I am SO SPOILED!!!

For a long time, Ryan and I have been talking about our plans for our front room.  For the last few years, those plans have always been, "When we eventually get the room done, we want to__________."  Now that the room is done, I've been finding it SO HARD to not want to complete ALL of our plans for that room!

Frankly, we cannot afford to furnish the room yet.  At least not fully.  But there are two things we have known we want FOR SURE and so this week I started looking on line for them.  Today I snagged some GREAT deals on e-bay and we are now the proud owners of this...





We also now own this...


That's a good pic of the print.  The print we got is double matted and framed but the pic of it isn't very good...



Truthfully, I started looking for a couch too... but I'm pretty sure that will have to wait for awhile.  Afterall, I'm not THAT spoiled! lol

Words that start with the letter "H"...

A friend, who I happen to Visit Teach, is going to be going to the temple for the first time in about two weeks and this morning she asked me to be her escort!

I am so happy for her and humbled and honored that she has asked me to be a part of her special day!!!

She is a super sweet friend, always willing to help me out when I need a sitter for my kids (or my pets, lol). When her family first moved in, they weren't attending church at all. We became friends and I became her visiting teacher (for awhile, Ryan was their Home Teacher, as well). It has been so awesome to watch her grow spiritually, to fully immerse herself in serving and embracing the Gospel.

I am so happy for her and for her family! And I'm so grateful to be able to be apart of such an important experience for her!

This is the Right Place!

I had such a great time in SLC this past weekend!  I missed my family but I also had a lot of fun with my friends!
I flew in on Thursday and before I even got off the concourse, I got to meet Feather!  Is it crazy that I consider her one of my best friends but we had never met?  Well then crazy I am, because that's the truth!  Feather was EXACTLY how she is on-line and on the phone and I felt comfortable with her IMMEDIATELY!  I am SO GLAD we got to meet!!!  She rocks!!!

We went to meet some of our other friends and to get Feather's luggage.  Turns out her luggage got lost.  Great way to start a GWO, isn't it? lol  Fortunately, we were able to go back a few hours later and get the bags. :)  Unfortunately, that meant we missed dinner with lots of the vfriends.  Most of them, we met later.  But we were really bummed to miss Kristin completely.  (We missed you, Kristin!!!)

While we waited for the luggage, Renae took us to the Gateway mall.  We had a super yummy lunch and did some shopping.  We also made a stop at the chocolate factory (Hey, we were on VACATION!!!)... hehehe.  Feather was in heaven - they had Haystacks!  I was in heaven - they had chocolate covered strawberries!  Renae was in heaven - they had English Toffee! 

When we FINALLY got Feather's luggage, we went to Renae's.  We got settled and then Feather and I did Pilates (the one and ONLY time we did a formal workout while we were there, lol).  We decided that since calories don't count when you're on vacation, then you must burn TWICE as many calories too!  (Sounds good to me!)  We had to stick around Renae's house until her hubby got home.  Two more of our friends came over and visited with us and after Renae's DH did get home, we all took off for a late dinner at I-Hop.  Hehehe... fun times!  Priceless memories made there, let me tell you!  Here are a few pics:

From left to right:

Feather, Erna, Renae, Erin, and Me!

Here are Erna and Renae looking lovely as ever:

We stayed up late, talking and laughing. 

On Friday, we met up with the group at Gardner Village to do some more shopping and looking around.  We didn't have a whole lot of time, but it was fun to just relax and visit casually for awhile.  Here are a few pics from that:

 Back row: Aimee, Pam, Jenne (holding Willem), Me, Amanda, Feather
Front Row: (Jilly in a stroller but you can't see her), Lil, Renae, and Ava

 There was this really fun Christmas shop there.  Oh

boy, was I in trouble!  I had to have them ship me what I bought, and guess what?  It came today! :)  I got another nativity, this time one that shows just the animals in the stable, gathered around the manger. :)  I also got some words to put on our front room wall, "Faith", "Hope", and "Home".  I bought a horse Christmas ornament to give to Cadi.  And I also bought an ornament and had Aimee write, "Vfriends Utah in the Spring 2007" for me. :)

Lunch was at a cute little bakery there.  We filled the place up!  But it was fun. :)

While we were there, another one of our friends, Morgan came with her girls!  The more, the merrier!!! :D

                             
After Gardner Village, we went to Jessica's house (which would end up being the main meeting place for much of the weekend) to let the babies eat and rest.  While we were "chillaxing" there, Chrissi came by with a cake for us!  She has been taking a cake decorating class and told us she would make us one.  YUM, it was good! :)

When we were all ready, we piled into the cars and headed up to Park City to shop the Outlets!  Ooh... dangerous! lol  Feather bought so much that she had to get some of it shipped home in a box!  (But I can't talk, I did the same thing at the Christmas shop! lol)  Great deals, lots of fun! :)

One thing we will try to remember next time: Don't leave the poor, pregnant Lootsie in the bathroom when we start to leave!  (Sorry Loots!  Honest, we thought you were with the other group!)

