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!