Girard

Al and Kasha bought some land a while back in Girard, TX, and have been working on it a lot. Its a beautiful piece of land east of Lubbock and Kanyon and I went two weekends ago to spend a couple days there.

We got there late on Friday night and the next morning was a cold and drizzly day. But not too cold. We enjoyed the weather after going so long without moisture this year!

Al has worked really hard up here making the land how he wants. He has removed every trace of trash and has cleaned up everything. He cleared that field (you can see the start of it where its really green with wheat) of trees and has been creating roads and leveling to put a fence on the borders. He has a few deer stands and feeders as well.

They built a porch last year onto their fifth wheel. Makes for a cozy little home.

These two were frenemies the whole weekend. One minute, they'd be playing and then next fighting. Boys!

Tac likes holding his sister but tends to get a little rough. Check out her face... "You're leaving me with him?"

Not quite able to sit up yet!

Ainsley turned two months old that weekend!

We walked around the property a lot. Its a beautiful place with lots of room. The creek is pretty and the dogs thought it was a lot of fun! Zeb has never swam in anything before and the first couple times he walked off the edge into the water without realizing he wouldn't be able to touch was hilarious to watch his alarm! But soon after that, he came flying past us and jumped as high as he could into the water! I would have loved to get a picture of it.

 Kasha in her get-up :) I think she pulls it off nicely. (At least I didn't post it on Facebook, Kasha!)

Driving around with his Poppy.

Its a dog's life.

Working hard in his cover-alls.

 It was a great weekend!

This weekend, I finally got the laundry room finished painting! Three weeks later. But its done now!
Next up - painting cabinets.

Grandma

Last week was a bittersweet time where we looked back on old pictures of Grandma and through her things. We laughed a lot! Grandma kept several things, such as her grade school report cards, notebooks with random notes in them, even a list of all the boys she had ever dated!

On Wednesday, mom, Emily, and I went up to the funeral home to pick out pictures that would be in the slide show.  It was fun to go through pictures.

 Wasn't she beautiful?

(Now is where I should mention there were 101 boys on the list of "Boys I Have Dated"!!)

 These are her parents. Her father was a farmer - dairy and cotton.

After I got married, I would mention to Grandma that Kanyon was a cotton farmer and she'd always go "did you know that I grew up on a farm?!" :) 

 This is how I will always remember Grandma. Even in the last few years when she lost so much weight, I still pictured her like this. Making us waffles in her 1970's style kitchen.

 Grandma and my Papa. He passed away in 1996. We mentioned several times last week how excited it made us to think of their reunion in heaven! Grandma called him the rose in her bouquet, if I remember correctly.

I love Papa's glasses. They always reminded me of Mr. Magoo glasses, magnifying his eyes!

 My dad with his mother-in-law, my Grandma. Sweet jeans, Dad!

Grandma and Papa with their two daughters and families. 

I think it was Emily that said she loved this picture because it portrays Mom and Aunt Jenny's 90's style :) I have a picture of Em that Sara sent me where Emily is wearing that yellow and black plaid jacket last week. You're welcome, Em, for not posting it :)

I hope you have a great week!

Family Time

As I mentioned in my last post, last week was spent in Oklahoma for my grandmother's funeral. Even under the circumstances, it was a great time with my family. Again, these are iPhone pictures inside, so not the best quality.

Kanyon and I stayed with my cousin Emily who lives in Edmond, where the majority of my family lives. We got there at about 2:00 am on Monday night/Tuesday morning. The few days we were there were spent reminiscing, going through Grandma's things which was so fun and interesting, and just spending time talking. 

Tuesday night, my dad's plane hadn't arrived yet and Kanyon and Uncle Dean went to Stillwater for an OSU basketball game. So my mom's sister and my mom and her girls and me had a girl's night :)

 Me and Emily

 Me and Bethany

Sara with Emily and I wearing a couple of Grandma's many visors! 

Finally my dad got there! I was really excited to see this guy.

The next day, my cousin Amy had a baby! Great timing! We may have had a death of a long and well-lived life, but we also had a birth of a new life in our family.

I was so excited to be able to meet Ellasyn Faith!

The next couple of nights were spent at my aunt's house again, just spending time together.

Being a dog-lover is a family thing clearly :)

My mom with one of her many cousins, Mike.

