home sweet home

here are a few little projects we've finished around the house. many others are still in progress, so hopefully i can show you them before rich graduates in three years.

$5 chairs from the thrift store. i think they look pretty good after some sanding and a few coats of paint! new little table from ikea. thank you utah trip!

pot rack by rich. i love this and it frees up lots of space in our already limited cabinet space. i wanted something like this since we moved in and it was in place christmas morning! :)

this was also a christmas surprise for me. yep, i love twinkle lights.

nice sturdy $10 bookshelf for our little office. rich painted it black and it's as good as new!

our favorite thrift store find yet. we both love maps and wanted a map room, so this pull down school map was perfect! the only problem is that the state map it has is alaska and now rich wants to move there.

what i like most about these pics is that they each have things that remind me of friends and family (the 5 of you that read this blog). :) items you've given us over the years or your original artwork from our wedding reception. thanks for helping us make our first home so homey!

saturday night in vegas

lone mountain hike.

exploration time

we've tried to take full advantage of these weekends at the beginning of the semester when rich doesn't have to study too much. this weekend we took off to explore "little finland". rich discovered it while playing around on google earth one day (a favorite pastime for him). we were surprised we'd never heard of it since it's not too far away (southeast of mesquite)! i'm guessing because it's pretty remote and hard to get to, but polly pocket drove like a champ and what we found was well worth the 2 mph drive through the final wash and dirt road. i will be taking my dad here the next time he's in nevada so he can do these incredible and delicate rock formations justice. we didn't see a single person the entire time we were hiking around although we were surrounded by animals, muppets, and bug hotels...

sunset during our drive to camp

a little discovery at "whitney's pocket"
camped next to this sink hole, "devil's throat". luckily there was a fence around it and neither of us sleep walk!

our introduction to little finland

surfing

my nice table and chair

rich says it's a horse, i say it's a dragon

grouchy old muppet man?

bug hotels (my mom loves these)

sorry for the overload of pictures... we went a bit snap happy!

happy mother's day

to our amazing mothers! We love you!!!

utah

we took a road trip to utah last weekend to see friends and family, pick up our tandem bike (it's too beautiful in vegas right now to not be riding it around), make a run to ikea and eat some of our favorite food. we thought we would camp and do some hiking, but then realized it's still a bit snowy and cold there. thankfully we have generous friends and fam that let us crash on their floors each night. here are some pics.

with brooke at the byu MOA and a nice stack of books! we were also able to see the incredible Carl Bloch exhibt which was well worth the wait!

had lunch with annette and brooke at guru's in provo (forgot to get a pic with annette... we were too busy eating the yummiest sweet potato fries ever!).

citrus grill dinner with jackie, ryan, greg and bianca (and twin girls coming this summer)!! followed jackie and ryan home and slept on their awesome air mattress with jackie's amazing quilts.
saturday morning we had the best belgian waffles at bruges with the SLC girls. they were so nice to eat there with me even though there's only seating outside (it was freezing!). those waffles are so worth it.
next we took off to the ranch...

I took pictures,

while rich dug our bike out of the snow/ice.

drove back to provo through these beauties...

we met up with brett, beth, joe and jake for a fun day at the park.

performed some tricks. the tandem seems to be doing pretty well after a long winter...

this is rich's friend Joe. he just got back from his mission in italy. he still likes to have a companion...

saturday night we stayed with mandy, brian, jenny and mark. mandy made us the best cookies ever and mark showed rich his cool toys. we also got to see little brian and timmy. they are the cutest! sunday we drove home with tandem and new ikea furniture in tow. it was such a great weekend! how did we get so lucky to have such amazing friends and family?! we miss and love you all!