zukes

We have so many zucchinis from our garden! We are giving them away, making zucchini bread to take to people and putting them in everything we can think of. I found this recipe and we tried it last night.

I thought it was yummy.

We also had it with this yummy slush. 

jeep

The other day I got to ride in this cool car.  I have to say I love the reliability of new cars and all the amazing features, but there's just something about these old ones that's so fun.

It would stink to be stuck in the rain in this, but turning on the windshield wipers sure is fun! I love the old dash.

before

thanks for the help on the dresser! I forgot to show the before picture of this $3 find.

I will definitely be adding some more finishing touches so I am happier with the result.  Only one more furniture project from CO to finish! Post to come soon.

Give and Get is Here!

Give and Get is Here!: "Enjoy 30% off from August 26-29 at Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy and we'll donate 5% of what you spend to a non-profit."

So... support the economy and go shopping this weekend :). We'll be visiting family in Washington.

dresser

here's another one of my painting projects, although I don't know how I feel about it. I was trying to make it look like a cool desk I saw at a consignment shop a few months ago.  I got the dresser for $3.  Add the paint and the drawer pulls and the project is closer to $30, but only because I got a certain color instead of using mis-tints like normal.
My sister sent me back from Colorado with an awesome coffee table that is this aqua color so I was trying to match it. Tell me what you think. Would you put it in our home?  At the end we painted the little detail at the bottom aqua but I am thinking it should go back to white...what about you? I was also thinking about trying to make it look more antique-y, any suggestions? BTW Em, I need to talk to you about how to do that :)
The dresser definitely serves it's purpose- we have no overhead lighting in our main room and needed another place for a lamp, and it fits perfectly in this space by the front door.
My mom gave me the cool decorations on top in CO also and I spray painted them silver, I really like them! It was fun to see how Jake's eyes got bigger when he saw the magic of the silver spray paint.

chair

When I went home to Colorado, Dad had a few things he had already picked up at garage sales that he thought I may want.  I snagged this chair and after some paint and new fabric, I love it! It will go with my new sewing table.

The fabric is Amy Butler, it is a home decor fabric from her Love collection. And I LOVE my new chair.

paint

Jake and I spent yesterday painting. A few weeks ago, my sister and I drove to colorado to visit my parents and my other sister who live there. We had a quick sisters weekend spent at garage sales and a little antique market.  We had such a fun time and were grateful Dad spent the time driving us to garage sales, holding our purses and trying to avoid getting sunburned.
We tried to pack many activities in that weekend and promised that we want to make it a new tradition for all of the adult girls in the family.
Not only did we pack in a lot of fun, we packed a lot in the back of my truck for us to bring back:

My Dad is amazing at packing the car.  (picture from Hopeful Homemaker)

Both of my sisters take way better pictures than me, but here are a few:

I forgot to take some before and after pictures of all of my treasures, but trust me, it is amazing what a little bit of paint can do.

i give up.

i just burned 2 bags of chocolate chips. I don't have a double boiler so I was trying to do it with a sauce pan and bowl. This is not the first time this has happened to me. Any tips on how to make it work? (not that i'll be trying it again any time soon).

thank goodness it's the weekend and I'm getting a pedicure tomorrow :)

mini smores

meet the cast:

mini chocolate chips

graham cracker bites

mini marshmallows

yum!

12of12

Today's the 13th, but I really wanted to try this after hearing about it on Deidra's blog.  12 of 12 is a really neat idea, and you can learn more about it here.
So, even though it's the 13th, here are my pictures that I took yesterday. We have our booth in the Logan fair this weekend so we will be here for at least 12 hours the next 2 days.

1. a cute quilt that a teenager entered into the quilt contest

2. the most amazing tacos ever

3. our official jewelry suitcases

4. fun

5. the fair

6. our booth

7. jewelry- come get some cute stuff!

8. kettle corn- I look forward to this stuff every year now, along with the tacos.

9. rings are my favorite

10. giveaway contest

11. the taco stand

12. Jake flossing after eating some yummy corn on the cob.

Have a great day!

the fruits of your labors

Ok. maybe not that much labor. Luckily, the community garden gets watered on a schedule and we don't have to go and do it, which is the only reason our garden has survived.
Here's the tale
we began starters indoors when we decided to do the community garden. I blogged about it here.  Then we planted it all in the garden and I never took a picture because when I went back a day later, it looked dead. So Jake and I basically gave up. We went back a few times to water it but realized it was pretty much hopeless.
Until... about 3 weeks ago. Our friends from church that we are sharing our plot with mentioned to Jake at church how good the garden looked. We were shocked and decided to go check it out. We did, and although it didn't look as good as she described, some things were growing and it needed weeding bad. So we weeded. And we went back to check on it later on in the week.
We didn't have time to go check on it before we left for our vacation a week and half ago and I figured it would be dead again since I got an email saying the water stopped working so we had to go water it by hand.  We were busy getting ready for vacation and I never did go and water it.

Lettuce

Last night we stopped by just to see how dead it was. And much to our surprise we found some big plants. Here's some pics that I took on my phone.

Basil

Zucchini

there and back again

we've been back for a few days and I am still getting used to it. I told Jake I'm pretty sure I could work at the beach and we could just move there, but that's not happening any time soon.

highlights of the trip:
going to the temple. The Newport Beach temple is gorgeous. I love it there. I got to go with Jake and also again with Wendy.

playing aggravation and talking to Grandpa. i love that man. We had some intense games.

We went to Balboa, like we do every year. It is always fun and such a cute place. It is always fun to take the ferry over. We ate lunch at Wilma's patio, browsed the cool shops and dreamed of having a beach cottage one day.

Wendy was kind enough to drive up from San Diego and hang out on the beach with us. Jake and I loved seeing Timmy and had a lot of fun with that little one. 

and of course we can't forget visiting Grandma in Palm Springs.