Feeling Refreshed and Recharged!!

 
Can you guess by this picture where we have been?  We’ve had this trip to Yellowstone planned for a long time!  It was heaven! 
In all we drove around 50 hours roundtrip, making our way through many places and states that we had never been to!

There was plenty of kids getting to enjoy the outdoors to the fullest…

Lots of “way too up-close-and-personal” moments with animals…

Everywhere we went there were so many different kinds of animals from bison, to coyotes, to uinta ground squirrels, to canadian geese, to elk, to moose, to bald eagles, and more!  I have children that want to grow up to be animal rescuers, so this was HUGE to them….

so many beautiful plants that do not grow around us…
 
of course the landscape and views were breathtaking, no matter which way you were looking!!…
 
We actually hiked most of the way to the bottom of that amazing waterfall.  I have 3 pretty young children and was sooo proud of them for doing this difficult and scary hike!  My son told me he was more than just scared, he was, “scared and totally fweaked out!!”  In the end, even he thought it was well worth it! 

We hiked so many trails and went on so many boardwalk paths.  Again, I’m so proud of my kids most of all because they loved it all.  It was not me forcing them into this.  It means so much to me that my children enjoy this kind of thing as much as I do. 

We are trying to visit as many national parks as we can.  They each got their Junior Ranger badges, as they always do, and we got sooo many stamps in our national parks passports!  We love all of the visitor centers and ranger stations with all the history, information, dioramas, and movies!

And we stayed in amazingly cute cabins in the midst of all that beauty!

Our road trip also included a much needed reunion with family, including cousins (and their children that I had never met) that live out of the country, and most of all my wonderful Grandma that I named my daughter after (she’s one of those Grandmas that everyone fights over who gets to name their child after!)! My whole family is super amazing!  I have the most loving and kind Aunts and Uncles, and fun cousins to boot!  I’m so thankful for these wonderful people being in my life!  So much to live up to!

This trip was also partly made with some of my siblings and their families in my car, and caravanning with us!  We have done this so many times and it is always a hoot!  Thanks to Erika’s husband who stopped at all the best places (including an amazingly cute visitor center in such a beautiful setting) and took all the rural roads that made the drive as much of the fun of the trip as the rest of it was!  If you ever need an 11 hour trip to take 16 hours, we’ve got it figured out for you! ;)  I wouldn’t have changed any of it (except maybe my poor nephew who puked, poor guy), and making it longer!  I did not want to leave my family or Yellowstone.

No other vacation or trip could have recharged me like this one did. 

What helps you to recharge and reset your priorities?

Rebecca

Enjoying Summer

Isn’t this summer view beautiful?  Well, I’m going to be taking a week break from blogging to enjoy summer’s beauty!  Mostly that means my three kiddos!   ;)

I’ll be back in a week, so make sure to keep checking as I have tons of fun stuff that we’ve been doing, but my time has been spent with my children instead of putting the fun pictures into posts to share with you all! 

Hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as I am enjoying mine!

Rebecca

Sneak Peak at A Current Project-Vintage Goodness!

What a fun stack of sheets and tablecloths!  Anjeanette was smart enough to procure these goodies from my Grandmothers and Mother!  She’s been stashing them away for projects.  She was kind enough to have a sewing party, and let the women pick from all this gorgeous material!

I picked two, and each had already been picked.  So, on my third try I was given this beauty!  In reality this was my favorite and I’m so glad I got it!  It was a tablecloth from my Grandmother’s home and I just love it!  Thank you, Anjeanette, for parting with this beauty.  I’m turning it into something that I have wanted for quite a while now.  As soon as I finish it, I will show it to you all!  There are a few parts that have been stumping me on it…Anjeanette….I need your help again….               ;)

Rebecca

PS I hope everyone else is having as wonderful of a summer as we are!  We’ve had more trips this summer then we’ve ever had, and we have more lined up all the way through the end of summer!  Ah, summer, how I do love you!!!

