New hobby

Thanks to my great friend Britt, I have learned a new hobby!  I know Jeremy is just super excited for me to have more projects.  What can I say, I like to be creative.  Anyways.  Britt, the master glazer and furniture re-doer gave me a lesson in glazing.  Thanks so much for your help!

I found this ugly frame at goodwill for $6.99!

…and after Jeremy’s help taking it apart into this…

…painted, glazed and turned it into this! Sorry about the picture quality – misplaced the good camera in the preparing to move madness.

and gave it to Karissa for an early first year anniversary gift.  It’s a dry erase monthly calendar she can use to keep track of their crazy schedules. 

Oh and she loved it! – Always a good thing when the recipient likes the gift!

I liked the purple so much I’m trying to think of something and somewhere I can put something purple in my house.  I hope there will be many glazing projects to come! Anyone have access to old five panel wood doors and windows???

Hotel Living

The movers came Monday and packed up all our stuff.  Now its on a truck somewhere and will eventually end up in Missouri.  Tuesday and Wednesday I spent several hours cleaning everything and tackling the carpet stains with the carpet cleaner.  Surprisingly, cat throw up that has been under a bed for who knows how long is really hard to clean out of the carpet.  Hopefully the apt. lady won’t notice.

Living in the hotel is not as bad as it could be.  We found a one bedroom suite which is perfect because Ty has his own room with a door dividing it from ours.  I think he really likes the hotel because every time I drive back to the apt. he says “I don’t want to go to this house.”  Another nice perk is that along with complimentary breakfast this hotel provide complimentary dinner Monday-Thursday and so far it’s actually been good food.

This is Ty’s favorite part – this is our view out the windows.  Every morning we say hi to the big trucks, watch the big trucks and say bye to the big trucks when we leave.

Lake Mead

Last weekend when my sister and her husband came to visit we did a lot of fun things.  One of those was canoeing/kayaking on Lake Mead.  The water is unbelievably clear and Ty did surprisingly well in the canoe.  We had one canoe and one kayak for 4 hours.  We paddled around, stopped at several places to play in the water, had a picnic on some random island, and had fun throwing rocks in the water.

The gang – Jeremy, Ty, Marissa, Karissa and Morgan

Ty helping push the canoe into the water.

By the end of the day, Ty was super comfortable swimming around the water with his life jacket.

sister shot – and beautiful lake mead (we paddled all the way to and around those islands you see behind us)

The night before Karissa and Morgan agreed to babysit while Jeremy and I went on a go kart date.  I had never been before and bought a groupon several months ago.  Jeremy said these were really fast cars – they had a brake that you actually had to use to go around the sharp corners or you would hit the wall and get stuck.  I thought I did pretty good for the first time.  It was really humid inside the building so that is why the picture is blurry.

Bye bye toys

The movers came this morning and took all our stuff. Now it's off to
live in a hotel for week before heading home. Hope everything goes
smoothly.

Splash pad!

Taking advantage of all the super nice parks in Henderson before we move, we went to the newest and coolest splash park today.  Ty showed Karissa and Morgan how it’s done.

Ty grabbed the camera and captured this shot!

Cool saucer swing!

Everyone is napping now – and I do mean everyone – except me of course.

13 days!

13 days and we start our drive back to Missouri!  The movers come Monday to pack up all our stuff and then we’ll be living in a hotel for Jeremy’s final week of work.  My sister and her husband are coming to visit in a couple days so it will be great to see them again before we move.  Probably won’t see them again until the holidays.  Our good friend Matt is flying Tinker back for us this weekend so we don’t have to worry about dealing with her on the drive and Jeremy’s parents are flying out and driving our car back for their Grand Canyon vacation.  So I think we’ve got everything taken care of.  Thanks to everyone for your help!  I will miss the friends I’ve made here, but we look forward to seeing everyone in Missouri again.

Fourth of July

Tyler saw his first fireworks this year.  He loved them and talked about them for a week afterwards.  We just went to the parking lot of one of the local casinos to watch them.  The weather was perfect, it actually rained a little bit that day and was only 77!  Perfect firework weather.  The next day it was 99 again.

