House Crashing

One of my good friends from Rigby, Karen, let us come see her "new" old farm house.  Karen used to be my next door neighbor.  While we lived there she was looking for houses for her sister to buy.  They came across a cute little run down white farmhouse.  She told her sister they should buy it. She told me we should buy it.  Well, neither of us did so she and her husband bought it! I think it was meant to be. For about a year now they have been redoing room after room and just making it beautiful!  She is so talented and artistic.  I wish I had taken more pictures, but my camera battery died. Lets take a look.

Here we are in the front room.  Me, Karen and my good friend Any Dungan-Both women I admire and miss so much.  Karen is a very talented artist and author, to see more of her artwork check out her website at http://www.kisaacson.com/index.html  Amy has awesome 4 boys and teaches Zumba- her husband has invented a really cool ice fishing tool that you can check out here http://www.jawjackerfishing.com/  And if you can believe it- Karen recovered that awesome couch!

Side view of the front room.  She recovered that couch, 2 armchairs, and that footstool.  Talk about a good eye!

One of her themes in the house is peacocks and I love it!  She has beautiful colors everywhere. It was very inspiring to walk through her house and see her "no fear" attitude that flows beautifully!

Some really cool old piece, that of coarse, she got and refinished.  Love those dishes!

Little touches like the knobs and tassels add so much color and flair.

A fun piece in the kitchen.  Not sure the story on this piece, but I'm sure she got a steal on it and it probably looked like a piece of garbage before she worked her magic.

Her son, Sam's very cool  Midieval room.

Yes, she painted that tapestry on the wall.  He saved up for the suit of armor.

Every detail is so cool!

Down in the basement they have this really cool Theater room. LOVE IT!

Her daughters room- The Garden of Eden,  or maybe I just made that up.  But it fits.

And then my camera died.  It's ok Karen- I'm coming back in a year and a half and can't wait to see all the other things you have done! So far it is FANTASTIC!

Rigby!!

On my way home from the cabin, I stopped in Rigby, Idaho.  Darren and I lived in Rigby almost 7 years.  We loved it there.  The people there were just awesome.  I had a great time visiting.  I hadn't been back there for 2 1/2 years.  It felt just like home.  I spent 3 days going to BYUIdaho Education week with my friends.    You get to take nursing babies to classes there so it was just perfect.  My other kids got to play with their friends they have been missing for years.  It was so great to see everyone!

Jodi, Lisa and me!  I love these ladies!

Me and my dear friend Natalie.

Ellie and Kali- she has been talking about seeing Kali since we left.

Becca And Gabe

Chrissy, Me and Becca.  My favorite babysitters and friends! I love these girls!!

Ellie saying goodbye to her best friend Kali.

Ellie and her good friend Matthew

Isaac

Well, Hurricane Issac passed.  I must say it was about as disappointing as "The joy of owning your own business."  I've seen worse storms in Utah! For good or bad the storm moved out to the Gulf instead of up the coast like they thought.    Will there be more?  Will I get to experience a hurricane while we live here? Only time will tell.

Hurricane Isaac

I interrupt the current summer blogs to bring you updates about Hurricane Isaac.  So far, for us, it really just been like a typical rain storm.  Not really as much as I expected, but I think the worst is supposed to hit us in the middle of the night.  Isaac did get us out of church, we only had sacrament meeting today.  And schools are cancelled tomorrow.  But we are just hanging out at home- listening to the rain, making bread, and taking long naps.  It's really been a fun day:)

My cabin art

I thought I would show some of my art at the cabin for fun.  I forgot about a lot of my other paintings up there- this is about 1/2 my stuff.  I'll do it next year- or actually probably in 2 years. Anyways, here's a couple of pieces I did in High School.

This is actually one of my favorite paintings I have done.  It is me as a little girl in Cooke City holding a frog!  It is acrylic.  The assignment was to paint something in 1 hour without a paint brush.  So I did this with a  palette knife (kinda like a mini spatula) in about an hour and a half.  (it took me longer, what's new).  Anyways, I think it turned out great.  I think sometimes, doing things faster, and being less fearful makes for better art.    

It's kinda hard to see with the glass's reflection.

