It really REALLY isn't easy being green.

A quick update on my past week.

I taped. And painted. And top-coated. And antiqued.

Then I did it again, after searching online for the reason WHY I was getting "tiger stripes" on my cabinets. On Thursday, Billy-my-hero came home and hung the finished cabinets (top and bottom of what I call "the long bank" - I had yet to start the other two sections of the kitchen). As we gazed upon them, trying to ignore the tiger stripes (I had even repainted the doors on the top of the long bank due to the same problem), I felt very VERY uneasy.  Could I live with their imperfection? They were oh-so-smooth, but... tiger striped. AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH.

I decided to sleep on it and see what I thought when I went downstairs and saw them the next morning. On Friday, I went to buy new paint. A different brand, a different type, a different color, still very very expensive. Then I ONCE AGAIN removed all the hardware (third time for some doors), re-taped, PRIMED, and began my project all over. The new paint takes much longer to dry... 16 hours before re-coating, to be exact. My garage and table space is limited, which means I can only do so much at one time. The primer had to be brushed on because it's too thick for my sprayer, and I elected to brush the paint on the cabinet frames this time, since they are relatively covered once the doors are on anyway, and it would save me time masking off my entire kitchen space (for a third time).

This week my goal is to complete the project, if humanly possible.

I am so so tired of painting for poor results.

I take full responsibility... I'm sure my problem is due to the dye I added to my milk paint. The cabinets looked great (no tiger stripes) until I put the top coat on. For whatever reason, the top coat (which gave the cabinets the amazing professional finish) reacted to the dye, resulting in the stripes, no matter how many times I repainted. Lesson learned.

The good news: I think I'm really going to like the new paint color. The finish is still a good quality finish, just not quite the perfect professional finish of the all-sprayed rock-hard General Finishes Milk Paint and High Performance Top Coat (which I will definitely use for some of my other oak cabinets... I will just NOT add dye. ever. again.).

They will be a bit glossier. Yes, if you look closely you will see some brush marks from the primer underneath. But the color is lovely and makes my house look updated and fresh. I hope next week to post the final result. Whatever it is, I will be happy with it.

Weekend wrap-up.

Monday, Monday... so good to me.

{I am definitely a rainy day and Monday person.}

I thought I'd quickly post our weekend details:

Friday night we went to the temple with Tay and Nae.

Saturday morning we headed up north to Westminster for a baptism.

 The Sister on the right was added to our Sisters just a couple days earlier, as her companion had to go home for medical reasons. The other two Sisters have been in our ward for a few transfers and THEY ARE AWESOME. They had tracted out the brother, and he had invited his girlfriend to join the lessons, and SHAZAM, mere weeks later they made the decision to be baptized. I've heard of prepared people, but it was amazing to actually witness it (Denise and Cory had one of their lessons in our home). Since Denise lives clear up north, and they wanted to be baptized together, we made the hour-long trek to attend (Bill baptized Denise and I had the privilege of being asked to talk). It was a great way to start the day.

After the baptism, we made the trip home, and Bill, Mar, and Tay went shooting.

While they were gone, I was preparing dinner for the Sisters. My neighbor Misty stopped by and asked if we wanted tickets to the Broncos game that night. Of course, as the Broncos number one fans, I accepted ;-) After dinner-and-a-message with the Sisters, we made the drive {again} up north to catch the game.

I'll have to admit, the stadium is impressive, and it was great {for me} to finally experience the hoopla of a pro football (albeit preseason) game. As I sat there, however, the thought came to me these are not my people. We had some stories and language going on behind us, and an "enhanced" woman in a tight-fitting shirt shaking her booty and grabbing her guy's bum (at least I think it was her guy) a few rows in front. And there was so so much beer. I sat amidst it all and read through my Sunday School lesson. And now I can check going to a Broncos game off my bucket list haha.

Sunday morning Tay and Nae loaded up their cars to head home. It was crazy that their 2-1/2 month stay with us was at an end. Tay loved the company he did his internship with, and was given an offer for employment for next year, so we are thrilled to have them moving our way in the not-too-distant future!