Happy Fourth Of July!!

Image taken from Clyde’s Movie Palace.

Happy Fourth of July!!

I am so proud to be an American.  I am thankful that I was born in this wonderful country and get to enjoy all the freedoms that I have.  I am thankful that my children have all these same freedoms.  Especially in the last couple of years as we see images of children in war torn countries, and hear stories of them not being allowed to go to school (or deal with other atrocities), I am thankful to be raising my children in the good ol’ United States of America!  I am especially thankful to all the men and women who have fought for our country and for our freedoms.  Their sacrifices have been beyond that which I can imagine, but am eternally thankful for!

 

I hope this holiday finds you enjoying time with your families and the wonderful festivities that this country puts on! ;)

 

I am lucky enough to be enjoying a whole weekend of festivities with my whole family.  Today we will top it off by watching the fireworks from the comfort of my parents pool, with smells from the barbeque beckoning us to get out and partake in just one more bite! ;)  Then, I will tuck my precious children into their comfortable beds, in their safe home and remember just how lucky I am for all of it!

 

Rebecca

PS This holiday also makes me think of the dace Fred Astaire does in the movie Holiday Inn for The Fourth of July!  It’s amazing!  It’s one of my family’s favorite movies ever, but seriously if you haven’t seen this dance you have to!

Image taken from Kevin’s Movie Corner.

Image taken from here.

"On this day of independence, on this independence day"

You’ve got to check this out on YouTube.

Great Summer Activity-Boondoggle

I grew up making things like boondoggle and friendship bracelets in the summer.  I can’t believe I haven’t done this before with my children.  I grew up calling this boondoggle.  However, it is also known as plastic lacing or scoubidou.
This has been an amazing summer for us so far!  I love having so much time with my kids.  Last night I had a house full of giggling kiddos because we had a sleepover.  As a parent, nothing is better than giggling happy children!  LOVE IT! 

Well, I busted out the boondoggle last night and was so surprised that my youngest daughter found it so easy!

Here she is working on her boondoggle creation.  I showed her how to one knot and off she went!  I was just going to have them do the simple square.  However, she saw I was turning in mine and wanted to try it.  She adapted to this with no problem as well!

Here are the four variations that were worked on last night.  I love the color combinations that they each chose!

Here is the basics of how to make boondoggle:
I think that looking at my pictures will be more helpful than my directions! ;)
Cut two long strips of the plastic, which is called gimp.  We chose lengths of 30” and our boondoggle turned out about 3”.
At the halfway point of each strip you overlap them in a +. 
Bring your gimp that was going up and bring it down.  You want to make a loop of it.  Then, take the gimp that was going down and bring it up, again making another loop.  Hold the end that’s at top with your pointer finger and the end that’s now on the bottom with your thumb.  This frees up your other hand to do the next steps.  Refer to the picture above.

Now you will move your sides to the opposite side.  You are going to weave your sides through your loops going over the first loop and under the second one.  This is the same on both sides.  Again refer to the picture above.

Now you can let go of your gimp and pull the knot tight.  I pull two strands in one hand and two in the other.  Then, I alternate the two strands that each hand is holding and pull again.  You want this knot tight. 
Repeat these steps over and over again to finish the whole project up.  For a uniform look make sure to keep your gimp straight and don’t let it have a twist in it.  Also make sure to pull all the knots uniformly tight.  You will see if one section was not pulled as tight as the others.  I have heard you can pull too tight on this plastic and it will break.  However, I haven’t had a problem with this.
    
Are you ready for a variation?  Lets do the spiral now!
You are going to do the same basic thing of making two loops and then weaving in the side loops.  However, instead of making the top (right) loop come straight down and the bottom (left) loop go straight up you are going to make the loops diagonally. 
See the top gimp is to the right of the one going down?  Well when you form the loop bring the gimp to the left of the bottom gimp.

