M.L.P. 8: Rocking Chair Rehab

We brought this cute little rocking chair with us when we moved out of my Grandma June's house. I think it was my dad's when he was little. I had seen better days and it really didn't match Libby's room at all, so I bought some cute heavy duty fabric (on sale of course) from Joanne's and tried my hand at reupholstering.

 I think it tuned out really cute! It was surprisingly pretty easy. It only took me about an hour, apparently that was just enough time for Libby to lose her pants! Everyone liked the chair before but everyone LOVES it now. Libby loves to climb up in it and rock her babies or read herself a book. It may be the cutest thing I have ever seen.

The Elk Hunt

Dustin may be the luckiest man in the world (obviously, he's married to me! Just joking)! With only eight points, he drew out for bull elk in Utah's West Desert, one of,(if not the best) places to hunt elk. Seriously, people wait their whole lives to hunt elk there and Dustin didn't even know that he was building up points for that hunt, thanks Ryan! I'm not sure who was more excited for this hunt, My Dad, My Uncle Tom, Dustin's brother Ryan, Dustin's Dad, Trevin, Three or four ward members, or the entire Albrecht family from Minersville (my Uncle Tom's inlaws). Notice I didn't include Dustin in that list. A hunt of a life time plus everyone in the world knowing he has a tag, carried with it a lot pressure! He kept saying, "I like to hunt, but I don't really like being the one with the gun." He was excited but also really nervous.

Once opening day came around there was no need for nerves. The Albrechts, especially Jed had been tracking the elk for weeks. They pretty much just guided Dustin right to them every morning. They spent so much time out in the desert with Dustin and Ryan. I was so nice of  them (although I think they really liked it)! They had a few mishaps the first few days and unfortunately the Minersville crew couldn't go out again so they didn't get to see any success. But eventually Ryan was able to call in this big bull and Dustin got a good shot at it.

It had five points on one side and six on the other and scored somewhere around 315.

A couple days after he shot it, Dustin's friend Ben caped it on his front lawn. He did a really good job. It was quite a site for the neighbors I'm sure! Then a day or so later Dustin, Ryan, and their dad butchered up all the meat.

After this hunt Trevin is obsessed with hunting. The only channel he knows how to turn it to is the hunting channel. Dustin no longer has any desire to hunt deer. It just doesn't compare to elk in anyway. You get way less meat, it doesn't taste as good and the hunt is not nearly as fun. Speaking of the meat. We may be eating elk for years to come so if you have always wanted to try elk you know where to get some!

Thanks to everyone that helped out, especially Ryan and Jed, you guys truly made it a hunt of a lifetime!

Grandma Murray's 85th Birthday

On September 13th my Grandma turned 85. To celebrate my mom and her sisters threw a big birthday open house.

A lot of my cousins met at a my grandma's house before the party to take pictures in the front yard.

   

My mom and my aunts did so much work for the party. They were busy for weeks before and after. All the cousins tried to pitch in an help out with the planning, food, decorations and music, but they ended up doing most of the work.

I made these little sign in pages that I thought turned out really cute.

  

Jessie's quartet played for the first hour.

And we even recruited Dustin's little brother Kenny to play for the last hour.

 It was a super fun party and so many people came. It was great to spent time with so many friends and family that we haven't seen for a long time. Laura and Chloe turned out to be best friends.

Trevin was having so much fun that he lost his tie, and Libby had the greatest time running out the in rain and dumping cups of water all over herself. She was soaking wet!

 By the end of the night my Grandma was so tired she could barely move! We pretty much had to carry her to the car. It was so nice of my mom and aunts to throw such a big party for her and is was so nice of so many people to come!

Bad Luck, Sad Stories, and Happy Endings

 Sad Story #1

A few months back (yes I am quite behind, this post will explain why) me and the kids were pulling into the garage after teaching Activity Days when Trevin noticed something on our front porch. I stopped, he jumped out, and grabbed what ended up being an invitation to a birthday party, he got back in the car and we pulled into the garage. Trevin was so excited to see the invitation, he jumped out of the car as soon as I put the car in park and slammed his door. Unfortunately he didn't wait for his fingers to get out of the car with him and he smashed them in the door HARD. So hard, that he couldn't even get them out. I ran over to his side of the car and opened the door but the damage was done. His whole middle finger was bleeding and the nail had already turned black. It was super painful for him but he was so tough! His finger got really huge and swollen,especially under the nail - that stayed black, for about a week but it slowly got smaller and finally his fingernail fell off. It was not a pretty picture. The new fingernail hadn't really grown in yet so he had a very strange looking finger for a few weeks.

