What Happens When you Don't Mow for 3 Weeks?

Well, it depends on the lawn. At home, it probably wouldn't be a huge deal, because our grass isn't that great. Unfortunately, my grandpa's lawn isn't the same. His lawn is incredibly lush. It grows very fast and he has a sizable lawn. Even after only one week it is almost past due for a mow. Why then would I wait for three weeks you may be asking.... well funny story. The riding mower has issues and has been waiting to get fixed. Soo.. not wanting to mow his whole giant lawn with the push mower I have been putting it off. But today it couldn't wait any longer so today I mowed his lawn. 6 hours later... I was finally finished. Okay, I have to admit I took an hour for lunch and I also stopped to take my grandpa to the office. Also, my mom helped me, luckily or I would have been there for another hour! And to be honest it wasn't as treacherous as I thought it would. I got a good workout, the lawn is finally mowed so I can stop worrying about it, I got paid for it, and I got a little tan! So it definitely had its benefits, even though I would still much rather use the riding mower!
I was so enthralled by how long the grass was, that I had to take a few pictures so that I could share!

Also I am pleased to announce that I am writing this post on my new (early) birthday present. My parents are the BEST!!! I love them so much! I don't know what I would do without them.

Summer Activities

Wow! It has been a little while since I last updated. I was going to be so good about posting, but we all know how that turned out. Anyways, since it has been awhile, I don't know what to post about because I have been doing so many projects and activities! Soo... I will just highlight a few of my favorites and coolest! Well in my opinion they are, I hope y'all agree! :D

First: I love doing toenails! Sarah and I always buy at least one new color of nail polish about every time we go shopping. So, we have a beautiful collection! The biggest problem is what we are going to do when we go our separate ways... fight to the death I guess! ;) Anyways here are a few that I've done that are pretty fun.

Ruth - we came up with the idea together and I helped with the hardest part! We thought it was very patriotic.

Sarah

Hannah - my favorite! I've had this for about a month, which is the longest I think I've gone all summer without repainting.

Second- Food! The last week of July was fair so we hung out up there a few times. And what is a fair without funnel cake?? So we got some the last day of fair when we went to go see the motorcycle show (which, unfortunately, was a fail because of the weather) and got some funnel cake and I wanted more, so that night for scripture study we made some!

Then I saw a recipe for cheesecake on Pinterest and wanted to try it out. So that was our scripture treat tonight. And I have to say... it was ah-mazing! Best cheesecake I've ever made from scratch. Also it was incredibly simple, only 4 ingredients. The hard part was the crust. I thought we had graham crackers at home, but I was mistaken. So I took some cookies that we had (generic version of oreos) and scraped the cream out and used those. Turned out pretty good! Final evaluation of cheese cake: SUCCESS!

I made a normal pie size and had leftovers so I made some little cupcake size ones.

Third: Craftiness

This cute little painting is for my dear friend Lizz. Saw it on Pinterest (surprise, surprise hehe :D) Thought it would be fun to make and ta-da!

And this project came from NOT Pinterest! I thought of it all on my own! We have these really cute hot chocolate canisters (sadly, the hot chocolate is not my favorite) anyways I needed something for hair stuff. So I cleaned the label off (with help from my mom: Thanks Mommy!) and then found some really cute scrapbook paper I had and mod podged the paper on. It had a little 1 to 2 inch gap so I just added another small piece of paper. It turned out so great and I LOVE it!

And best for last: Sometime in July Sarah, Mark, and I went to Ogden so that Sarah could take her personal trainer test. She is now officially certified. Yay Sarah! Anyways after that we did some shopping, had lunch with some friends from camp: Seth, Spencer, and Richard. That was way fun! Then we went to this place called Get Air. Its a place full of trampolines that you just jump around on an

d can do tricks and stuff. Except I was too scared to do any fun tricks... but it was still fun! And then after that we met up with Alan at the mall to get our outfits for his and Laura's wedding. Sarah's friends Michael met up with us there and then we went and had ice cream. Last we went to a mattress store to meet Laura's parents and then we went home. It was a very long but fun day! The point of this story is that we always see such interesting people at the mall. This trip was no exception.

He had pink hair that was in a fo-hawk and those skinny jeans and a purse and like 6 inch heels that had like spiked rhinestones on the back. Very strange. We went into the store to take pictures. I was like papparazzi or a stalker or something haha but it was fun!

