Crazy Kid!

I got out of the shower to find Tanner completely naked sitting next to Sophie in the hall.  He was sharing his cocoa puffs with her.  She was a very happy dog.  Tanner cracks me up how he likes to be naked.  I hope one day he'll keep his clothes on.  

Granite

I looked for granite for almost a year.  I felt like I went to every store in SL three times.  The granite store in Logan and Tremonton were so sick on me.  But Valley View Granite was so patient with me. I would just stop by and walk up and down their rows of granite hoping something would speak to me.  At one point in time, I thought I found our granite at Arizona Tile and then we would have VV fabricate it.  But I just wasn't settled with it.  I had Mom, Mylissa and Shantelle meet me at the slab yard multiple times.  I finally was settled on a granite called Monte Cristo.  But I didn't like the slabs that Arizona had.  She told me that they had just send 10 slabs of Monte Cristo to VV that were a little different.  So I stopped by VV the next day.  I fell in love with the granite and knew that was our granite.  I joked with Emily (the gal that has worked with me for months) that I'm waiting for angels to sing.  She asked me if I heard angels and I told her yes.  I've been so indecisive about this decision but I knew that I would be stuck with it for life.  I'm so happy with our decision.  We bought three slabs and it was enough to do the kitchen, hutch, upstairs half bathroom, Tanner's bathroom, messy desk, downstairs kitchenette, and the downstairs half bathroom.  I choose a white quartz in the laundry room and the master bathroom.  I did Colonial White for the Chase's and Bridger's bathroom downstairs.  I love how everything turned out!  It was worth all of the hours I spent looking.

Master Bedroom - Quartz White

Chase and Bridger's Bathroom (colonial white)

Downstairs half bathroom - monte cristo

First Day of School

Chase is in 9th grade at BRMS.  School starts at 7:50 and gets out at 2:50.  When he first got his schedule, we were really disappointed.  I went and talked to the counselor about changing his math teacher.  He said that we had to get the principal's approval and he'll only do that after the first week.  He really wanted Mrs. U for math (which is his strongest subject).  At Chase's first football game, I saw Mrs. U because her son is Chase's age.  I got up the courage and went and talked to her after the game.  I told her the situation and asked her if she would please look in to it.  Chase looked at this schedule every day to see if there were any changes but no luck.  Then on the Friday before school was to start, he checked his schedule and by some miracle he was in Mrs. U's math class!!!  Chase was so excited! He said "learning is going to be fun again."  Im excited that he gets to be in seminary this year for two semesters.  He's taking a basic computer class, Spanish, mens choir, honors math and language arts.  His language arts teachers, Mrs.  N. is his health teacher that he had last year.  She was his favorite teacher last year and she used to be in our old ward.  He came home from school really excited because he has a lot of friends in his classes.  His favorite class is Spanish because six of his friends are in it.  I think Chase is going to have a great year!

Bridger is in 5th grade at Garland Elementary.  He has Mrs. Hancock.  She's going to be a wonderful teacher!!  She's a younger gal that is very enthusiastic about teaching.  She loves her students.  Bridger knows a few friends in his class.  He's excited to be on student council.  They meet every Wednesday morning from 7:30-8:20.  He gets to help monitor the halls and help out at recess.  They have a "buddy bench" and if someone is sitting on it, then they're looking for a buddy and he needs to go be their buddy.  The week before school started I realized that I hadn't bought Bridger a new school outfit.  He said that he was fine but we squeezed in a quick shopping trip to Kohls.  The store was extremely picked over.  We found the shorts but then we couldn't find a shirt.  I started to get a little desperate so I said a quick prayer.  A few minutes later, we found this black shirt buried behind some clothes.  Bridger was so happy with his new outfit.  He wanted something that would match his new blue shoes.

When I was taking pictures of Bridger before school, Tanner wanted a picture with Bridger.  (Chase had already left for school before they even woke up). Bridger had really bad allergies so his eyes are all red.

