Utah Vacation

Almost every summer, we go up to visit relatives in Brigham City, Utah. A few years ago, along with a consortium of competitive water skiers, they built a lake on their farm property, and each time we visit we marvel at the improvements they've made. It's beautiful there, and so peaceful. We love it.

I took this picture from the dock, dangling my legs in the cool water--heaven!

They have a canoe, some floats, kayaks, and a slide. There's a barbecue, bathrooms, a covered patio area, and all kinds of fun to be had!

My niece Carla, with her daughters Sunni and Lana.

Emily's oldest son Dylan, getting ready to play a game of cards with Jessica, planning to cream her he said -- Scum, of course. That's one of the other traditions of Utah summer trips, many, many, many games of Scum!

Ann Marie, her son Trent and his wife Toni. Aren't they cute? Yes, Ann Marie, even you! (She always wants to be excluded from the picture, and demands editing rights.)
Just some of "the boys" having fun in the sand.
Carla and Ann Marie--I was so glad Ann Marie was able to come with her family that day. We don't see them enough.
Ann Marie's daughter Mattie wanted pictures of her jumping in the water.
Ann Marie's youngest--Gracie.
Utah mosquitos never miss feasting on Jessica--she had at least 10 bites on this foot (you just can't see them all). It's a week later now, and they're still itching!
Is it gorgeous there, or what?!

Fresh corn, anyone?

My nieces Emily & Rebecca, corn cutters extraordinaire.

Rebecca's daughter Sarah and Emily's son Garrett, shucking corn that had been picked just that day or the day before. Can't get fresher than that!

Garrett showing off his find - a triple ear!
Even Jessica got into the work, spent some time shucking.
My niece Carla, her daughter Lana, and my nephew Neal, on the Yates corn assembly line.
More of the assembly line--cleaning, cooking, cutting...

B-I-L Kent and S-I-L Karen. There was music playing, and Kent looks like he was doing a Happy Corn Dance!
Here's just a small portion of the finished product. From field to freezer in one day. Oh my goodness it tastes good! I helped out on the line for a couple of hours and was rewarded with a few bags to bring home to California with us. Dee-lish!

Big Red Barn

My brother-in-law Kent says he has dreamed of this "big red barn" for 30 years. I don't doubt it. I understand they converted the old hay shed that was up on the hill behind the old farm house (just north of Brigham City, Utah). It is surely Kent's pride and joy! It's a gathering place for family and friends, their own private recreation hall. (I'm having trouble arranging these pictures in order, so I'm just going to caption them in the order they uploaded. I've tried dragging them, as I used to do, but they won't drag! Can anyone help me figure this out? I'd be grateful for any suggestions.)

This is the upstairs loft--Jessica with her cousin Carla.

Jessica and Carla up the stairs. Bathroom to the left of the stairs on the first floor.

There's a great kitchen, with lots of cupboards and counterspace. Fridge, range, and microwave too! Pretty much everything you could ever want.

Large main downstairs room, with tables and chairs, probably with table seating for at least 60 people!

Here's where they get the name, of course. The BIG RED BARN -- beautiful, isn't it?

Normally I would post the rest of the pictures here, but since I can't seem to get them uploaded in order, I'll just do another post. Aarggghhh!

Finally Done!

Let me begin by saying I have no idea why this text is underlined (and blue). I've tried to delete the underline--obviously without success. Another of the many mysteries one encounters in computer-land.

Well, the floor is finally done! After all that stressing, I actually love it. All the things I worried about are no longer an issue -- it's too cold, it might be slippery, I may not like the color, it's too light, should have done wood, etc., etc., etc. So here's my verdict after all is said & done: it's not too cold (I like the cool feeling), it's not slippery (there's a slight texture), I like the color (it's not too light), and I'm fine that I didn't do wood. So, once again, much ado about, basically, nada.

The furniture's finally all back in place, although all the accessories are not (which explains the "bare bones" look. No rugs yet, either. Although now that I like it so much I'm not sure I'll rush out looking for those. There's still some junk lying around, so just ignore that, please.

Besides the rooms pictured here, we had the laundry room/pantry, downstairs bathroom, and upstairs bathrooms done as well. Love it! Now, of course, I want new furniture to go with! Guess I'll start saving--for another three years.

The living room, from the family room: (Hmmmm... how did that underlining disappear? Again, no idea!)

Family room, from the kitchen:

Kitchen, from the family room:
Living room, from the front door:

I'm so relieved to finally have this project finished. Well, almost finished. Again, I marvel at people who can undertake these things without it taking such a TOLL! It will be good to have to find something else to blog about, too. I'm a bit sick of this topic!

In The Thick Of It - Part 2 of 3

Here's most of our furniture outdoors while this is all going on. More is in the garage.

The family room with almost everything out, including the carpet.

My "tile guy" Craig - husband of a friend at work. Anyone want his contact info, just let me know--he does good work. This was the first day, removing the tile from the entry in the living room.

The stairs were useful for storing some of the stuff...
The very first tiles going in...

Looking good so far...

Tyler and Jaden stopped by to supervise a bit. Here they are inspecting the tile cutter in the front yard.

The next post will be the finished product. I was hopeful this project would be finished by today, as I have to return to work tomorrow and everything is still torn up. But, as always, things take longer than expected--that seems to be some kind of cosmic law that is never violated, at least in my experience. The downstairs will be finished this week, though, and then the two bathrooms upstairs will be done while we're on vacation next week. Woo hoo! Two fun things to look forward to!