Now it feels like summer has come to an end.

I'm starting back in on my paint project today.

Better get crackin'. 

It's a....

I went with Tay and Nae to the ultrasound on Thursday, 

then we had a little gender reveal party that evening. We had been tallying up the votes for what little peanut would be...

The final tally was: Girl (23) Boy (18) 

 Lynnea and I had some fun shopping for silly string and sodas for the party.

After dinner we headed outside for the big reveal.

We connected with Britt, Austin and Scarlett, and Jason and Lex via video chat, then counted down.

And it's a....

GIRL!!

I'm so excited for these two. They will be awesome parents!

And I have another little granny-daughter.

  I couldn't be more thrilled!!

I love to see the temple.

For FHE on Monday we had the privilege of going to the Fort Collins Temple {of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints} Open House. No, it's not open to the public until this weekend, but we were asked by our awesome Sister missionaries to accompany them and two of their investigators to a special preview.

Yes. Yes we will.

I literally ran my hiney off that day, so it was a rush to get out the door, but it was so so worth it!

Since Mar couldn't really remember much about the last temple open house she attended (I think it was Oquirrh Mountain), she was pretty stoked about it, too.

We are super excited that one of the investigators we went with will be getting baptized this Saturday. He and his girlfriend (also getting baptized Saturday) hope to return to the temple to be sealed someday.

It is beautiful.

We are thrilled to have another Colorado temple not too far away!

Back at it.

My BigMac is still on the fritz. I hate that. I'm hoping to have assistance with it this weekend from my computer-genius bro. I think I'm ready for a new computer, and I'm pretty sure I'm done with Apple forever. I'm soooooo tired of the updates that MESS EVERYTHING UP.  Seriously, I've spent hours organizing my photos, and with each update, they have been UN-organized and moved around, and the latest update removed iphoto completely and replaced it with "photos"... in a big unorganized MESS. I am not tech-savvy, so I don't like having to relearn every year or so, so I'm done.

I have a few pics to share from my phone, and a couple from the point-and-shoot (I'm trying to limit what I download on Lo's laptop, since she's coming home in 5 months). Here's a little catch-up:

Mar started working at Culvers... here she is on her first day:

Lauren came to visit. Unfortunately, Mar had to work some of the days Lauren was here, but they had fun with the time they had together (including Water World and night games). They had to say their goodbyes at... you guessed it... Culvers:

Mar also started her sophomore year of school.

(Backpack purchased with money earned at... Culvers. I love that.)

AND I DON'T HAVE TO CARPOOL THIS YEAR. HALLELUJAH!
(Huge thank you to my next door neighbor, Mace!)

Bill and I went to the back-to-school night at Legend, where we got to see this:

Bill had sponsored this new scoreboard last year, but we never made it to a game. Fun to see it now, although my poor-quality phone pic doesn't do it justice. We'll have to make it to a game this year so I can get a better pic ;)

I am tired. It's been a busy summer... and those Olympics are on so late at night!

Grandbaby gender reveal coming up on Thursday, 

then Tay and Nae will be heading back home to UT a week from Sunday.

I'm soooooo excited to find out what our new little peanut is!!

Youth Conference 2016

**WARNING**

Another picture overload ahead.

This is less than 10% of the pictures, but any more would be a little much, PLUS the BigMac just can't handle all the pictures, so it's taken me loads of time just to get this far.

But it's Monday, and I always try to post on Monday (because I'm usually doing Lo's blog, too).

Here's the quick rundown:

We started Thursday morning at the church.

After a prayer and a devotional, we snapped a couple group pics, piled into cars, and headed on our way.

The youth helped set up camp, and these fine ladies tidied up the latrines.

Seriously, they are so awesome.

After camp was pretty much set up, we took a break for lunch...

...then started in on some fun team games.

