St George Weekend

Last weekend around this time we were in St George. We went down for the Make-A-Wish Foundation training. Our good friend Annie works there and has been telling us of all the great things they do. We've wanted to get involved for more than a year so we finally turned in our volunteer applications and drove down to St George for the training.

The mountains were beautiful!

We even saw a double rainbow

We stopped off to eat at Honolulu Grill and saw my uncle and cousin up on the wall. They catered for her wedding and my uncle's there just about every week, so they're practically family.

We stopped by their house to say hi and got a little game of pool in. My cousin's a pilot and fly's into St George every weekend. They put her up in a hotel but since her parents live here, she just stays with them so it never gets used. She was kind enough to give us her room to stay in.

The training was from 9-3. We learned so much and are so excited to get started!

My friend Kristi, from Middle School lives in Cedar City so we got to meet up. I haven't seen her since before she was married

On the way home we passed a bunch of trucks carrying sheep. It was cute to see their wool sticking out.

CSI Graduation

Ryan's sister graduated from the College of Southern Idaho last weekend Magna Cum Laude, with her Associates Degree in Liberal Arts. She actually finished in December and is now playing volleyball at Utah State, but chose to go back and walk. We had a very nice weekend with family. The college hosted a reception afterwards that was very impressive. They had tons of food and a live band. We finished off the night swimming and relaxing in the hot tub. Alyssa is the first of her five siblings in college to get a degree. It's crazy to think that when I was her age I was dating Ryan and just months away from getting engaged. 5 years goes by fast...

sisters - Janessa, Alyssa, Brianna

She was wearing heels but I swear I'm not as short as i look. I'm average, she's just super tall. (6'2")

Humane Society Day of Service

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go with several of my co-workers to the Humane Society to spend a day of service. We spent all day playing with, petting, and walking the animals. It was a beautiful day and I had such a great time! I LOVE animals (we have 3 cats and would have dogs too if we could) and I'm surprised I walked out of there without adopting several. I fell in love with all of them. I was pleased to hear that adoption rate for dogs last year was 100%, and 95% for cats.(The national adoption rate is only about 25%) I took a lot of pictures. 

 This cute was huge! 

 and this cat had crazy big paws

 this one looks just like my hairy one. He loved to be brushed

 this guy had one green eye and one blue eye. Pure white, gorgeous!

 This picture doesn't do this dog justice. He was as big as a horse and came about to my hips.

 I wanted to take this little guy home SO bad. I loved playing with him!

 the "horse" again. He was the quietest, calmest dog I've ever seen. So gentle.

 See the leash in his mouth? this little baby pit bull ended up chewing right through it. He was a handful but so cute

Please, please, please adopt a pet from a shelter, they need good homes!

Stampin' Up May 2011

info here

Ten on Ten :: May 2011

more info here

April Craft-Starburst Mirror

My sister got the idea for our craft from this site. It seemed pretty easy but because of a few hiccups it took a really long time. It calls for wooden plant markers that are supposed to be available at nurseries, but all they had were plastic ones. So we ended up buying craft sticks and we had to cut the edges to make points and sand them all down. That took hours itself. Also, we didn't have flat skewers so we used round ones.


Supplies Needed: 

• Ikea Bjurön plant glide
• 2 dozen 5-inch wooden plant markers (available at nurseries)
• 2 dozen 5-3/4-inch wooden plant markers (available at nurseries)
• 2 dozen wooden skewers (with two flat sides)
• 7-inch round mirror
• silver spray paint
• wood glue
• wooden tooth pick
• sawtooth picture hanger
• Con-Tact paper (color doesn’t matter)
• newspaper or drop cloth
• paper towel
• books that are the same thickness as the plant glide

Tools

• hammer & nail
• small sponge paint brush
• scissors
• wire cutters
• pencil & ruler
• sanding block & fine sand paper

It was hard to keep the kiddos entertained and away from the cutters and sticks.

We covered the mirror with contact paper then glued it to the plant guide. After we got the wood cut to size we started gluing them on.

We gave the glue time to dry then flipped it over and got to work on the backside.

I then attached a sawtooth picture hanger on the back.

Some of the skewers fell off from transporting back to my house.  So after everything was glued back on I spray painted several coats, removed the contact paper, and hung it. Because of all the pokey edges there isn't really a place to pick it up so my sister had the idea to tie some string around it and hold it that way. It was a life saver! And made hanging it a breeze. Voila!