GROWING UP

It's strange to think back on the days when weekends and summer break were something exciting to look forward to. It's kind of sad growing up and working all summer and staying home on a Friday night in your sweats watching t.v. and going to bed at 10. We use to be fun and exciting! Half of the time I don't even realize it's a weekend until I  go into a  restaurant or stop by the theater and see how busy it is. That being said, we have had a lot of good family time this summer and have a cruise planned for August...so I can't complain too much. I guess lately I've been missing my care free, responsibility free childhood. 


Here are some pictures from our trip to Colorado back in May

stud muffin 

Floating the river 

My bestest friend 

The boys fishing 

Aren't they cute?

One night I was sitting peaecfully eating my dinner and these
chickens flew up onto my head and got caught in my hair.
Needless to say, I freaked out. 

Being goofy 

Us too ..

Fun game we made up and played outside every night

LITTLE GET AWAY

Last weekend Jesse and I went to California. We stayed with my sweet Grandma Rippe (my moms mom). The first day we were there we met up with Jesse's brother Jaron and his wife Kari down at the beach and then had some lunch. I then did some shopping, and Jesse followed me around pouting :) That night we had dinner with my Grandma and a few of my aunts and cousins who stopped by.
The next day we went to Disneyland..we were literally there from open to close! It was so much fun though, i'm glad we did it.
On Sunday we went to a Dodgers game. My Grandma's boss has season tickets and let us use them, so we had some pretty sweet seats.

Grumpy..

We got stuck on the Haunted Mansion ride,
this is Jesse's "i'm scared" face

Goofy!! 

Dodgers Game 

We got back super late on Sunday night. The next morning I found out I had a family member in the hospital up in SLC. So my older brother, me and my niece Lily headed up there that same day. My older sister Janelle met us up there as well.

Chris & Lily 

sisterly love :) 

after a long day at the hospital we started to get a little antsy/hyper
here is my playing doctor 

Lily playing nurse (Janelle quite sick it seems)

Love her! 

Westates Film Festival II

This is the second year Jesse has hosted a film festival at the theater. It's really fun to see it all come together. He puts so much hard work into it and does such an amazing job. There are a lot of really talented film makers here in Southern Utah. The awards ceremony was put together so well.. I'm one proud wife!!

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Jesse's bro Jaron and his cute wife Kari 

our "candid" shot 

Kari & I working the red carpet 

PROJECTS

I love projects! I love finding old, dirt cheap things and making them pretty! Almost everything in our house is DIY , given to us by someone, or a really good bargain :) I'm not very good about taking pictures of the "before", I wish I was. Here is what I do have...

$3 at the DI 

AFTER!

This thing was hideous before!

before

after 

This project was time consuming, but super cheap and simple! 

before 

after

before

after :) 

before 

after
fun painting project

I remembered to take a before right after priming :( 

after 

before 

after, it looks much better in person :) 

You would have died, the before was horrid!!

simple nightstand refinish 

before 

after 

before 

BLESSED

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  Jeremiah 29: 11-13

 



Lately I've had an overwhelming feeling of how blessed I am. When I stop and think about all the blessings God has given me I know that everything I have is because of him. It's so humbling to take things out of your own hands and trust in God and know that he has a plan for us all! Right now I feel especially blessed for my wonderful husband Jesse who is the absolute greatest thing in my life. I'm so, so blessed to have him and he makes me happier each and every day. He puts up with so much of my craziness and I love him for it.

I feel blessed to have a warm, furnished home to live in, food in our fridge and cars that run for us every day!

I am especially blessed to have such an amazing family. We are all so close, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so glad they are a part of my life, and i'm so happy to have such awesome in-law's who have welcomed me into their family.

Love you all!

The rotten orange

I bought a bags of oranges at Wal-Mart. They were gross. The stringy, not sweet at all kind. I ate two, hoping the second one would be better than the first....but it wasn't. I have a hard time throwing things away when they haven't gone bad (or expired) so I let this bag of oranges sit in the fridge. After who knows how long I started to smell a funk every time I opened the fridge. I figured it was the oranges and I kept thinking to myself.."I need to throw those away". Finally the smell got so bad that I decided to throw those darn things out..One of the oranges in the bag looked something like this...

gross, I know

Oh..that's probably why my fridge wreaks. So, I figured since the oranges were gone, the smell would be too. WRONG! After a week of smelling the rotten orange every time I open my fridge or freezer and every time I drink water from the fridge, I decided to take everything out and clean it. 

-Scrubbed down the fridge with bleach cleanser..smell is still there

-Threw out everything that was old, or may have been an additional culprit for the smell...smell is still there

-Scrubbed down the freezer..smell is still there

-Emptied the ice machine, scrubbed that out...smell is still there. 

-Cleaned the counters, the floors, the cabinet doors, the appliances...smell is still there.

THIS SMELL IS HAUNTING ME! It's on my hands and on my clothes and in my hair, I swear it! 

I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up tomorrow and there was a rotten orange staring me in the face..Help!

FOR THE HOLIDAYS...

This Holiday Season went by way to fast for me and Jesse. We put down all of our decorations today, and I can't even believe it. The Friday before Christmas we had a big party with the Tate's. Jesse introduced us all to this game...

BEST GAME EVER!!!

The whole night Jesse kept telling us how badly we needed to play it, and now I can see why. I recommend you all go out and buy one for yourselves! 

SLEDDING!

On Christmas Eve we headed up to Cedar. We went sledding with my family and then had dinner at my moms house. My brother and sister-in-law did made their famous gumbo, so good! We introduced my family to Telestrations as well and they all loved it. We draw names for Christmas with my fam, this year my mom had my name and got me this...

Yay!! I've wanted one of these for a long time. I've been using it for the past week and I already see an improvement! Thanks Mom!!!

Breakfast at the Tate's

After opening presents at my moms we headed over to the Tate's for the rest of the day. We ate so much good food and played Telestrations and Pass the Popcorn. Jesse's parents got us a really nice spaghetti pot and I'm really excited to use it! 

For New Years Jesse and I were flying solo. We bought treats and apple cider and stayed up until about 12:15. ha ha... Although it went fast, it was a great few weeks!