Fireplace

I'll finish Hawaii pictures later, but I'm so excited, I have to post some pictures of the new fireplace. It was delivered the day we left for Hawaii so we put it together Wednesday after we got back and got settled! It's amazing and I love love it!!

This is the setup BEFORE

I know it sucks...huh? lol

AND AFTER!!!

It makes such a huge difference I can't believe it. I love it! And it heats so well. {Not that we need it just yet-- but the time is getting close!}

So if anyone wants this old enter entertainment center just let me know!!!

Hawaii Part 1.

These pictures take so long to upload that I'm going to do them in Parts, lol.

This was the plane ride there. It was a longer flight than I had expected. We left Wednesday morning at 6am, which means we were at the airport at 4:30- only to find out the United counter didn't open until 5- awesome.We had just landed.Kona Graffiti-- interesting The hotel room

The view from our private balcony-- that's the Pacific Ocean out there.
Justin was taking a break after all that traveling-- it wore us out! Getting ready to walk down to the beach.
At the beach.
It was cold the first day we got there, so we just splashed our feet in the water.
He was standing right next to a glowing green fish in this picture! Brave Guy...Thursday morning we walked down the beach from our resort through a few tree tunnels (behind us in the picture) to go to this certain beach our shuttle driver told us about. There were a bunch of turtles!

Throwing our Lei's into the ocean for good luck.Thanks for the Lei's Monty and Melanie

And there they are....

Justin dug a "mote" to keep our stuff from getting wet in the tide while we were snorkeling.
After we went snorkeling and the water washed off all our sunscreen-- we got sunburned
Dinner at the resort that night on the Patio. There were so many beautiful sunsets while we were there!

Eating dinner. It was great food!
We got up early Friday morning to go swim in the cold pool to cool off our sunburns.

{More to come later..}

Tatertots and Jello: 20 Headboard Ideas

Just had to share this. I love all her ideas. I've already made my own headboard for our bedroom back in March, Shown here: http://habituallybliss.blogspot.com/2010/03/always-learning.html
But this post has me thinking I want to do some updating to my new one somehow... A project to update my project, lol. This could be fun.
Enjoy!

Tatertots and Jello: 20 Headboard Ideas

I love my life...

I'm so excited. We have exactly 8 days until we go to Hawaii. It doesn't seem real! I'm so excited. Today Justin went to St. George for a little two day getaway with his brother Eric before he moves back to Thailand. So tonight it's just me. I'm going to go tanning right after work, go pick up my Alison's pantry order {I won't forget this time! Like I have for the last 2 times} then go pick up Hailey and we are going to go swimming @ the rec. center. Hailey has been kinda cooped up in the house ever since her dad, Jason- My brother in law- hit a deer on his bullet bike and got pretty banged up. He sprained an ankle, got lots of road rash, and they had to re-attach the muscle to his left arm-- so he is slightly immobile. So I'm here to give Hailey a little break and take her swimming.

After swimming I'm planning on going home, taking a nice, long, hot, relaxing shower, then fold laundry until bed time.

Yep...those of you that are going "how boring"--shush. This is what old married people do when they have a night "off" haha-- Catch up on laundry.

Other exciting news- I'm almost completely ready to go back to college...YIKES...

I'm only taking two classes +1 lab and they are online, but I'm getting back into the whole "college thing" to finish my bachelors.

I always planned to and when I landed this job and they just so happen to offere 100% educational assistance for any C grade or above-- how could I pass that up. Justin keeps telling me how proud he is of me-- what a sweetheart. So I'm going to do it :D Yippee!

I will be even further accomplished.

{I've always been so proud of myself for earning my Associates degree before I graduated high school -- taking three years off after that point and putting me behind the general curve though-- not such a proud thing-- Here I am now, playing Catch-up}

It will be worth it though!

In other news...I ordered a fireplace today :D YIPPEE! I have never lived in a house without a fireplace until this one and it's only been one winter-- but after that I knew I needed a fireplace...and I knew it was out of the question to ask Justin to build me a chimney and hearth and all that fun stuff- so I resorted to (a new discovery) an electric Fireplace.

I never knew they existed- but It looks amazing and is just the right size to put on the main wall in our living room and we'll hang the TV above it and our components and decorations will go on the shelves and it will be perfect!

Also, this last week Justin was so sick! He had me so worried. He went 3 days strait without being able to keep any food or liquids in his stomach... so needless to say he got super dehydrated, lost 6 pounds and missed a few days of work. Poor guy! I am so so happy that he is feeling better now and getting back on his feet. Still a little weak {It's crazy how much strength you loose just from the flu} but he's getting better!

I hate it when my sweetheart doesn't feel good! It's the worst!

This last Sunday I also got to go to a very important baby blessing. Mr. Jaxton Allen Wayne Sharp was blessed by his great uncle this last Sunday and his dad, Eric Sharp was nice enough to invite my dad to stand in the circle and my mom and I got to come watch. It was so good to catch up with the Sharp family. We all got to be pretty good friends, so it's good to see them again!

Congratulations Eric and Marysa! Mr. Jaxton is a cutie!