Can’t believe that guy sat so close behind us!  Yes, he is as close as he looks.  Way to ruin my picture!  I’ll have to do some work on this one before I print it.

Long Live Summer contest

Look at the fun contest I found playing around on Shutterfly today! Win a trip for four to The Bahamas and a professional photo shoot so you’ll remember your vacation forever.  All you need to do is upload your favorite photo and caption based on the theme of the week.  Get a gift from Shutterfly just for entering! You can enter at any point during the 5-week sweepstakes period.

PHOTO THEMES

•       Week 2 (7/16): Great Outdoors

•       Week 3 (7/23): Water Fun

•       Week 4 (7/30): Sports & Activities

•       Week 5 (8/6): Parties & Celebrations

PRIZES

•      Instant win prizes just for submitting a photo!

•      Weekly prizes (contestants can enter one time/week)

•      Weekly featured photos: up to 5 weekly entries will be selected from the gallery and featured on the Facebook fan page and awarded a $500 gift card on Shutterfly and a copy of the new Lonely Planet travel photography book.

•      Grand prize: trip for 4 to Bahamas, 4 nights, family photo shoot

Missouri trip and Jeremy’s birthday

Things are a little crazy preparing to move.  So let’s catch up a little.  Ty and I took a trip to Missouri mid June to visit family and be there for my dad’s surgery.  We had a great time in Columbia and Springfield.

In Columbia, we went to a fun fest and got to see a river turtle, play with some worms and dirt, and a baby gar fish (which daddy has bow fished before out of the Meramec) – they grow up to be huge fish with really sharp teeth.  Bass Pro also had a booth there with DIY bird house kits.  I think Ty liked that the best.  And I painted it the next day and made it a Mizzou birdhouse.

He also got to sit in a real fire truck!

Balloon animals!

Mizzou birdhouse!

Dad found some old fireworks and lots of boxes of those snap popper things.  Ty had a ball with these!  Especially chasing after pops and throwing them at him.  He went through 2 boxes in like 5 minutes.

We also got a chance to catch up with our good friends the Toth’s and their daughter Sophia.  They aren’t really sure how to play together, but aren’t they cute!  Can’t wait to meet Sophia’s sissy, Gianna, due in a couple weeks.

Of course, made a visit to the new and improved student union on campus.  I needed to stock up on my Mizzou gear!

silly faces with mom in the hammock.

me and my mom

getting the mail by four wheeler!  Ty thought it was really loud, but was much better when we gave him the noise cancelling headphones.

This happened everyday after nap time.  He would start with clothes on….but after they got wet, off they went!

After 5 days my sister and brother in law and their kids picked us up and took us to Springfield for a couple more days before we flew home.  All the cousins had a ball playing with each other and there was a lot of laughing and screaming.  Ty definitely holds his own with those two.  While we were there we got to see a fish hatchery down at Tablerock Dam.  Ty had a ball feeding the fish.  We also went to the Discovery center in downtown Springfield and the Republic city pool, both of which were awesome! 

Ty climbed his first tree following after his cousins!

I think these were Ty’s two favorite toys at the Discovery center.  A digger and a crane.  Ty and Keagan could have stayed in this room all day!

The toilet seats reads: A sip of conflict

brothers?  nope, just cousins!

This is the only picture I got of the Republic pool and of course Ty didn’t want to look at the camera because he was mad at me.  Want to know why?  Cause I said two cookies and one brownie was enough for this pool break.  It was a really cool pool with several slides and play equipment with water guns in shallow water for the younger kids.

Getting along….for the moment.

This is at a park farm.  They have animals you can look at and different things to play on – so cool!  We lost our hat and sunglasses here!  bummer.

Trying to get closer to the miniature donkeys.

fish hatchery…

fun times in grandpa and grandma’s backyard.

Trying to get the horsey to go higher…

…oops, bumped our nose!

We had a great time in Missouri – even though it was Vegas hot there!

We got back just in time to celebrate Jeremy’s 30th birthday!  We went to Grimaldi’s for dinner and had Jeremy’s favorite kind of cake (ice cream cake) for dessert.  Happy Birthday babe!