Cards and Windows

So, first off, I just noticed that I think I have started both posts thus far with "So". I don't know why I do that, I just do. I will work on that...
Anywho, I wanted to brag about some things I have done lately. For a little background story, two of my really good friends Kali (pronounced like Kaylee) and Ali (Kali was one of my first roommates and Ali is her little sis), sent me a surprise package to me while I was on my trip in Michigan. I loved it sooo much and made me so happy and thankful to have such AMAZING friends! So I decided to return the favor, and I sent them little packages with some cookies I made -- they were cream cheese cookies and I got the recipe from my best pal: Pinterest -- and some little souveniers that I bought at the Hallmark store in Oscoda. They were a little cheesy, but I wanted to get them something that I wouldn't be able to buy anywhere else, mission accomplished! For packing materials, I used inflated water balloons. Don't worry! They were not filled with water, but air. ;) I was bored one night, so instead of buying them cards, I decided to make some. So I borrowed some Cricut cartridges from where I work because they have much cuter ones than me. And made some cards! The results are shown below:

Front:

Inside - Kali is an animal science major (I think) and she really loves animals, so I thought this would be appropriate:

Front:

Inside:

I am really happy with how these turned out and might even make som e more someday!

I work at the historical museum here in town called the Green River Valley Museum. If you haven't been, it really is amazing! For such a little town, there is so much stuff and some really great items. Definitely stop by if you have a chance! Anyways, last week my boss let me get away from doing computer work and set up some new window displays and decorations for the fourth. My awesome coworkers, Tory and MiMi also helped me!

Here is the first:

and the second - I wanted it to be like a girl's, I mean, proper lady's bedroom from back in the day:

I loved being able to do this! It was fun and I really liked how they turned out. During the day, it is kind of hard to see them very well, but at night, man, they sure look great!

Lastly, I have a story for y'all! It is pretty funny so hopefully I can do it justice. Yesterday, my sister Ruth came over for the day to do laundry. And while they were hanging out, we went into my room so that she could do her toenails for the fourth. While we were in there, everyone decided to join us: Dave, Don, and little Daniel. Sarah was with us too just chatting. Anyways, the boys were nosing through my things, and I have had an apple on my desk for the last few weeks that I keep forgetting to eat. And every week, David has brought it to me and tells me that I need to eat it. I never want to at the time, so I ask him to put it back on my desk. This Monday, Sarah was holding Dan in her lap so that he couldn't get into the nail polish anymore. He was in perfect reach of the apple and so he started gnawing on it, putting little baby teeth marks into it. Then he lost interest, so Dave grabbed it. They left my room and a little while later, Dave comes in and says, "Here is you apple back, Hannah" and sets it on it's end and leaves. This is what I saw:
I told him that he could have the rest of it.

Fire!

So, I was going to do a post about all of my latest projects.... but there are a lot and so I decided to go with the most exciting event that has been going on locally. That is that Fontenelle Fire. There are a lot of fires in the West, and even close by. It started on LaBarge Creek... I think.. I don't really know. Anyways it has spread to be pretty big and is in Middle Piney now. So there has been sooo much smoke in Big Piney and LaBarge. There was even ash falling on us, which was new for me. And this definitely did not help with my allergies. :( But the firefighters and Forest Service (I think, I don't actually know facts, just trying to remember what I have heard) have set up base at the High School, which is right across the street from me, so it has been fun watching all of that. They have tents set up everywhere and trucks coming and going. Last week there were a bunch of semis lined up on the side of road waiting to pull in to unload the supplies and they were lined up pretty close for a long ways in front of houses, and people that lived in those houses had to drive all the way around them to get out. It was pretty crazy. Anyways I took some pictures of that and of the smoke. Also, they have recruited a bunch of people from the community to be on various fire crews and so my mom is a supervisor for one at the school and so she works from 6 am to 10 pm every day. Pretty long days, but the pay is great. And we are managing (barely) around the house without her. It has been fun cooking for my family though! Last night, my dad and I were going to drive up as far as we could to see the fire, but we didn't get very far before they closed the road, so that was a bummer.
Anyways, other than the fire, I have just been working at the museum and for my dad. I have also been working on lots of projects, like I mentioned. Soon, I will dazzle you all with my creativity and talent (or something like that) but tonight I just wanted to make a little post about the fire. It is hard getting into the habit of having a blog, so bear with me!

Smoke when the fire first started.

Sunset with the fire.The haze of smoke, it looks like a cloudy day, but it's really smoke.

High school, sorry it's not the best picture, but it kind of shows how busy it is there.
The yard next to the high school where they have been camped out, lots and lots of tents!
The annex parking lots and west of that. The tents are to the right of that.

Luckily, it is not close to us, so we won't have to evacuate or anything. And I don't think any of the cabins have been harmed. But our hearts and prayers do go out to those that have lost their homes.

Hello Blogging World!

So with the help from my sister-in-law Holly, I decided to start blogging again. Since the last blog I was trying to do.. well I stopped. I tried changing that one, but decided just to do a whole different one. This won't have a focus, just whatever I feel like that day. But it will have snippets of design inspiration and projects, stories from my life (which are always incredibly exciting!) and random projects that I found and have done, and maybe even cooking. I guess we'll see what ends up one here! Basically, it is an awesome blog about my "adventures"! Hope you enjoy it as much as I hope I am going to... if that makes sense!
Until next time!
For now I will leave you with a picture of one of my favorite pictures from my vacation to Michigan! Beautiful sunrise, eh?!