December hot and cold

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Karl  and I boarded a plane for Maui. 

It was a perk for advertising with one of the local TV stations. It was not a time of year I would choose to go to Hawaii, but who says no to a free trip?

I had to hurry and rip edown all the autumn and Thanksgiving decorations and get as much Christmas up as I could and go Black Friday shopping all in one day. Oh, and pack, of which I did a terrible job. The last time I was in Hawaii it was cool and I wished I had more jackets or sweaters.  So I packed light sweaters and it turned out to be hot!

It sure didn't feel like Christmas, even though they made an attempt with decorations!

(This is a tree made out of grass skirts, I know it's a lousy picture)

Karl and I each took a turn in this canoe. Karl jumped into the reef to explore despite recent shark attacks.

One day, while Karl was golfing I took a tour --teaching us about the native customs and flora and fauna.  I learned that a banana tree only makes one bunch of bananas in its lifetime, the tree can continue to grow but will never produce bananas again. But being resourceful, the Hawaiians have learned to use the banana trunk skins to wrap food in for luaus.

It was a lovely, expensive resort.

One of the best parts of the trip, had nothing to do with the trip. We got a new grandson!

His big sister LOVES, babies!  This is a wish come true for Ella!

The sunset in Hawaii causes people to stop and run to the beach to enjoy it....granted it is amazing most of the time, but I need to find an event like it to give me pause each day.

It was a memorable, and sad event --When we were on our snorkeling trip, the radio on the boat started broadcasting a shark attack.  The beaches were closed while they tried to sort out the danger.  Turns out the guy who was killed was Fishing in a kayak 3 miles from shore, with his legs hanging over the side, and he was "chumming" (throwing dead fish overboard to attract bigger fish).  He was pretty dumb -- got his leg bit off and bled to death.

Anyway they opened the beaches and we had a great time!  We came home to frigid temperatures and snow, but at least it feels like Christmas!  

 

November update

We of course had our Octoblerfest celebration...All the costume pictures are on the other camera so I don't have them to download.

So this is a November recap. I finished the baby quilt for the Ken and Natalies 5th! He will arrive in just days!!

I took a trip to Denver to celebrate my mom's 90th birthday! Connie had a big party on Sunday, and then she hosted mom's Majong group the next morning.

Karl has been helping me rip apart wood pallets and make pallet boxes. I fell in love with them on pinterest ( I have a group on pinterest of wood box centeripieces) This is what I've done for November...

And of course, its football season!!

We love our BYU Cougars! It's hard to get excited about the Utah Jazz this year, but we are still fans.

Goings on

We have a series of photos because that's all anyone really wants to see; Baby Blessing for Rob's Son, Dane (with both of his grandpas).

Fishing in Texas - the first catch of the day was a Texas catfish!

Karl bought a motorcycle. He is practically giggly about it. Me, not so much.

We spent a little time at Snowbird with Karl's brother Gareth and everyone's favorite sister-in-law, Mardie.

A beautiful Autumn day was made even better at the pumpkin patch at Wheeler Farm with Tessa and Dane (and their parents). Tessa was all about Grandpa today. She wanted him to hold her!

Texas Trip Highlights

We took a trip to see the kids in Texas in August. Above is a true Texas BBQ place with genuine outdoor smokers. These are just some photos of our time there:

Everyone loves Aunt Laura!! She loves to play!

Laura and I just love this dog, his name is Oscar, "O" for short.

They have an awesome neighborhood water park just a few blocks from their house, family friendly, fun, easy to get to. Dr. Tobler, below. I can't tell you how excited we are that this doctor is going to be working 25 minutes away from us starting in January!! It was fun to visit Texas over the years, (but out of necessity), I prefer to visit American Fork.

No room mud room

l I have always longed for a mudroom. A place for backpacks and coats and wet snow pants and boots. What I have now is a small laundry room that walks through to a bathroom.  Years ago I put up a rack with 5 wood pegs for coats.  I used to caution the kids not to hang their backpacks on them because I feared the pegs were not strong enough.  The parade of homes got me thinking about a better use of the space.  I loved the board and batten treatment that we did in Laura's room so much and figured it would be an easy thing to do here.  So I painted the wall part way up.  I actually measured it out so that I could make the best use of the 2 inch boards by just cutting them in half. 

We did have a little bit of a struggle getting those original 'pegs on the board' off the wall, and had some repair work to patch.  We put up a 3 inch board across the top and the bottom, and then the slats vertically running between them.    When we finished the basement a few years ago, we bought an air compressor and have a nail gun attachment. It makes short work for this kind of a project. So in just a few hours time for a total of about $80 for the wood, paint and stainless steel hooks I bought, I have a mini mudroom look.

This winter when I have grandchildren visiting I will have a place for them to hang their coats and drop their boots.

I am very happy with how it turned out!

Parade of Homes- snipets

I absolutely love going to the Annual Salt Lake Parade of Homes. I look for easy decorating ideas, see what is trending in home decor and color and I almost always come home and clean and declutter my house because the Parade homes are so perfect (no one is living in them, so yeah!). This year the accent colors in the homes were aqua blues, oranges and yellows. Yellow and gray combinations showed up a bunch too. I discovered succulents are the trending plant accents.

I'm always looking for bathroom ideas, some day we will need to update the master bathroom..so why not a fireplace in the shower?

I have been wanting a cabinet like this one between the sinks for years, I would opt for a big place at the bottom with access to the electrical outlet where I could store a hairdryer and curling iron. (Below) This was an interesting decorating idea for a boys room, but the cars are hot glued on and in the real world, that just wouldn't cut it. I am thinking there must be a cool way to do something like this and be able to use the cars.

I spent a lot of time looking at Mud rooms and garage entry halls... I am actually in the process of updating a wall in my laundry room because of it. (I forgot to take a before picture, but will post about that soon)

I found cozy spots, and rooms that were charming:

I failed to take more pictures of an incredible home that was built from donations for a family with 6 children with special needs.. but the little boys and girls room was fashioned after Rapunzel. This is the boys room:

The girls room was cute too. They had light switches at the floor level, an elevator, a sink in the kitchen that was also floor level for a gal that scoots around. It was awesome. this is the website if you want to see: http://www.utahparade.com/bf/ut/slhba/mem/home.jsp?hid=2900&pid=1140 .. I haven't blogged for a while on purpose. I linked my china hutch redo to a popular blog and have had hundreds of hits. It's a little scary especially when they are coming from all over the US and Canada as well as Japan, Russia, Latvia, Isreal, etc. I don't think I'll do that again but it has been fascinating.