but a huge handful down in front of me. No one else wanted them, so I took them.
Friday I went to the nursery and bought flowers for my yard. Thanks Mom and Dad!! That was their gift to me.

I also went and got a full body massage....a gift from my new roommate. It was my first one, and it felt FABULOUS!!

So as you can tell...I had a pretty good day! Thanks everyone!!

Softball

Sad to say my summer softball team's season is over now. It was a lot of fun.
I'm really going to miss it.

10 YEARS

I also attended my 10 year class reunion this weekend. It was fun to see everyone again. Okay everyone wasn't there, but we had 25 out of 94...that's more than I thought would be there.
This is me, Kris, and Becki....good friends throughout high school.

Family Freeunion

Most of the family got together this weekend to have a little get-together. I got to the party a little late, but did manage to get some cute pictures.

When I walked in the house after a bunch of them had come of the mountain, Ethan was sitting on the floor so proud to be holding Michelle. When I went to take his picture, all of the other kids in the room wanted to be in the picture too....except Kevin and Jared in the background, they just happened to be sitting there. They were too engrossed in their video games.
Ben snuggling with Michelle, and Jake giving kisses
Kids playing computer games.
Us letting off fireworks.
Jake didn't like the fireworks. I wish you could see how tight he was holding on.
Dad showing Darren how to clean a fish. Ethan watching to see the 'GUTS'.

4th of July

This year I decided to coach cheer again....only this year as the head coach. With this job, comes the job of designing a float for the 4th of July parade. It is the first float I have ever done, but my ideas combined with the ideas of my assistant coach, resulted in a pretty awesome float...even if I do say so myself. Here are some pictures for those of you who missed the parade.

TJH - Kind of got hidden behind the balloon arch, but still looked good.
Cute firecrackers with the girls' names.

Chuckers

The other night I had a chance to go to a Chucker Baseball game with some friends. One of the guys in our branch has season tickets and couldn't make it so he gave them to us.This is a picture of my new roomie and her friend, Tom. The game was tons of fun. It was boring at first, but they came back in the ninth inning and almost won.