The Old Floor - Part 1 of 3

Well, I've been wanting a new floor pretty much ever since I bought this house -- over 11 years ago! I scraped everything together that I could manage just to get the house, and couldn't afford many upgrades, like tile flooring. So I got the standard linoleum, and always regretted it. After a couple of years, the floor started separating at a major seam, and there were gouges in it that looked awful.

I started seriously looking at (and saving for) replacing the linoleum a few years ago, but never decided what exactly I wanted to do. Then I realized that by now I need to replace the carpet too. So I've gone back and forth for 2-3 years about what to do. Carpet and tile? Wood floor all the way? Wood and tile? All tile? Way too many choices. I was very close to doing wood and tile, but kind of at the last minute changed my mind and decided to go for all tile. I've struggled -- STRUGGLED! -- with this decision! I find it hard to believe, actually, that some people seem to enjoy these kinds of redecorating projects, and are so good at making the decisions they require. I am NOT one of them!! Even after the decision is made, I second--and third, fourth, fifth--guess myself forever.

This is the family room BEFORE:

An especially mysterious stain in the living room; never did figure what caused it, and was never able to get it out despite multiple attempts with various products.

The living room BEFORE:

The bottom line now is, the decision is made, I've bought the tile, and it will be installed next week. I'll post before and after pictures once it's in place. I hope I'll be happy with it, because it's as permanent as anything gets. It'll be here in this house even after I'm not, most likely. Unless the next owner rips it up and puts something else down. I'm not going to, that's for sure. Like it or not, I'm livin' with it!

Erin's news...

Right up front, I admit I'm plagiarizing this post (does that apply with blogs? I'm not sure, but still...). Erin posted this on her blog tonight, and she says it far better than I could. I know I should have called her and asked permission to use it, but it is too late and I'm sure she's sleeping now, and I was too impatient to wait until tomorrow! Besides, I felt okay using it since there are no pictures involved. So, here's her baby news in her words:

IT'S A...
GIRL!!!!!! I can't believe I'm having a girl. I went in thinking "okay, I'm the proud mom of boys, and now I'll have three cute boys." How great would that be right? Then the technician said "it's a girl" and I grabbed her arm and said "SHUT UP! Are you serious?" I just couldn't believe it so I made sure she was absolutely positive. She was. I'm still in shock. I just can't imagine having a girl. And she's totally healthy and looking great. She was moving all over the place, too. SHE! How weird...exciting weird.

Definitely exciting! I kind of reacted the same way she did. I almost didn't believe it at first. I don't think I realized it, but I guess I was expecting another boy, thinking the only thing cuter than the two boys we have now would be to have three. But now, hmmm--a little girl! Imagine that!

Grand Opening

The scrapbooking room is finally done! I still have some organizing to do, but mostly it's done! The amazing thing is that I actually have some empty containers, some open shelves. In my old space, I was always having difficulty finding things or keeping track of what I had--probably because there was no rhyme or reason to where things were; they were just stacked on and stuffed into wherever I could find a spot. I'm so used to having things crammed into every available square inch of space; it's quite amazing to actually have enough room--and then some.

This first picture is the hallway outside the room. It's all the books and other things that were dislocated by this new arrangement. Clearly my work is not done with the completion of the room; all these things will need to find new homes--somewhere.
Here's the famous Cricut machine that started it all. It even has it's own table, with room for the cartridges on the shelf above.

I even have a TV in there, and a DVD player. We had this old TV we haven't used for years; finally found a home for it. I like to watch old movies or musicals while I work. I also like to listen to folk music, for some odd reason (what that genre has to do with scrapbooking, I couldn't tell you); I'll have to get a CD player in there as well. But since I have empty shelves, it shouldn't be a problem finding room for it!

It will be fun to have room for other people to work in there with me. I think 3 people could work comfortably. I've had these rolling carts for several years, but of late they were crammed so full I couldn't ever really find anything. I'm going to make labels now for all the drawers, just to make finding things easier; some of the drawers are actually still empty--I can't get over that!

And, finally, here's my paper and cardstock. 8.5 x 11 in the shelves on top of the table, and 12 x 12 in the hanging file underneath. I LOVE this part of my room. Never had anything like this before.

So, that's it! I joked with friends that I would have a grand opening when I finished the room; some even asked if I would be inviting guests and serving hors d'oeuvres. Michael suggested that blogging about it could serve as the digital version of that whole thing--good idea! So even though I'm not inviting you to a real grand opening, anyone who wants to join me for scrapbooking or card making, consider yourself invited!

Another Project

So...

My latest project this Spring has been my garage door. First of all, the opener has been broken for at least a year, and I've had to manually lift and lower it, not to mention it really couldn't be locked effectively. Luckily no one ever figured that out, and we were never burglarized. For a long time, it didn't matter much because I wasn't parking the car in the garage, anyway, because it was such a mess. But when Jeff & Erin & Michael cleaned it out for me a couple of months ago, it motivated me to get things repaired so I could use it again as an garage--you know, a place to park your car. What a concept!

Then I thought about how much I've always wanted windows in the door; I just love the way it looks from the curb, and I like the added light inside the garage. (Especially now that it's clean and I like being out there and I actually use the space!)

Before...

Here it is after. I think it makes a BIG difference, and I LOVE IT!