Since several vfriends live in the SLC area, only some of us needed to stay at people's homes.  For Friday night, most of us stayed at Jessica's.  It was fun - I got to sleep on the top bunk of a bunk bed!  How long has it been since I've done that? lol  That night was the latest night of the weekend... 4 am!  Yep!!!  But we still read scriptures before bed! ;)  lol

Saturday was all about SLC and Temple Square.  We gathered around lunch time near the Tabernacle.  

            Are we all here yet?  Nope, not yet...

We were all really excited to meet up with our good friend Nate and his family: 

 We were still waiting on a couple more friends but we decided that we would wait while checking out the North Visitor's Center. :)  Sounds like a good time for a group photo too...

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I really like this pic I snagged while up viewing the Christis...

  

 Looking back, I wish we could have had a group photo infront of the Christis, but that would have been hard to manage.  I did get a couple pics of a couple vfriends and their babies.  And here is a pic of me and Feather:

One more pic from inside the Visitor's Center:

 Once we were all together, we headed over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to eat lunch in the new Cafe there.  As it just so happens, one of my blogging friends, Susannah was in town visiting friends and family.  She met with us for lunch!  It was so fun to meet her - she totally makes me laugh, I love her blog!  You MUST check it out sometime! :) 
While we were in the J.S. Building, I had Feather take a pic of me next to this statue.  I tried to get a pic with it the last time I was in SLC but the pic turned out blurry. :(  Not this time - Thank you, Feather!
After lunch, we walked over to the Conference Center so we could take the tour there.  These are pics I took during the walk over...






















While we waited for our tour of the Conference center, I snapped these pics:
 

The Conference Center tour was kind of neat.  We were a large group, and I think that was kind of hard for our guide.  But it was still interesting to hear some of the things he told us.  It is amazing all of the artwork in there!  Here is just a pic inside... it is SO HUGE!
When you look at this picture, it is hard to believe it is the TOP of a building!  Even when you are up there, you don't feel like you are on a building, it's amazing.





 











Loots' hubby met up with us for part of the day.  Here they are after the tour:





Poor Willem, he sure doesn't look to comfy here, but then, he seemed to be sleeping quite contently...

                                  

Hmmm... somehow I missed getting this picture up, so I'm posting it now.  It's me and Feather near the temple...

After we had spent the day at Temple Square, we headed back to Jessica's house.  We ordered some yummy dinner at Cafe Rio and brought it back to Jess' to eat.  Boy did we fill up that house!  I don't remember exactly how many people where there, but this is a picture of some of us...

Yep, this was the right place. :) 

SLC was beautiful and we had a great time, it was the perfect place to meet up!  Vfriends is the right place for me too, it is a group full of friends that I truly love and care about.  I know they feel the same way for me too.  I don't know how I was lucky enough to be a part of it, but I am so grateful that I am! 

And coming home was wonderful too!  Home truly is the right place for me!  I love Ryan and my girls so much! 

I have a lot more pics that I didn't post here, you are welcome to view them in my album.  I also stole some pics from my friends and have posted those as sub-albums, there will be more posted in the next couple of days as well. :)

New Floor

HOORAY!!! 

We moved into this house four years ago and right away had a list of things we'd like to have done.  We have been working on those things for the past few years.  We have painted almost every room in the house, completely remodeled one bathroom and did a partial remodel of the other, recarpeted 3 of the bedrooms, built a pantry, converted the house to gas and had central heat and air put in, and updated much of the lighting.  This week we can add something new to the "done" list!  MY LIVING ROOM!!!

I've hated having that room "unfinished" because it just became  'catch all" room.  It's the first room anyone sees and I hated that it was the first impression people were getting of our home.  But now I'm so proud of it!  I want to invite everyone over to show it off!!!  Here are some before, during, and after pics... (We actually aren't 100% done yet.  They are still putting the crown molding up and caulking the cracks.  Plus there are some places that need to be retextured and painted on the walls and Ryan wants to remove the old wall heaters now that we have the central heat and air.  But the molding will be done tomorrow (as well as the molding in the hall and bathroom, I believe), I just won't be here to get real "done" pictures, so you get them now.)

Before:




During:






The utility carpet was installed using glue.  So now we had a naked floor, covered in glue.  We had purchased laminate flooring that came with a pad built in but because the glue would keep the flooring from sliding well, we still laid down a plastic cover.





But soon, we realized a problem... the plastic was sticking to the glue but not completely.  Whenever we took a step on the floor, there was a crinkling sound of plastic sticking and unsticking to the glue.  So, we pulled out the plastic and decided to solve the glue problem by sprinkling baby powder over the entire floor.  This solved the problem, but left the house with a thin layer of baby powder EVERYWHERE! lol





Once we had the floor in, they put our new molding up.  Cadi even got to help with the nail gun!




Next came the crown molding:




Now all that's left is one more wall for molding, some touching up, and it will be done! :)  Here's a close up of the floor pattern, I LOVE IT!!!



That is what's been going on around here the last couple of days!  Now I am packed and ready to fly off to SLC tomorrow to have a nice little Girls Weekend Out with my vfriends! :)  TTFN!