I have a garden!!!!

My landlord finally moved his jet skis so I was able to put my garden in. These are the before pictures.

The pictures below are the after pictures. It is amazing what a few hours of sweat, some blisters, and a lot of mud on your shoes can accomplish. I have a little pot of herbs outside my backdoor so I can get to them easily for cooking. I am so excited to try gardening, I am hoping that I will actually have something to show for my efforts, I will keep you all updated on my progress.

I have little tomato plants, they are protected by stakes so that if it gets cold I can put plastic over them. There are also some bell peppers, a couple of cantelope and cucumber starts. I even found an unopened box of miracle grow in our storage room, so I can make an even better effort to make my garden a success.

My Sewing Machine Works again!

My sewing machine has been having issues for the past couple of months making it difficult to do any fun projects. I had it serviced last week, and voila! it works like a dream now. A week ago at enrichment we learned how to make reusable shopping bags. I didn't have the supplies at the time but it ended up working out great because I stumbled on a sale that provided the fabric for three large bags for about $5. Below are pictures of two of the bags, I am rather happy with them. I am already figuring out ways to put pockets through the middle to change it from just a big open bag to something more like a tote bag, diaper bag, etc. So if you are interested in having a custom made bag let me know.

My Nephew Austin's Wedding

First of all I have to apologize, I didn't realize how low the battery was on my camera, so I have a total of three pictures from my nephew's wedding. And they are all of the rehearsal dinner the night before. Oh, well I guess I will just have to make due with what I have.

Austin married a lovely young woman named Alissa, the color scheme of the wedding was bright pink and chocolate brown. The picture below is of the flower arrangements, I love the cute little cowboy boots.

Both Alissa and Austin are somewhat country, Austin wore cowboy boots with his tuxedo. They also provided a CD of music as a wedding favor, all of great country love songs (Brad managed to suffer through). I loved the fact that the music for the wedding was two beautiful fiddle pieces.

My cute parents enjoying getting to see their grandkids and other friends.

My adorable niece and nephew, I don't know about you all but I definitely didn't look with together and with it when I was 13 almost 14. Must have something to do with having cool older siblings ( in Elle's case) and a styling set of parents (in alex's place) I can only hope to look this cool someday. It was a great weekend. Brad took some time off, so he could come with me, the high point of the weekend for him was when he got to purchase his new handgun on Thursday. So we now have a Glock 22 and a Glock 23, we are so proud of our new acquistion.

Jeff's Graduation

Last week my nephew Jeff graduated from BYU (Go Cougars!) it was a great weekend, not only did we have the fun of celebrating his accomplishment I also got to spend time with my parents. Here is the handsome graduate and his proud parents.
My adorable parents with their grandson. You will notice that the graduation gowns are navy blue, back in the dear dead days when I graduated they were black. I guess somebody decided a change to the school colors would be a nice way to update the look.

Onward and upward, the future waits.

Isn't he just the cutest kid ever, I am so lucky to be the aunt of a bunch of attractive nieces and nephews.

We had a great dinner at Rodney and Marja's house to celebrate the graduation. This is a picture of the graudation cake, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the little decorative diploma that sported a "Made in China" sticker. It was especially funny because of the engineering graduates that were honored there were quite a few who were double majors in Chinese.

That evening Mom, Dad, and I went to the wedding reception of my cousin's daughter. One of Uncle Robert's grand daughters, of course she had no idea who I was because I hadn't seen her since she was a little girl. But it was a fun occasion to see some members of the family. This is mom with one of my cousins.

See what did I tell you, I am the aunt of some really cute kids, and Matt now that he is home from his mission can actually enjoy the "scenery" at a place like BYU.

A proud Grandma giving a hug to the new graduate.

You can't tell, but I promise Jeff is getting is diploma on the stage.

Dad with his omnipresent book, he always has it with him, just in case he has to kill some time. We have similar pictures of him at my wedding reception and at my nephew Craig's reception as well. It makes things easy if we are looking for daddy, we just find a quiet corner and the chance is he will be sitting there with his book.

Waiting for the festivities to start. Don't we all look so enthused to be there an hour early.

Life in Utah: Scrapbooking & Firearms

Brad came home from training for the Sheriff's Department the other day. This is him looking all rough, tough, and law enforcement like. He had been at the shooting range all day doing manly type things and he came home to find the TV room covered in scrapbooking materials.

This is definitely something you don't see everyday, except maybe here in utah. Handguns and scrapbooking all in one convienent package.