Fair Week

Chase's football team was in the Box Elder county parade.  I threatened Chase and told him that if he didn't acknowledge us then I would do something to embarrass him.  He was really good and looked at us and even smiled!  They weren't allowed to throw candy because last year they almost got kicked out because throwing the candy got out of hand and people got hurt.  This year they behaved (but there was no candy).  

Bridger was super excited because he won a shirt from the Garland City recreation.  He won an orange shirt last year so he was excited to have a new shirt.  When they threw the shirt, there was a group of boys trying to get it but Bridger snuck up in the front just in time and caught the shirt.  I love his smile!

I still can't get used to all of the tractors in the parade.  There were at least 10 monster tractors.  Plus semi truck cabs.  It's definitely a country parade.

After the parade, we went over to the fair.  We ate dinner and then walked around.  Tanner loved seeing the animals.  He got to pet a bunny.  He and Bridger were happy to sit in a tractor.  The fun never ends at the fair.  

Cement Work

We have cement!  They poured the cement for our driveway, garage steps, back patio, back patio steps, and the front porch steps.  We also added a little curbing to the front to connect the driveway with the front steps.  The cement guys did a great job!!!  They added lines to help prevent cracking but the lines look really nice.

Cabinets!

The painters finally finished things up a couple of weeks behind schedule.  But our cabinet guy, Matt was great to work with our crazy schedule.  He was pushed back so many times but he never complained about it.  He just worked it out.  I researched different cabinet companies for over 9 months.  We ended up going with the Wood Shop, Matt Nielsen.  He does great work and has a very personal touch.  We worked with him a lot designing the kitchen of our dreams.  The cabinetry in our home is beautiful!  I love the look of white cabinets so we went with "White Dove" maple cabinets in the kitchen with a darker walnut island and hutch.  The laundry room and the built ins in the family room upstairs and downstairs are also the white dove cabinets. But then we put the darker walnut wood everywhere else.  I'm so happy with how everything turned out!

 

Mylissa's friend Wendy had a hutch in her house that we loved.  So we copied her design for this piece.  I'm so happy to have something to put all of my pretties in. 

I love the white cabinets with the blue paint in the laundry room!  It's exactly the laundry room that I have dreamed of.  We ended up making the cabinets go all the way to the ceiling because the original height interfered with the window molding so we decided that it would look better having the cabinets go all the way to the ceiling.  I'm so happy with the change.  They look great and I love all of the storage!!!

I love how big the mud room lockers turned out!!!  Every person has their own locker with a cabinet above it for their junk and then a pull out drawer for their shoes.  We're planning on putting three hooks inside each locker.  We really wanted a "messy desk" to hide all of our junk so we put one in this corner of the mud room.

The beginning stages of the built ins in the upstairs family room. 

Tanner's Bathroom

Master Bathroom

Upstairs half bathroom (off of the kitchen)

Chase and Bridger's Bathroom downstairs

Kitchenette Downstairs

Half Bathroom downstairs next to the theater room

Theater room

Downstairs Family Room

Downstairs family room!  I don't like to decorate so I didn't want a bunch of shelves to decorate.   We designed these built ins with closed cabinets on the ends so we can put games and scrapbooks in them (plus it's less shelves I have to decorate).

Rach's 40th Birthday

Solar Eclipse

It's not every birthday that I get to experience a solar eclipse.  Mom and Dad gave us a couple of glasses and then Michael gave us a few more.  I took the boys over to the hospital because they were having a little solar eclipse party.  We stayed outside and watched the solar eclipse around 10:45.  It was pretty impressive.  It was 98% eclipsed which was great for me.  I didn't want to drive to where the eclipse was going to be 100% plus luckily Matt was first call so we had to stay in town.

After the eclipse, we went and got lunch at the hospital and then ate it outside in the courtyard.

The W's, Mom, Dad and Marilyn drove to Wyoming Sunday night and found a location where the eclipse was 100%.  They said it was pretty amazing and totally worth the drive.