Something Changed!

If you look at this before and after pic....

Can you see what has changed....

That's right!  We cut down the tree in our front yard. 

It was not the healthiest tree...

Our neighbor who helped cut it down needs firewood for the winter

Our other neighbor didn't really like it...

And so, we cut it down!

We love the sun that we get in our front yard these days.

Thanks to all who helped in the endeavor!

Sad thing...

Right when the tree was falling, my memory card filled right up!

I wasn't even able to video the TIMBER!

Spencer's "Survive" Thirty Five Party

 Ariana planned a great party for Spencer's 35th birthday party!   We headed down to Rigby to join the fun!  We missed Homecoming in Ashton, but Family First!

My niece, Nadia, is the cutest thing ever!  Before the party began, Nadia and I went through the garden and she told me what each of the vegetables were and we picked some raspberries!!!!

 Marek is a stud!  He is just enjoying his fruit kabob!

 The party was a Survivor party!  She based a lot of her things off of the party that we planned for my birthday, but she changed some things up!  It was really fun and we loved being a part of it!

The first thing was to bid on these plates to either get a reward or something gross to eat.  We got most of the things that were nasty!!  We had to eat....chocolate covered onions, chicken baby food with chicken broth and a salt and vinegar chip, some cayenne pepper soup, and some other good things too. 

 Andrew showing off his GUNS!

 The other team eating pickles with peanut butter!  Not too bad!

 Chocolate covered onions!

 After eating the baby food concoction!

 Look at the bowl that the cayenne pepper soup came in.  She got it at DI!

 The second challenge was we had to do a relay using boxes.  Our team didn't do too hot!

 The next thing we had to do was a trivia question game.  We had a tie so Koch and I had to go head to head at a Staring contest!  I WON because as we were staring at each other I blew in her face and that didn't work, so I started to stick my tongue out started to "spit' on her that way!  The stare was BROKEN!

 We had to do a blind fold activity next!  We are so happy!

 We had to go out and listen to directions given by April to find clues out in the field.  Then we had to put the clues together.

 It was a pretty hard puzzle...there was three blocks that had Just,  a,  and written on them.  There was a serving platter, a little army man, a bee hive, a will, a snake, and a birthday candle that was a 2!  Do you know what the saying was....

Just (block)

a (block)

Man (Army Man)

and (block)

his (snake - HISS)

will (printed out will)

to (2 birthday candle)

Survive (Serving platter + Beehive)

 After the blindfold activity we had to do a standing on one leg contest.  April and Spencer went head to head.  They both stood there for five minutes.  So then we had to do a hold your breath contest.  Spencer went up against Aaron.  Aaron WON!  Which means, we got the reward.

 The last challenge was a Capture the Flag game.  Our reward was a free get out of jail card. 

Unfortunately we did not win Capture the Flag, which means we did not win Survivor!

 But, even though we didn't win, Spencer's team DID win and he is the birthday boy, so I suppose that is the way it should be!  We had such a fun time and we were so glad that we were able to go!  We met some great people who were on our team..April and Keith!  They are now our friends on FACEBOOK!!  Whoo Hoo!

Thanks for throwing such a wonderful party Ariana!

Our team was Team Africawesome!

A quick, easy, and beautiful craft!

Ok! I have been wanting to do something crafty lately.  I am a blog cruiser and I look at all of these cool things that people are doing and say, "One day I will do that!"  Well, that ONE DAY has finally come!  I was sitting at home this evening just going from blog to blog.  I first checked out my friend Nicole's new blog and saw the really cute vase that held her Gerber daisies...which then led me to this BLOG where I saw the inspiration behind it all.  How genius!  When I saw this I turned to Andrew and I said, "Let's go to Rexburg, we have to go to the Dollar Tree so I can get these things and make them!"  I didn't even say, One day I will make this!  I wanted to do it RIGHT THEN AND THERE!!!  So, off to Rexburg we went.  The Dollar Tree had everything we were looking for, funny thing that all of these supplies were low in stock. (Have others seen this blog recently??)  So, this beautiful new addition to our home cost us....are you ready for this....NOTHING AT ALL!!!

Well, we had a gift card to the Dollar Tree (Thanks Daciana!)  But if we did not have that gift card it would have cost us a whomping 7 BUCKS!!!  I love it so much! Thanks Nicole and Melissa from 320 * Sycamore!  You guys are the best!

I made two this time around.  

But, the next time I am at The Dollar Tree I will most likely be picking up the supplies to make some more!  Also, I only used HALF of one of the potpourri bags.  I just can't wait to change things up and add different things to these beauties!

Floating down a River

 A couple of Mondays ago we went TUBING down the Warm River with Morgan, Andrew, some of Morgan's family, and Andrew's sister.  It was a very UNFORGETTABLE experience to say the least.

This is us before we started the trip down the river.  We were so happy!  

Who knew what lied ahead of us!

This was the FIRST tragedy!  I had my knee down in the middle of the tube and the water got way shallower than I thought!  That was when the rock came out of no where and SCRAPED me!  How dare that rock!

Ok!!  This is such a beautiful view!!!  It was a wonderful site!

Cute little Lily on the raft!

Hannah having a blast.

All of us having a GREAT time.....until........

We saw what we were about to come upon.

Do you see that rock?????

I am pretty sure Morgan got a good look at it!

Well, luckily, Morgan was totally fine and then we realized the bigger picture.  All of the tubes were tied together.  Andrew and I were on one side of the raft and the other smaller tubes were on the opposite side.  Well, when came upon this rock our tube went one way and the other tubes went the other....which meant we were STUCK!!!!

This is my view from our tube.

This is what we saw from on top of the rock as we were getting out of the tube and standing on top of the rock.

Andrew got out first and then it was my turn!  Those rapids were pretty strong!  As you can see from my face....it was all good!

We all survived!  I ended up in the raft and Andrew had the big tube to himself.  We did lose the little tube that was inside of the big tube.  A small sacrifice!

We were so excited to be done with all of that. We were enjoying the rest of trip down the river, except that we were freezing and it was raining.....what a perfect day to float the river.

Then we saw these wonderful things.  We tried our hardest to get away from them in time, but it didn't quite work that way!

Leah was too scared to even look!  Actually she fell asleep on the trip!

Lily does not like what she sees!

To make a long story short...Too late (what movie is that from?) 

Anyways, to make a long story short, Joney got stuck under one of the pillars which caused the raft and all other tubes to be stuck, which causes Morgan, Hannah, Kelsey and Andrew to be let out of their tubes, which caused for all of the little kids in the raft to start crying which made for a wonderful time!

Morgan, Kelsey, and Hannah waiting for the tubes to get to them!  

We were all fine!

We were definitely watched over this day!

The girls resting from a long trip down the river!

YEA!!!  Solid ground.  What a glorious thing!

We were all safe and happy and COLD!

We only had one car at the bottom of the river, some people took all of the little kids to get them warmed up at home.  We waited for them to come back for us and the tubes.  We definitely started a fire while we waited. It was one hot fire too!  It singed the hairs on my leg!  I know, I know....I should have shaved!  About thirty minutes later we were in the car heading home as well.  This trip was pretty adventurous!  I CAN'T WAIT for our next one!

PS:  Look at this really cool tree growing out of the ROCK!

AMAZING!

Thanks Andrew and Morgan for inviting us to float down the river with ya!