This is on paper called Scratch board.  Basically it is white paper they cover in black.  Then you take a sharp tool and scratch off the black to reveal the white underneath.  It's hard to see the details, but this piece took me FOREVER!!  It doesn't have a name, how about Pocahontas?

This is one of my pots, that was actually in the Springville Museum of Art.  This piece was hand built- not thrown on a wheel.  It's a long process.  I'll  let another website explain how it is done- "The artist generally rolls the clay into long thin rolls, then begins to "build" the piece by layering these rolls one on top of the other. This hand coiled method includes smoothing the coils by hand to the pottery's final shape. The artist then begins the arduous task of polishing the piece. This is accomplished by rubbing a smooth "polishing" stone over the piece over and over until the red clay shines. Finally, the piece is fired in an "oxygen reduction" firing process. During the firing, the artist smothers the fire with horse manure. The manure traps a thick, carbon rich smoke all around the piece. The carbon contained in the smoke fuses itself into the clay, turning it black. This black color can never be removed or washed off. The entire process is fraught with problems as about 3 of every 5 pieces actually emerge from the fire without damage."  In other words, this piece took me weeks- and I think it turned out beautiful. It actually won a Best of Show at my High School art show.

 

Another one of my pieces, also in the Springville Art Musuem. Built the same way- only instead of "burnishing" (rubbing it with a rock for 10 years) I painted it white and then painted over the white.    

This piece is a Batik.  Which means it is a piece of fabric that I dipped in different colors of dye.  It is really a fun thing to do, in fact maybe I should do one of these with my kids.

A close up

A little guy I also hand built and painted. 

Cooke City 2012

Cooke City.  My favorite place on earth.  I would spend my childhood dreaming about the one week we would get to spend up there each summer.  I would go on and on, but since Hurricane Isaac is breathing down my back I'll just show some pictures.  I really need to just get this Summer trip posted before Isaac hits and we all die and it's too late.

Driving through Yellowstone- we saw a couple of bears.  This is a momma with her cubs.  That's the 2 black dots in the middle.  To get to our parent's cabin, we have to drive through Yellowstone.  I love it.  Some members of my family, I won't mention any names (dad), hate driving through Yellowstone.

Buffalo in the Lamar Valley

Cooke City in a tiny little town nestled in the Beartooth mountains.  Store! You know we are close when you see this.

The kids came home from fishing so excited to show us what they caught!

LOL

Whoa!! I wasn't expecting live fish!!  Well, I guess that's one way to show what you caught to your parents!

Can I just say how fun it was to experience COLD again??  I couldn't wait to have a fire and hot chocolate!!  And wear jeans, and socks!!  I soaked in every minute of coldness.

Talk about good times.

Adaline, Stephanie, and Ashlyn getting ready to ride 4 wheelers

Oh Julia, I love you. So all growing up, when I would shower and wash my hair if I had hair come out I would put it on the shower wall so it wouldn't go down the drain and clog the drain.  It would drive Julia crazy! 

So I took my hair and spelled her name for her.  LOL I know it's kinda gross, but it's kinda funny too.

Hiking- we went out ten minutes and the mosquitoes were so bad we turned around and went right back.

I set up a rope for all the kids to rappel down a cliff.  I thought the teenage boys would like it, and I was right- everyone like it!  Even Gordon went down.  I think he did it just to get away from the mosquitoes.

I think this is Matthew

James

Athena and Nayeli

Notice the mosquito net?  I wish we all had one of those on!

Ellie and Paul at the old miners town,  We took an afternoon to drive up Daisy pass and check out all the old miners houses.  It drizzled the whole time, but nothing to keep the kids from having a great time.

Kyle out in the rain

Gabe chillin in the car with me

Laura and Gordon!!  They were well prepared for the rain and knew just what to do so our picnic lunch would still happen. 

Me with Gabe and Kyle

We drove by some snow- but I didn't get a picture, so I just pointed the camera up and took a picture. 

One of the fun things the kids did was set this trap every day- like ten times a day.  Cause about every couple hours they would catch a squirrel, or a bird or something.  

We decided to feed Gabe for the first time while we were there.  He was 5 months old, and so cute!

The kids had a blast feeding him!

I had to take a picture of how cool my mom has decorated the cabin.  I should have taken so many more pictures!