Summer's Outa Here!

It's pretty sad to say it, but summertime is pretty much outa here. It's not like we had a ton of time to enjoy everything this summer, but, nevertheless, it was a good one. We had the chance to do a few really great things as a family.

I (this is Ethan here) thought I would take the time to post some of my fav's from this summer. Interestingly enough, all my favorite times were with the family, doing little things and trying to make memories. Without a doubt, it's been the busiest summer of my life, but it will be one to remember. So...in no particular order, here they are:

1) Camping trip up AF canyon. I don't know how we do it, but we get rained when we go camping. Last year: rain. This year: rain. No good. But, it was really fun hanging out with the family in the tent. It's amazing how fun a bunch of pillows/sleeping bags and an air mattress can be for two little guys.



2) California. This was such a fun trip for our family. One of my favorites was probably the Dodger's game. Even though we didn't last too long, there's just something special about an MLB game! The kids won't likely remember it, but I will. You can't beat spending $40 on two nachos, two hot dogs and two drinks!

I was only half surpirsed at how eager our littlest one was to get it the water at the beach. Despite the water being FREEZING cold, he just didn't care, as evidenced by this video. These are the kinda kids you need to watch! Our oldest?? Not so much. He spent most of the time begging US to stay out of the water. Gotta love these two kids!



3) Rachel's Half Marathon. I was so stinking proud of my sweetheart for doing this race in August. It was pretty fun to get the kids bundled up to cheer her on -- even though I failed to get her on camera as much as I wanted to. She's pretty inspiring to me! This video shows us missing her on camera (kinda) then Ty being disapointed that she didn't stop and come home with us!



4) Fourth of July. I really love this holiday. It's been fun to start a tradition of getting up to see the hot air balloons. Our oldest isn't so scared of them now. I think watching the helicopter at the hospital come and go, and seeing some balloons take off here and there has helped out!



4B.) Learning that my oldest son looks totally awesome/weird in some of his photos. Check these babies out! He doesn't even look like he's from around here in these. Holy Cannoli. I got to talk to him about these.















5) I just gotta post about this project Rachel's been working on! Early this summer, Rachel was offered an older, out-of-date and out-of-style piece of furniture that has been in her family for probably like 60 years??? It had the laminate finish on it at the time. I was hesitant at first, just because we weren't sure how to best use it. But her awesome dad and she had a great idea to TOTALLY refinish and refurbish it. The result: it's beautiful. I just can't believe how well it turned out. The photo on the left below shows the left half of the "before" piece. It's tough to tell, but it was a pretty big change.

The steps of the project included:

A. Stripping all the laminate finish with a heat gun and blades. Then, they sanded down the entire piece.
B. Since they didn't want to or couldn't reuse some of the wood that was uncovered, Rachel's dad pretty much reconstructed the top part of the furniture by himself. He purchased all the wood (pine, bead board, trimmings, table-top, etc.) and created pretty much everything that appears new on the thing.
C. Rachel spent a few trips to and from The Wood Connection in Murray. They were very cool about teaching her how to refinish the furniture and get the look she really wanted.
D. After it had been sanded down and prepped, Rachel spent like 5 days, each a week apart, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, antiquing, sanding, finishing, sanding and finishing it.

It looks pretty impressive. I'm very proud of her. Now, we're hoping the kids get used to not being able to climb all over it BEFORE we put the hardware on it. That'll be the final touch.



Anyhow, life is totally crazy busy now, but I'm so glad to have the most important things in relatively good order (my fam may disagree!). But I'm sure a lucky one.