Yellowstone!

Dan and I went up to Yellowstone last week and it was awesome. We stayed in Island Park with his family most of the time in a tiny cabin they have rented for over 30 years! It was quite an adventure to be in that tiny place with 12-20 people at once but we had fun. We were also able to visit my aunt and uncle who were renting a cabin up there as well.

We loved the cool mountain air, relaxation and sight seeing. It was a great time and we were sad to come home. Feeling the wind in my hair…. Mia can be a little temperamental and is pretty shy and only likes a few people to hold her. She loves Joe and she even fell asleep in his arms! So cute! Enjoying the gorgeous views of Yellowstone Lake. Cutey cute kids. They made the trip tons of fun. I’m not sure what Addy was doing above, but she is such a funny girl. Some of the crew on the deck over Yellowstone Lake. We saw a lot of animals including a mama moose with her baby, a mama grizzly with 2 cubs, and tons of buffalo. This guy was walking on the road in the lane next to us for awhile! They were HUGE!

This is at Artist’s point and I haven’t been here since I was a little kid and it was so gorgeous. This picture kind of looks fake to me! Addy and I having fun taking silly pictures. We rented a canoe for the day and Dan and I went down the river with Becky and Addy. It was so beautiful and not too hot at all. We loved it so much! Danny (of course) got in and swam around even though the water was freezing! This is the cabin my aunt and uncle rented about 15 minutes from Danny’s family’s place. It was really big and gorgeous and made us want to get our own cabin someday! Enjoying a yummy huckleberry milkshake. Addy and Wellyn sat down at this tiny kid table and right away Addy starting talking like a princess and Wellyn was making burping and choking noises. Girls and boys are so different; some things never change… This is at Mammoth and there were tons of Elk all over the place, just eating and sitting in the shade of all the houses! It was pretty cool. Crazy little boy. Dan and I at Tower Falls at the end of our trip. We had tons of fun and I love doing things together with him and our families!

Sir Paul.

Last week Dan and I got to go see Paul McCartney in concert at Rio Tinto stadium. It was pretty dang awesome. Some of Dan’s family came with us and they are all BIG fans of Sir Paul. I grew up listening to the Beatles so I was pretty stoked too. Mr. McCartney did not disappoint. We planned to walk to Crown Burger to eat, but everyone else had the same idea and the line was way out the door. So we walked across the street to Quiznos which was closed (why is your sign up if you’re not open?). We ended up at 7-11 and they were not well stocked for the event. So I settled with a slurpee and got a burrito inside the concert. Everyone at their scavenged 7-11 meals on the curb in the parking lot. Very classy. This cute old man worked at the scooter store in the parking lot where we were eating and he came over to flirt with Debbie and they rode off into the sunset together on his pink scooter. Marty just kept eating his 7-11 sandwich. We got pretty dang lucky with our seats and we ended up in “endzone” area on the easterly (yes easterly) side. We were out of the sun and only 3 rows up from the bottom. So even though Paul was still across the field from us, we were happy with our low-cost tickets. Plus we had really good views of the crazy crazy CRAZY people on the floor level walking back and forth, dancing, singing and having spiritual experiences during the concert. Seriously. I have never felt this way at a concert, where everyone is just beyond themselves with excitement. It was really amazing. There was a younger girl in front of us just singing her heart out, looking through her binoculars and bawling.

The people on either side of us never stopped dancing, singing, clapping and smiling (not to mention the mom didn’t shave her legs but that’s another story). And some hippies a few rows behind us stood up the entire time with their hands above their head having some sort of spiritual enlightenment. This was my attempt at getting into the music. Of course I still had to stand up and sing and dance! (Dan wouldn’t let me get a shot of him like this…) Paul had really awesome long, thick, flowy hair that just kept blowing around everywhere. It was wonderful. The show was so amazing and they even had fireworks above the stage (only a few burning embers fell into the crowd below). Paul sang for about 3 hours straight. No breaks, no intermission, just singing, dancing, playing several pianos and tons of different guitars. It was pretty awesome to see and just experience his amazing talents. I’m really glad we were able to go!

Loads of fun

My laundry room is finally totally finished and I'm so happy about it! I had gotten a lot of it done about a month ago, but then I had to wait to make a few more purchases because we were spending money on our yard and we also were busy with the Wasatch Back.              It was really hard to get good pictures because it's a pretty small space and even though I tried it at night with the flash and during the day with the sunlight, it was still hard! I'm not a pro photographer geez...anyway, my inspiration for the laundry room was this:  *from kevinandamanda.com

Unfortunately I don’t have the sweet front loaders yet, or the space for the nifty laundry tower, but it’s close right?!

My mom had bought me the rug from BB&B for Christmas so I just used that until I finally finished the whole room awhile later.               I decided to paint the walls a deep blue to coordinate with the rug and still look good with the colors in the rest of our house. I LOVE the color and Behr paint + primer is really great and I would highly recommend it. I found the awesome grass cloth roman shade on cheapo sale at Lowes and made it work even though it was extra long.                                 

I got a set of unfinished wood cabinets from Lowes that I primed and painted white. Dan took the lead and installed them (with my glorious help) for me. He also installed the hanging bar to hang clothes that don’t fit on the drying rack.               On the doors of the cabinets, I decided to use paintable beadboard wallpaper to add a little interest and make the cheap cabinets look a little more special. I got a huge roll on sale at Lowes (notice a trend here…) for around $7 or so. It was really easy to do and I love it! It’s a subtle change, but I think it looks great along with the clear glass knobs.                                          Sorry for the yellowish look, they are really bright white, but I don’t know how to take pictures and my 4 year old camera doesn’t help :)              We finally got a “real” ironing board after over 2 years of marriage! We had kept my crappy brightly colored table board from college but we never used it (who irons anyway?). We finally bought this one and a hanger for the wall for it. Surprisingly the cover matches the room! But maybe I’ll get a cute cover for it at some point.

I ordered a broom/mop hanger off of Amazon and it’s awesome! It’s like magic and it holds my broom and mops perfectly. It was only $13 I think too!            So now I have a spiffy new laundry room and it really makes me happy! I didn’t spend much and I kept it simple.

Maybe some day in my future dream home I’ll have a huge laundry room/mud room like one of these:                   I love the cool locker-type style for kids to keep backpacks, shoes, boots and snow/swim/dirty clothes.                    I will keep day dreaming about that, but for now, I’m really happy with my current dream home and my cute laundry room! Now I have a laundry area that is functional and stylin’!