Next, you will take your bottom gimp that was on the left of the top one and when you bring it up to make your second loop you are going to cross diagonally over and to the right of your top gimp. 
Notice they aren’t crossing each other.

You will weave your side weaves the same way you made your top and bottom loops. 
Your gimp on the right side is below the left gimp.  So you will weave your right gimp over and under the loops, but you will want your gimp to end up above the left gimp.  See the above picture.

Now you will take your left gimp and weave it over and under the loops, but you will want your gimp to end up below your right gimp.  See the above picture.
Finish off by pulling this knot tight as you did with the straight square knot.  If you continue this you will have created a spiral design.  You can switch back and forth between knots in your design for whatever look you want to achieve.
     
Here are our two finished boondoggles so far!  However, as I’m typing this up the other two are being finished up and we are starting up some harder designs.  There are tons of different knots out there to try.  I looked through a bunch of kits at the stores and really did not care for their directions.  The best directions for more complicated knots that I have found is at Boondoggleman.   His site has wonderful directions with pictures and a large variety of knots to try!


How cute are they?  My kids love putting things like this on their backpacks so I’m sure this is where they will end up.  We will be going on a big (for us) vacation this summer with the kids (4 days in the car) and I had planned on breaking out the boondoggle for our road trip.  However, I’m so glad that I broke this out earlier as these giggly kids just loved it!  Now I wont be trying to explain how to do this at rest stops on the road!  I’m sure we will come home with lots more of these to show everyone!
I told a few friends that we were making boondoggle and they had never heard of it.  Have you?  I thought everyone grew up doing this at summer camp!  I’d love to hear everyone else’s ideas of if they did this or what are the other activities that they did as a child, during the summers, to keep them occupied!

This was a must do summer activity for us!  All five children from ages 5-12 gave it a thumbs up! ;)

Rebecca

Linking to the following parties:  Life as Lori, KoJo Designs, Fingerprints on the Fridge, ABC and 123,

Old Fashioned Summer Carnival-Great for 4th of July (or 24th of July)

Here are some great activities to make/do at your Fourth of July celebrations this weekend. 

We always grew up having an amazing Old Fashioned 24th of July celebration with our family (this is a Utah/Mormon holiday).  It was truly amazing.  So, last year we put together our own carnival, for our children.
I think you can figure out how to make each of these activities, but incase you can’t you can find tutorials for all of them, here!  This is a post about our carnival last year.
The above picture is a Water Bottle Bowling Game.  It has a super cute placemat that you have to go check out!


Fun action shot of my Nephew throwing the dart at the balloons!  This is a simple game to put together that I love the look of! 

Bean Bag Toss Game.  With homemade beanbags that each have a patriotic word embroidered onto them!  The game itself is made from a box!  Are you getting that we wanted the games to be part of the decoration?
Homemade Rubber Band Shooters!  Remember those from your childhood?  They are super easy to make!   Katrina made enough of these for each cousin to have one!  They are so much fun!  We just shot empty cans and bottles with them.
How about some Cork Guns!  These are made out of wood, pvc pipe, string, and a cork!

Tin Can Stompers are another super easy yet effective activity!
         
Tin Can Knock Down!  We used a ball that you get wet, just to keep water flying around the whole yard!

Hope this gives you some inspiration for old fashioned carnival games you can make yourself, from mostly things that you already have around the house!

Rebecca

Need A Summer Boredom Buster? Get Out Your Cups!

Sometimes we just need to get creative with what we have.  No scissors, glue, paint, or sewing involved and yet this activity was so much fun and kept my kids busy for hours!

I don’t use disposable dishes, but I do have stacks of cups and plates on hand in the craft room.  They are great for so many things.  This time we drew pictures with them.  Pretty obvious that this is a stick figure, a star, and a heart?

Next up is a dog chasing a cat!

And then we just built with them!  They also made a tower with them that was taller than me -though I’m not that tall so maybe that’s not saying much ;)

What quick and easy summer boredom busters do you do?
Rebecca