Trekkies - picture overload

And I'm not talking about Star Trek. I'm talking about our amazing family that we got to have the Trek experience with. We called ourselves the Trekkies and our motto was Trek Long and Prosper.

For now, I am going to just give you a picture overload. I will do a separate post about my experience. It was something I will never forget.

Here are the kids just getting started pulling our cart. (You can tell it just started because they still have such big smiles.)

The first night we had a dance. Here are some pictures of a few kids from our ward, and Steve doing some dancing.

We had been sunscreening all day long, and at the end of the day I thought I had still gotten a burn. But then I was washing my arms and legs with baby wipes, and realized I just had a really sweet dust tan.

One of our kids found a cool caterpillar. And it had the design of a penguin on it. Funky!

Sweet sunset from our camp.

Here is the start of our third day. They were sincerely the best ever.

 We had guides on horses the whole time we trekked.

This area was almost like a preserve - they just let nature take its course here as much as possible. So there were bones/carcasses along parts of our trail.

Walking and walking and walking some more.

Ooooh mornings. We will never be friends. (Believe it or not, I was smiling in this picture.)

We look pretty good for the third day.

Look at those girlies kicking butt pulling that cart!

There was a lot of going up and down hills. It got a little crazy at times, but we did it. It really made you appreciate the experiences the pioneers had.

And we're done. (That's the only reason I'm smiling.) Just waiting for the closing devotional and then to go home.

We hiked three separate days. After the 2nd day, the soles fell off of my shoes. These were the only tennis shoes I brought, so I had to be resourceful for the 3rd day of hiking. (Also, like my leg dust tan?)

All our handcarts lined up. Can you tell how tired we all were??

Driving home. A few of the boys from our ward zonked after about 15 minutes of driving. I won't lie, so did I.

The ceiling fan

There is a fan over our dining area, and here is what the fan blades looked like:

The person that lived here previously was apparently a smoker. Seeing that shadow of the white that the blades used to be really grossed me out. So I cleaned the blades as best as I could and suddenly decided I was going to paint them!! It was totally spur of the moment at the end of the day when we were done with painting for the day.

So after cleaning them off (and being totally grossed out with the orange/brown crud that came off) I taped each blade a different pattern.

I didn't measure anything. Mom was freaking out about how not the same the lines were. So we agreed that I would make each blade a little different. I didn't care because I just wanted it to be a cool new quirky thing in my house.

I painted them the wall color (twice, to cover the gold flourish stuff). Then taped, them spray painted them black. But it was not looking so awesome, but my mom was thinking quick! She got a brush and brushed the spray paint so it was all evenly black. And it wasn't really for wood, so I was afraid it wouldn't dry. But it's just fan blades, right? So I wasn't too upset if I had to buy some more.

BUT - they turned out pretty shaweet!!

And they make a really cool psychadelic [sp?] pattern when I turn it on. LOVE IT.
Next goal: put lights on our fan so we not eat in the dark.

Painting the day away

So my mom came to visit from Indiana, and I obviously put her to work while she was here! She so lovingly agreed to help me paint my living room/dining area/hallway/entryway. And the reason I have to ask her to help me whenever she is here is because my dear hubby does not enjoy painting AT ALL.

So here are all the paint colors I was trying out. I ended up using the one that is like, right in the middle of all the colors. I won't tell you the entire story of how I chose the colors. I wanted a gray color. But I wasn't opposed to it having a blue tint. But I didn't want it to be TOO blue (like the color second from the left).

This is the biggest area of the house, and it's all connected. So I can't just paint part of it. I was very intimidated to start the project. But I did it - with my wondrous mom's help.

Here are some before pictures:
(I had to paint sample colors all over the walls because the light is so different all over where I was painting. So it looked a little ridiculous for a while, but it helped.)

Look at that form!!

You can see the new white on the ceiling and the old tan color that was painted EVERYWHERE in our house - baseboards, ceilings, bookcases, railings, EVERYTHING!!!

Good thing we had my awesome hubby that was still willing to help us on the parts that mom and I were too scared to do on the ladder. Mom was nervous and hovered over him most of the time he was painting.

I got brave enough to paint the walls in the entry.

I just realized that I don't have a legitimate "after" picture of the painting. So when I get everything back in place, then I'll post that.

Flower Power

Well, a while ago I was called to be a Den Leader in the Cub Scouts for our ward. Everyone was telling me that I was brave to accept or whatever ... but I was secretly really excited. My dad grew up doing scouts and it always seemed like a blast. (Except for the times when they camped out in the blizzards...wasn't jealous of that.)

For the Scouts, they needed to plant flowers/gardens and learn about plants. Oh hey! I had a flower bed that I was planning to plant soon - I guess I'll donate my flower bed for the Scouts to learn about planting. Free labor? Holler. ;)

So I was nice and did all the weeding where we were planting:

I love these little Supertunias.