For the first one, I had frozen 4 of Bill's t-shirts (shhhhh.... I didn't ask), and each team had to see who could defrost theirs enough (without tearing it... I was hoping to salvage them, wash them, and return them unscathed to Bill's closet) for someone on their team to put on. It was pretty hilarious watching these teams try to come up with ways to melt the ice.

The yellow team were the winners, and much of their success was due to having a highly competitive leader helping them out. They may not have torn the shirt, but they may have burned it a bit. Oopsies.

The red team was 3rd runner up (nice way to put last), and I'll have to say, their shirt was returned in the most usable condition, so they are first in my book {wink}.

They could still smile about it, though.

After that we played some more team games... like the pendulum relay...

...the fruit roll-up relay...

...the paper plate relay...

...the wet sponge relay...

...the team writing race (they had to spell the word "forward")...

...the Twinkie-eating race (they had to unwrap and eat them with their hands tied together)...

...and the cheesehead game.

The winning team (yellow) won head massagers... ahhhh, sweet victory.

After the games, we had free time at the lake.

Let me just say, we couldn't have asked for a lovelier spot and a more perfect day.

After dinner that evening, we had a fireside.

Mar and Lynnea sang a beautiful song to start things off.

Then Bro. Weed gave a great message.

Afterwards, the youth did some skits until dark, then we played a fun night game that the YW had prepared. Unfortunately, I neglected to snap any pics of it :(

I think this is the only picture I have of the beautiful mountain right behind our camp.

The next day we had planned an activity we called a "Burden Hike."

I was nervous that it wouldn't turn out as good as I had hoped (it was a Pinterest find without a lot of detail), but we had carefully planned the hike (mostly uphill with some stairs), and had asked some of the adults to help put dirt in buckets along the way. The youth were asked not to talk, and told DON'T LET YOUR BUCKET TOUCH THE GROUND. We sent them up one by one with either one or two buckets. When they got to the last incline before our pre-determined meeting place, Bill would ask each one of them if he could help them with their bucket(s). Most accepted the help, some didn't. 

Once everyone was at the top, we had another devotional, then we talked about how this activity related to life. OH. MY. WORD. Those youth made some pretty amazing connections.

 I think it turned out to be the most memorable part of youth conference for the youth.

Hunting down all those buckets (and living with the smell of pickles in our garage and vehicles because we got a lot of our buckets from Firehouse Subs) was totally worth it!

After lunch, we had a couple of classes.

Our first one had a rain delay, but our awesome YM president just rolled with it.

The weather cleared up, and after a snack break, our next class was given by a member of our Bishopric and his wife.

Then we had a color throw.

I felt like the committee thought I was a little nuts, but I just felt like this would be an activity the youth would really like. I had to clear it ahead of time with the campground, and then one of our committee members whose daughter works for THE COLOR RUN, was able to secure leftover packets of color from various runs FOR FREE.

 Yep, I was right. The kids LOVED it.

Once was not enough for most of them, and since we had some extra packets, they did it over and over until they were literally covered with color.

We had free time in the lake afterwards... to help get all that color off.

 It was so fun to sit on the shore and listen to the kids laugh and have such a good time together.

After free time and dinner, the youth assembled together for another fireside.

...followed by an amazing testimony meeting.

(On Sunday, one youth said it was the most powerful testimony meeting he had ever been to. That's what it's all about, am I right?)

The next morning we had a devotional and breakfast, then packed up camp.

I nabbed some jumping pics because... well, you know... I love jumping pics.

Plus, camp was pretty much packed up, which is a great reason to celebrate.

The kids played some fun group games (courtesy of EFY, which apparently has the best group games ever)...

...we had an egg toss with the food committee's leftover eggs...

...ate a quick lunch, then had awards...

(the youth did the awards for the adult leaders)

...jumped into cars and made the drive home.

By the time Bill and I got to the church to drop off our kids, everyone else was gone, baby, gone.

Seriously, quickest drop-off and pick-up of kids I've ever seen.

All the work, stress, and effort was worth it.

That doesn't mean it wasn't without hiccups, but luckily those were minor and unimportant.

I'm so happy it was a success, and so so happy it's over.