We are still playing softball as well. Every Monday night we are at the fields. Last night, I have to say, I'm quite proud of. We played so welll, we won both games with scores of 18-1 and 22-2. It felt so great to be playing so well and communicating with eachother! I love being able to spend the time out doors with my hubby and friends, get some exercise and enjoy a good game!

Thanks for letting me play {even when I suck} guys!

So the countdown is on! 8 days til Hawaii, 20 days til college starts and 29 days til Justin's 24 birthday!

August…

I can’t believe it’s August already. I was telling Justin yesterday, on our way down the mountain from his family reunion, that August always feels like the end of the summer to me…ever since I was little I liked the Month August with the word Autumn….Makes sense doesn’t it? So even though it (hopefully) doesn’t start getting cold until October….My mind is telling me the summer is over…and It’s so sad.
We haven’t gotten our yard finished. (We’re close though) All we have left to finish is:
Lay the sprinkling system
Buy and lay sod/or seed (we still can’t decide)
Build the fire pit area
Put the railings up on the deck and
Finish the flower beds in the back yard

I still have a few more not-so-large projects to work on but it just keeps feeling like its too late now so my motivation is going to kill my progress making abilities….

What I am getting excited for however is:
To clean out my basement so we can work on it this winter!
To (hopefully) buy this electric fireplace and get it installed in the living room

My Great Grandpa Chester Wadsworth “all the grandkids” reunion…Could be fun and last but NOT LEAST…
HAWAII!!! We have 16 days until we leave….. (Some pics. of our resort!)

{Holy cow, it just hit me when I typed that number!!! 16 days…My word, I’m so unprepared—but I’m super excited!} We’ve got our hotel booked, rental car booked, and Massages at Mama Lahoa booked. We get a 45 minute soak in their natural salt water hot tubs then a 90 minute hot stone couple’s massage. It’s going to be so great!!! Although I’m super excited to go, I keep looking at the numbers growing as we stash our cash to go…and I can’t help but thinking what an awesome shopping trip it would make for, lol. Just cancel Hawaii and let’s go shopping! But I would never…haha I’m too excited.

Travel Log:
This last weekend we spent up at Iron Springs campground for the Warren Family Reunion, which is always a lot of fun. We drove up Friday and came home yesterday. It was a nice relaxing weekend that consisted of lots of good food, lots of lounging around, reading magazines, lots of taking the dogs running – they love camping! We took some pretty fun trail rides in the new Ranger! (I was so scared we were going to run into a bear- they had advisories everywhere that the bears were VERY active this year, YIKES!) I got quite a few good long naps, and I loved sitting around the campfire. Justin also got to play archery golf (which I think is his favorite part of the reunion). All together, it was a great weekend! Thanks for all your hard work everyone!

My Love of Recipes....

I have always loved to cook. I have an obsession with Costco and Cook books because of this love. However, I feel it's unfair that I grew up learning to cook for 5 people...and then I was reduced to two when I got married. That's just not fair...especially when those two don't eat leftovers very well, lol.

Anyways, I ran across this little Blip on MSN this morning

(it's such an entertaining place to find fun random things on a slow day at work)

And wanted to share it:

Healthy Breakfasts:

http://www.delish.com/recipes/cooking-recipes/low-calorie-breakfasts?GT1=47048

I have also learned to balance my meals better from this website:

www.caloriecount.about.com

To make sure I don't gain too much weight from eating all this food I love to cook.

My go to place for recipes when I'm looking for something new or to refer to something I ate when I was young is:

www.allrecipes.com

And I am newly discovering this website:

www.eatingwell.com

who created that little "Healthy Breakfasts" blip.

{life is too short to not eat good food}

I can feel it...

the summer is slipping away....

It makes me so sad that the summer is slipping away. No matter how hard I try to ignore it, the time won't stop.

Although I do love the fall.....

• Light Jackets
• Bon Fires
• Lots of food from Mom and Dad's garden {Thank You!}
• Warm Drinks
• Get to start wearing boots again sometimes...
• Short season is close to over {Thank Goodness}

I had such high hopes of getting our yard all finished and complete at the end of spring/ beginning of summer so we could have the rest of the summer to enjoy it, but it's just so much more work than anyone would ever think, lol.

It is turning out great, it just takes time... So I guess we'll have to have a bon fire in the back yard for Halloween {If you're allowed to during that time of the year} in our new firepit (if we get it finished) and grill out on the back deck (if we ever get the railings up)

I can't believe that we leave for Hawaii in 20 days... It's unreal. I'm so excited to just go relax.....ahhhh...

I can feel it already- and it feels so good, lol.

I want to just sit out in the sun on the private beach, eat lots of good foor, go snorkeling off that same private beach, take long naps in hammocks, enjoy the fresh farmers markets and massages and luau's!!

For the next little while we're going to:

• Get ready for the Warren Family Reunion
• Finish running electricity to our back yard/ shop
• Finish spreading the gravel in the back yard/ planters
• Try to get started on the firepit
• Lay the sprinkling system in the back yard and
• Wait for the grass seed I planted last Saturday to start growing {Crossing my fingers}

In the mean time, check out this cute link I found on MSN. They have some really cute ideas!

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-home/staticslideshowrs.aspx?cp-documentid=24972431&gt1=32067