Bruneau Sand Dunes 2011

They have an observatory out there. We got to see Saturn and some kind of nebulous which looked like a mini blue Froot Loop and a few other cool "space things"....

That's the technical term for it.

Me, Brook, and Mom rockin our flannels

(pay no attention to my hair... I'm camping, alright?!?)

Brook was writing everyone's name in the sand at our campsite- she did pretty good!

The dunes there are AMAZING! Actually, the tallest dune out there is 470 feet- the tallest sand dune in North America! Someday we'll climb it!

Unfortunately, just before bedtime, our air mattress grew a goiter, so Ben took Emma's cot and Emma took the ground... what a good sister! Anyway, Emma and I decided to ride the air mattress down the very steep dunes.... it was good times. We didn't go as fast as we would have liked, but we sure did laugh a lot!

I would definitely recommend this campground/state park to ANYONE in the Boise area or visiting the Boise area. It was so clean and very nice (showers and flushing toilets! Woohoo! My kind of camping!) and not too many bugs. Totally worth the $$ for the camping spot!

Painting Shoes

UPDATE: Sadness.... Brook's shoes have cracked a little, but they still look pretty good. I wore my cream lace shoes on my b-day.... they are dominated. Paint peeling everywhere. AFTER I spent 2 hours hand sewing the beads on, I'm desperate to find a way to make them work still!

So unfortunately, I never took before pictures. So just imagine plain white shoes (Walmart clearance last year for 3 bucks)....

transformed into this!!!

Brook did these all by herself- no help from mommy whatsoever... okay, i did tell her not to mix the paints on the tray, but that she could dip into a new color without washing her brush off, but that's it! I swear! I think they are SO fun!

She's got skills, this kid!

Here's an action shot!

She has worn these probably 4 times and the paint is still staying on pretty good. It cracked right around the shoe tongue just a little bit. I seal coated them with Mod Podge, so we'll see how long they last! Either way, we both had a blast painting our shoes together, so that's what really matters :)

Here's how my acrylic painted shoes turned out:

These are Walmart brand slipper flats. They were originally gray and VERY distressed... I got them for free at an Other Mother's quarter sale... they were hammered. But a few coats of fresh ivory paint, some lace and glittery beads and Voila!

Don't look too close at the beads, you can see them already popping off :(

That's what I get for using hot glue.... I really do like them though, so I'm going to go ahead and stitch the beads on. Which will be fun to do through the hot glue. That's usually how laziness pays off. You do something the lazy way, then you do it the right way, which is now incredibly more difficult since you have to work through the lazy way's mess....

Here are my spray painted shoes:

I got the spray paint for free at the dump from their hazardous waste "shopping center" SuhWEET! I love how bright they are. However, the bloggers who say that spray painting shoes works, lied. Plain and simple, they lied.

The toes still look okay, but the sides... not so much. Oh well, I'll just have to wear them with pants! I think I'll continue to wear them until they just look too awful.

These are target brand- they were brown originally. I got them at the DI for 4 bucks 3 years ago. I got my money's worth and they were headed back to the DI when I decided to give the spray paint a whirl cuz I had heard it worked. So no big loss :)

I Like Pink

That's Why.

Happy Father's Day 2011

To Our Dad:

We knew you would be the best dad from day one

You've always brought joy and excitement into our lives

Your comforting embrace always makes us feel safe

How glad we are that we can be a family forever

And share many more moments like these.

~We Love You Dad~

Dena, Brook, and Ellie

Girlfriends

I'm just waiting for Ben to get home and perusing my old photos and came across this one. Oh how I miss the days of girlfriends! I'm still in regular contact with 3 of the 4, but we are spread across the country now and it's hard to get together. I miss them all! I LOVE YOU GIRLS!

Wild Asparagus

Who Knew?!?!?

Ben and I went on a date a few weeks back for like the first time in 3 months and it was stupendous. We drove up a little ways into the foothills and went on a 1.8 mile hike. It overlooked the Boise Valley- I tell you, that is a beautiful view and I am going to miss it! Anyway, on the down the other side, we came across this weirdly tall awkward stalk of... something... and we realized it was asparagus! If you know how big my hands are, you will appreciate this picture even more :) That is one giant asparagus.

Stacy, I know you want to eat it right now!

Rocky Mountain High!!!! Colorado....

Okay, so actually our new apartment is in Littleton, Colorado, but whenever I think of Colorado, I think of John Denver and I start to sing that song! I love it. It's a good song. My gramma is a John Denver fan. ANYWAY- we found a place!!! It's PERFECT! And it's as big if not bigger than our current house!!! Woooo!! So now I can take pretty much everything with me... don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I'm excited. Now we just have to wait until August to move in. Oh, and sell our house... yeah..... wish us luck!