Pink with green on the outsides!! :)

Here is the ground cover - I can't remember the name.

It was quite the experience having 8 boys help plant my garden. It's a good thing I don't have a green thumb, because otherwise I probably would have freaked out. Haha.  But it was fun - whatever.

Here is the after:

Now, these Yucca plants (I'm pretty sure that's what they are) are in my backyard. I thought they were super ugly and I wanted to rip them out. Then my sister told me they flowered. I left them in to give them a chance so I could see what they looked like. And can I just say - I love them!! I am never taking these out! 

Someday I will have an awesomely cool yard with flowers and lovely things everywhere. That will mostly likely not be for a long time. But it's okay!

Next yard goal: actually keep weeds out of my flower beds....whoops.

3 Days

For Trek we have had different challenges every month for our spiritual and physical preparation. For May we were supposed to have "3 Days of Sacrifice." We were asked to give up something that we really liked for 3 days. Some examples they gave were Facebook, sugar, texting, etc. I was thinking about Facebook, but I'm not super addicted to it -- there have been times when I went three days without getting on Facebook and didn't think anything about it.

I decided I would not watch any TV or movies for 3 days, and Steve decided to do the same. When I tell people that they look at me weird like, "that's really a sacrifice? I barely even watch TV." I know -- well, Steve and I watch it a lot. It's sad. But I'm not in school and we don't have kids, so many of our evenings are spent watching TV shows, movies, or Netflix together. I look at it as some quality time together, so I don't see it as bad or anything. We are doing something we like together. We also usually have a movie on when doing other things, like puzzles, playing games, homework, cleaning, etc. The TV is on a lot in our house.

I was going to "cheat" and do this 3 Day Sacrifice during the week so we could just be at work and not have to think about it. Then I decided that would not be a true sacrifice since we wouldn't be at home with it tempting us. Or something like that ... it made sense to me. We started it Friday morning and did not watch TV or movies until Monday.

Steve was joking on Friday night and asked me, "But when we get home from church on Sunday, what are we supposed to do all afternoon??" I answered, "I guess we'll have to rough it, just like the pioneers!!" I also feel kind of silly when talking about how this 3 Day Sacrifice is supposed to show us how it felt for the pioneers when giving up something they loved or needed to journey across the country. We all know that 3 days are a tiny speck compared to what the pioneers had to actually give up for their beliefs.

Despite how silly it felt sometimes to think how small that time period was, and how silly it is to give up TV, I learned some things. They weren't really tangible lessons that I could list, but I felt the spirit because I was doing something to prepare me for Trek. We spent more time talking, we learned a new card game, we put puzzles together, we actually cleaned the entiiiiire kitchen, and got other home things finished. See the things we accomplish when we turn off the TV??


We might even try electronic-free weekends every once in a while. Even though we still had our phones available and we played video games, we still interacted more and it felt like we spent more time together. It was a great time to re-focus and think about Trek and what type of things I have learned that I can share with my family when we are there. Even though I'm still not excited to go camping and not shower, I am glad I'll have this experience. I know it will be good.

Trek is in a month. Holy crud!!

Timing

I know this:

Every man and woman who serves the Lord, no matter how faithful they may be, have their dark hours; but if they have lived faithfully, light will burst upon them and relief will be furnished.

Teachings of Lorenzo Snow

Millennial Star, Aug. 24, 1899, 531.

I don't know the blessings or the time they will come. But I know there will be blessings as long as I serve the Lord faithfully. So that is what I will be doing around here.

Spring cleaning & projects

Alright everyone. I know that I talk about my house a lot, but it's fun because it's our first house and it's been an adventure already. So now that it's the first Spring season since we have been moved and settled, I have some goals for cleaning, organizing, and updating. I figure I'll share them, mostly for my own benefit in not forgetting them. If I just write them down at home, I lose the list and then I just give up.

This is not in any real order, and I may keep updating this list as I come up with more ideas, but this is it for now. I don't care if these all get done in the spring, but I want to maybe get them done some time this year. At least started! Hopefully!

So here goes...

1. Weed/clean up flower beds (again)
1a. Get the mulch and big flower pots for the flower beds
1b. Actually plant flowers :)

2. Organize our craft room and spare (guest) bedroom

3. Clean out/organize garage
3a. Make shelves in garage for storage bins

4. Make the tub into a shower in the pink potty
(Yeah, it's currently only a tub. So I want that functional for any guests so they don't have to go into our bedroom to shower.)

5. Start saving for/deciding on cabinets for kitchen
5a. GET A DISHWASHER
5b. Put some cabinet doors back on

6. Paint upstairs living room/dining room (finally!!)

7. Donate more clothes/shoes/accessories - really...

8. Finish painting the forgotten cabinet in the kitchen

I know there are more I'm forgetting. I'll let you know how all these things go since it's starting to warm up and be lovely enough for open windows! :)