Feast for the eyes, and tummy.....

We decided that this year we were going to have a little bit of vacation time, during our vacation. Most of you would think this is a given, but for those of you that visit family on their vacations it is less like a vacation and more like a solidly scheduled diplomatic meeting and we the delegates of North Carolina must be seen everywhere. But, just like Audrey Hepburn we took our own little Roman Holiday- of sorts.

We went to a water park- Seven peaks, which we forgot to take pictures of, OPPS! Also, we went to Thanksgiving Point to walk through the gardens and eat at one of the restaurants there. We loved the gardens, you should know by now how much we love to photograph flowers and we had a hay-day there.

Did I mention there were a lot of flowers?

Below is the largest man made waterfall in the U.S. (and possibly the world).

It really was huge. I don't think that the pictures does it justice.

There the path that leads you over the top, and even above what is pictured

there are more smaller waterfalls, that all gather into the larger falls.

My brother just redid the dinner menu for the Harvest Restaurants at Thanksgiving Point! So we had to go check it out and we had the most wonderful meal!

We started off with a Tuscan Flat Bread- that was loaded with grilled chicken, artichoke hearts, and Sevillo tomatoes on a bed of spinach and pesto spread! Delicious!

Then we dove into our individual plates, but I must admit, etiquette wise we fail miserably! We kept trying each others dishes, and were loading food into our mouth hand over fist as well! But it was worth every single bite!

Justin had the Bronzed Salmon Fillet, on a bed of Jasmine rice and vegetable gratin. Can I just say-I love CREAM!

I had the Pan Seared Alaskan Halibut, topped with a pistachio-pesto sauce and orange confit over Yukon gold mashed potatoes. (which in and of themselves where to die for)

We just kept eating and eating and eating. I think we over ate..... (that is a bit of an understatement, but worth it completely!)

After our meal, my big bro took us on a tour if the whole kitchen! It was huge! and totally awesome! I am so proud of my brother! He is a fabulous Chef and think he is doing an incredible job! Take a trip to the Harvest restaurant the next time you can!

We love you Rand!

Thanks for the wonderful meal! We also loved tour your new house, and are so excited to see the remodel progress- did I mention we love to remodel too?*-! (obviously) and had a great time talking with you and Vic! Welcome to the family Vic!

Welcome home!

As you can see, upon arriving home the whole city of Springville threw up their hands and rejoiced that their favorite daughter had come home!

Then they set off a wonderful display of fireworks!

Sorry, I still don't want to live in Springville! Thanks for the memories though!

I hope my mom isn't upset by me posting this picture! I just thought it was too cute.

She let my niece Ava, (who she is with)

do her hair, make up and pick out an outfit for her to wear!

What a FUN and Wonderful grandma!

Somewhere over the rainbow....

I had a great time taking picture of the cloud formations while we where on the plane!

I actually wanted to take them for a file of mine that has a secret purpose yet to be revealed...

I am so mysterious!! (until my mouth opens...OPPS!)

Wait a minute, June is over??!!

Oh where, oh where,
has this little month gone!

Oh where, oh where,
could it be?

I can't believe that it has already been a month since I last blogged! We have been soooo busy!

Here is the scoop-

1. We worked like mad the first week and a half of the month.

2. Then went to Utah for Justin's brother's wedding.

3. Upon arriving home we have been working every second of the day to make up for our vacation, since I now have three jobs during the weekdays lets just say I didn't get much rest.

4. I attended a fun girls night out with some good friends Friday night. I was telling one friend that I had to be sure I was home by 10:00 but of course, we all know that there is no way to get me to stop talking, so I was out till 11:00. Then, I was so worried I would be tired the next day I didn't sleep a wink. Self fulfilling prophesy?

5. Then, Saturday I planned a trip to the cannery for our branch. It is two+ hours away and even though we had reserved it, another group showed up as well. The lady in charge said we canned about double the normal amount of food. We finished at about 10 minutes to 3:00. And I might have broken the land speed record (and no doubt several speed limits) on the way to a baptism that the missionaries scheduled at 5:00. Three of us carpooled, my second counselor and the Branch President who was speaking so we had to get there. So we arrived in all our grubby cannery glory with 2 minutes to spare.

After a week such as this it should be no surprise to anyone that we still have our luggage in our bedroom, with the innards spread across the room in small heaps of pillows and shoes and dirty jeans! Lets just say I should be cleaning right now and not blogging,

....but blogging is more fun!

Now a word from our sponsors

I think it is about time I put up a post with some pictures of the toddler I watch (hope Mom and Dad don't mind). I have been watching her for over a year and she is such a joy! Lately her personality has really begun to emerge and it is funnier than anything!

One of my favorite Natalie moments happened while I was sitting in a chair on our screen porch. She came out and climbed up on my lap. We were just leaning back enjoying the newly budding trees and gentle breeze, oh so calming. Well, Natalie, in a very serious way, mind you, wanted to put in her two cents, about the whole situation. What do you think she said? Woof-Woof, sort of half heartedly and then nothing more! -Deep thoughts from Natalie! Gotta love it.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:



Wow I hardly recognize this baby! Except that she has a magazine in her hands, this is quintessential Natalie behavior, she loves a good magazine or catalog!