Happy Ending #1

As of today it looks much better but it is still wavy and uneven. Hopefully it will just take time until it looks good as new.

Sad Story #2

Also a few months ago my little brother Heath took his dogs out for a run while he was riding his dirt bike. They love to just run along side of him. It was later in the evening so it had cooled of considerably making it a really nice night. Walter was doing fine but Zeus the bigger black dog stopped and layed down in a puddle. So Heath got him back to the truck and took them home. He gave them both a bath and some food and put them out in the back yard. When he went to check on them a few minutes later Zeus was convulsing on the ground. Heath quickly called the vet and ran Zeus out to the clinic but there was nothing he could do. Zeus passes away. The vet said the he most likely had a heat stroke. Heath took him back home that night and buried him in the back yard of our grandma's house (where Heath lives now). Heath hadn't even had Zeus for very long, he was still just a puppy. It was so sad. None of realized how much we really loved that dog. He was also really loved by all of the people that come into the shop as well. Just a few days after Zeus died a little boy came in and asked where is "horse" was. He was so sad that Zeus was gone and we are too!

R.I.P Zeus

Happy Ending #2

Just last weekend Heath and his girlfriend Kiesha drove to Colorado to pick up a new puppy (sorry no pictures yet).  He looks like a miniature Walter, he has the exact same coloring, but he will grow up to be much bigger than Walter because he is part Great Dane! His name is Diesel and he is so cute!

Sad Story #3

One day I thought it would be a great idea to catch up on my blog so I loaded the kids in the car (yep we still don't have the internet at our house) and headed into town. We had just gone to the reservoir on Leigh Hill the day before and we had left the camera in the trunk so I got it out and put in on the front seat next to me. I decided to make a quick stop at Wal-Mart before going to my parents house to blog. On the way into the store I grabbed my purse off of the passenger seat thinking it had everything valuable in it (forgetting that the camera was on the seat not in the purse like normal) and ran into the store. After shopping I reached over to grab the camera and it was gone. I was super irresponsible and had left it on the front seat of the car while I ran into the store. I didn't lock the doors and someone stole my camera! I was so mad at myself. So we didn't have a camera for a few months plus I hadn't saved a few of the pictures off the camera yet so we lost those.

Happy Ending #3

Dustin got me a new camera for my birthday!  Yeah! (Please don't judge me on my early birthday morning nasty hair and face). Going a few months without a camera got me really out of my blogging habit but I am trying to get caught up now.

The Fourth of July

Since the Fourth of July was on a Monday, we had double celebrations this year. We spent the weekend before the fourth at the cabin with Dustin's family. We cleaned up the cabin, went on four-wheeler rides, hiked around the cabin, had a BBQ and played in the tire swing.

Then we went home for church and then headed back up the mountain to join my family and my Aunt Susie and her family at their camp site. We had dinner and rode four-wheelers before we headed down the mountain to sleep at home and then drove back up again the next morning (in hindsight it may have been worth it just to hitch up the tent trailer and avoid all of the driving but we really prefer sleeping at our house).

That morning my Aunt Susie made a HUGE breakfast that was so good!

 After breakfast Uncle Les taught the boys and Laura how make ropes.

After breakfast and rope making my mom had a bunch of activities planned. First we started with our own parade complete with decorated four-wheelers, cap guns, and patriotic music.

 Next we had a basketball contest. I can't remember who won though, I think it was my Dad or Dustin but I'm really not sure!

Then we all took a turn whacking our make shift pinata.

Two Wal-Mart sacks ended up being very sturdy. The Pinata lasted through everyone and finally after Uncle Les's turn we just ripped it open and dumped it out. Trevin and Laura ended up getting way more candy from it than they have ever gotten at the parade.

It was so fun. I highly recommend a mountain Fourth of July.

M.L.P 7: Pillows and a Lamp

For Ryan and Meagan's wedding present Shelynne and I made these pillows for their bed. I saw a whole collection of "Mr. and Mrs." bedding things on Studio 5 one day and LOVED it so we decided to make our own and customize them for Ryan and Meagan.

Meagan loves giraffes and Ryan likes cheetahs so it was only natural to back them in animal prints.

I found this lamp with an extremely ugly paint job at DI, but I loved its lines so I bought it (I think for less than five dollars but I can't remember for sure)...

I primed it up...

and then sprayed it hot pink! It looks super cute in Libby's room. Now I just need to embellish the shade and it will be perfect.