I'm missing them already! Family Reunion at Thanksgiving can't come soon enough!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Its been about two weeks since my last blog post. Since I assume only family and friends read this blog, most of you probably know why but if not - I was in Oklahoma all last week. My grandmother passed away on Monday at about 6:45 pm. About 30 minutes after Kanyon and I threw clothes in our bags and jumped in the car to try and make it to Oklahoma before that happened. But that's okay - I'm so happy that she is with God now.

I have lots of pictures and memories from last week to share - but not today. I'm still trying to catch up from missing almost a week of work and the exhaustion from last week hit me yesterday. It took me about an hour and a half to grocery shop last night. It should have taken me fifteen. I was a zombie walking down the aisles. 

We got home on Friday night. The next morning, I had scheduled before my grandmother died to run in a 5K with my friend Lauren. I still wanted to do it so Lauren drove from Midland on Friday night and we drove to Lubbock Saturday morning. The temperature was 19 degrees with a wind chill of 5 degrees. Crazy? Yes. We were. But we did it! I'm really glad we did.

Sunday, we had a few inches of snow coming down most of the day so we spent the day inside, me cleaning and Kanyon working on leather. He made a gorgeous belt for our friend Andrew using the hide we bought for the pillows he is making me :) He said he would get them done this week! So excited!

So about the quality of these pictures... Kanyon told me that he was taking them to Andrew that night so I had to take a picture right then. After dark. So I already knew I wasn't going to like not having natural light. And then it was in a rush. So I didn't know until after he'd taken the belt that the camera focused on the antlers instead of the belt. Awesome. But here ya go.

I love the white buckstitch!

So, an update on the laundry room.

I started on two Saturdays ago. Then we had to rush to Oklahoma. Then we got home and I was in Lubbock all Saturday and then it dawned on me that I was hosting a 31 Gifts party at my house on Thursday and the house needed cleaned. So. It hasn't been touched since two Saturdays ago and currently looks like this.

Two coats of cutting in done. Just waiting for the walls, which should go much quicker.

Where did all our laundry room stuff go, you ask?

In here. Can't wait to get this all in cabinets and organized!

Oh and also, Kanyon finally put up the window on the wall in the guest bedroom. Disregard the laundry sorting piles, will you? Actually it looks kind of puny in the picture. It has a much bigger presence in person.

Okay, thats all I got for you today but I do want to tell you Happy Valentine's Day! Kanyon has spoiled me so far and he says I have more gifts on the way ;) 

My friend Katy created some super cute print-outs for date nights and shared them on her blog today. Go check them out!

Laundry Room Plans

For my Christmas and birthday present this year, I asked Kanyon if we could spruce up the laundry room. It is an 8x8 room that we haven't really done anything with except to buy a cheap shelving unit from Walmart and stick in there. The walls are white with no paint. I realize that's the case with most people's laundry room but it drives me crazy! Probably because most of the time it ends up looking like this... (and when I say this, I mean stuff thrown on the shelves and on the floor... I don't even know what's in that white trash bag?).

The dirt that piles up and stuff thrown everywhere makes me never want to go in this room. Especially when I see pictures of beautiful laundry rooms on Pinterest like these.

How much better would it be to fold clothes in that second laundry room?? I might actually get it done quicker...

But more than wanting it to be prettier, I just want it to be more functional and have more storage. Originally we liked the idea of putting a counter in the middle of the washer and dryer but then decided we wanted them next to each other. I have a top loading washer and the buttons for the dryer are on top so we couldn't put a counter on top of them either.

Thankfully the measurements of the room work out perfectly for stock cabinets to fill in that back wall nicely. So we went to Lowe's last weekend and bought a 36 in deep and 36 in tall (the same height as the W&D) counter with two doors and drawers to put on the left of the W&D. So it will be counter top cabinets, washer, then dryer wall to wall on the back wall. 

We also bought two wall cabinets to put on the wall above. We will have them like that top picture, both on the sides with shelving between them. Except I will probably add another shelf. We were excited that stock cabinets worked out so well because they are so cheap! We got them unfinished so we I can paint them how I want. I'm thinking I want to try something cool?

We have a fridge in there in the left corner and the hampers and hanging rail are on the right. We haven't nailed down exactly how we want to put those yet. The fridge can't move but I'm hoping to build another counter top above the hampers.

So the next step is painting in there. I'm hoping I can get that done this weekend. I can't wait to get it done!!

P.S. Kanyon bought a new truck yesterday! YAY!