Natalie used to make the greatest scowling faces at you for no reason, although I haven't seen her do it for a while. This is the best one I got of it, and mind you it is not as good as she can make, but it will have to do!

The other picture cracks me up. Natalie loves to hang out on the screen porch when it is open to her. But this picture shows one of the main reasons she loves being out there, if you care to look in the top left corner you will see the back half of Buddy! She loves to chase him and scream as loud as she can as soon as she gets close enough to touch. The cats are grateful for her built in Natalie warning system.




Natalie is very loving! She loves to give big hugs and just recently has been loving to give kisses! Here she is hugging and rocking one of her teddy bears. Notice in the second picture the bear is pinned upside down. We'll have to work on that!




We have a special time of day that usually involves Justin coming home and handing over a small cup of Cheerios for Natalie to carry as she teeters around and eats them. Of course I have to give Justin a small cup for him too, but I tell him not to fill up on the antipasto! I happen to know for a fact that Justin enjoys his Cheerios just as much as Natalie, I guess some things never change!




I just love these pictures! My favorite picture is the one on the right, I think she though I was a little crazy, but I think they turned out cute!

Cooking up some fun

We have been working like mad on the kitchen the last few weekends. We wanted to have the upper cabinets done before we leave for Utah in June, but I really don't think we are going to have the time.

We still need to fill some holes, sand, add another stile to the cabinets (this is your basic building term for the vertical supports in a cabinets door, etc This will help it not look so boring) you can see what I mean in my little renderings that I drew really fast one day while Natalie, was napping.

I am really hoping to get this done by the end of the summer for sure. But who knows!

Here is one of the renderings, the line drawing then the semi-colored version. I used a photograph to get started so it was hard to get the colors right, but in the end we are planning on white cabinets, ether concrete or marble tile counter tops and a robin egg blue glass backsplash.

We are also planning on installing wood floors. There is a company called Lumber Liquidators that has an unfinished, slightly lower grade oak. Lower grade, meaning there are knots and some more waste or just plain bad pieces. But, I love the floors with a bit more character, so I am happy to pay less and get what I want.

In this rendering, I remembered to move the dishwasher into its future home on the left of the sink. The problem with its current location is that you can't be cooking and loading the dishwasher, so by moving it to the other side, I can cook dinner, while Justin cleans all the dishes I'm making - creating a perfect world, our own little Zion if you will.

We took out the cabinet above the microwave and rebuilt it. Now not only can I fit all my spices, but I can also store the tall bottles of balsamic vinegar and what not! This change also adds a nice bit of dimension, especially for the crown molding! All these seemingly small changes, with I am sorry to say a lot of work for my sweet husband, definitely makes a huge difference and equals a happy wife.

So, more recently, within the last four weeks to be exact, I saw a picture of a beautiful kitchen with display boxes above. Of course we could not afford the custom cabinets in the photograph. In fact, we cannot afford any new cabinets at all. So, of course, we just get creative.

Our church building is being remodeled, so we talked to the man in charge and he let us salvage some old, perfectly good window casings. We have already used the wood for several different projects, but my favorite project by far has to be the new display boxes Justin built for above the cabinets. It brings your eye up and helps me to store all my many, (maybe too many, but I won't admit that again) dishes! In a few weeks we will putty and paint the entire cabinet so that you can't tell they ever lived apart.

These show what happened it seems all at once. Justin cut all the boxes outside (I did help a little). then he brought them in and had a bulk of it done in about an hour. Then he finished the other side the next day or two and within a few days he had the crown put up perfectly without any gaps at all! What a MAN! Thank you honey!

This last picture is just the shelves rearranged a bit,
now that a few more things have had to be moved.

Falling for you...

This Memorial day post is dedicated to my brother Josh! Thank you so much for being willing to serve our country! To serve us each individually, to give us the freedom to live and enjoy our beautiful country free from fear and oppression! We love you and honor you! Thanks to all our friends that have served for us as well.

We decided this Memorial day to enjoy the beautiful outdoors. We took a day trip to the Dupont Forest. The are a ton of water falls located there. We saw 3 and really loved how nice it was to take the little hike to see each. We had a picnic at triple falls. It was fabulous eating sugar snap peas and fried chicken with the mist from the water coming in waves to cool us off. We brought Alex along. She was a good trooper and didn't complain at all, accept at the end when she started to curse all hills!

After our hike we went to see the new Indiana Jones movie and thought it was pretty much as good as The Last Crusade which was my favorite.

Hooker Falls ----------------------------------------------- Us ------------------------------------------------------



Alex and me----------------------------------------------- Triple Falls -----------------------------------------------



Lunch break at the falls------------------------------------- Looking up at the falls ------------------------------------



Trees, and Flowers------------------------------------------ and Ferns oh my! ---------------------------------------



Covered Bridge View --------------------------------------- High Falls --------------------------------------------------