Combined Creative Craftiness

It is always a challenge to find fun, engaging and spiritual activities each Wednesday night for our youth. I think it is especially hard for combined young men and young women. You have little boys, maturing girls, bigger boys, an occasional man child and everything in between. It's a real mix of ages, personalities, preferences and ideas.

 

This month, we had a cake decorating challenge with a Book of Mormon twist. We divided the kids into 4 teams, each received an unfrosted cake that was already baked. We offered an assortment of decorating materials like frosting, cookies, wafers, candies, sprinkles and the like. Next, each group was assigned a Book of Mormon story to depict on their cake. They were not allowed to use any words or symbols.

 

Watching them attack the challenge was a lot of fun on its own. I flitted from group to group listening in as they negotiated, brainstormed and sometimes even argued about how to execute their task. There were certainly some stronger personalities that asserted themselves. There were also some creative types that waded in more than they may have in other settings. It got a little messy in some cases, both figuratively and literally!

 

When they were finished creating their masterpieces, they recounted their scripture story to the group and submitted their work for judging by the bishopric.

 

Here are the results of their labors. I have captioned the finished cakes with the scripture story they represent.

 

 

Moroni and the Title of Liberty

Samuel the Lamanite Preaches from the Wall

The Brother of Jared Builds Barges

Lehi's Dream of the Iron Rod

Super Fan

We are not huge football fans in our house. However, our kids are big fans of the Superbowl. We always watch it every year. Their enjoyment isn't from watching two elite teams battle it out on the gridiron. It isn't even the clever commercials. They love all the junk food. I don't even cook anything special. I just buy a ton of finger foods, cookies, chips, crackers, whatever. They munch on it throughout the game. I don't have to cook. They get to eat whatever they want. Everyone is happy. 

 

Page House Transformation Project Part II

We rolled into Page late on Christmas night. After the long 10 hour drive, we stopped by our house to drop off the trailer and have a quick look around. The kids were so excited to be "home".

The new floors looked great, but there was still much work to be done. After running all over the empty house, we piled back in the car and went to Theo's parents' for the night. The following morning, we started bright and early, and we didn't stop for a whole week! In fact, there are very few pictures of the process we went through since we were so busy.

Right in the middle of everything, we had some wonderful help! On Saturday, my sister Kim and her husband Steve drove down from Salt Lake to bring us a bunch of house stuff as well as to contribute their vast home improvement knowledge to our efforts. They stayed through Monday and worked like crazy!

We put new trim in the entire house, painted doors, fixed faucets, fixed toilets, shoveled gravel in the front yard, replaced the kitchen sink, framed in the entertainment area in the living room and cleaned a bunch more. All the while Theo BUILT a king bed, two queen beds, a set of bunk beds, a sofa table and framed in built in bunks in the family room. Can you say, MACHINE?!

Kim was a fantastic design consultant. We painted a bunch of furniture that she and Theo's mom had donated to our cause and stained all the stuff Theo built. Steve valiantly worked in the yucky bathrooms. We were busy!

 

We had hoped to be done with everything by New Year's day so we could travel home for the kids to start school on January 2nd. Alas, we had a few odds and ends we HAD to finish before we left. They got to miss a day of school on Thursday as we only got home Friday at about 1:30 AM! At the end of our week long oddessy, the house had been transformed. While there was still a long list of things we could do, we felt like we finished everything we had to do.

 

We still need to have one of our sectionals delivered, new blinds hung in the windows and the fireplace insert and rock installed. All in the works.

 

Kids celebrating the TV working at the end of the week

Bunks Theo built



Grandma Peters' bed!

Hidden bunks in the family room

sewing desk turned funky cool accent furniture

Entry table Theo built

Lovely living room

King bed Theo built with side tables from Grandpa Ross!

 

We have now officially started advertising our house on vrbo.com. You can check out our listing and tell all of your friends to go here: http://www.vrbo.com/513323

We got two bookings in our very first week online! Shazam!

I can't express my gratitude enough for everyone that made this possible! I know I have said it before, but I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family! Thank you ALL!

Christmas Departure

 

The shopping season this year was a little strange for me. With all of the things we needed to purchase for our house in Page, I admit that I often put Christmas gift shopping on the back burner. In the end, it all got done, and we didn't even have to scramble at the last minute.

 

We had the missionaries over for a lovely Christmas Eve dinner and then had our usual Christmas traditions. We always read the Christmas story from the Bible and then we open one gift, often pajamas. The kids were kind enough to sleep all the way until about 7:00 on Christmas morning.

 

Once gifts were opened, breakfast was had and everyone was settled and content, we looked around and decided that we were going to pack and depart for Page a day early! Our original plan was to leave the day after Christmas, but with all of the work we had to do in the coming week we thought an extra day would be good to have. The kids were troopers getting all of their stuff together, helping us load and rolling with it all. Sometimes having older kids is a real bonus.

 

AZ, here we come!

Page House Transformation Project Part I

As soon as we arrived home from San Antonio and the Junior Olympics, we shifted gears. In September, the people that had been renting our house in Page for the last two years informed us that they were buying another house and moving out. After several false starts, the house was finally vacated the first weekend of December. In between the time we found out they were leaving and when they actually left, we made a major decision about the fate of our beloved home. Rather than trying to sell it again, we opted to turn it into a vacation rental!

Page is in the center of what is known as the Grand Circle. If you have never heard that term, you are certainly familiar with all of the things in the near vicinity that you can visit. Just pick a direction, and within a matter of minutes or just a couple of hours you can be at some spectacular places like Bryce or Zion national parks, The Colorado River, Glen Canyon Dam, The Grand Canyon, to name a few. Then of course there is our personal favorite and closest option, Lake Powell!!

We know a couple of people that are getting into the vacation rental business, and it seems to be a pretty great option. The biggest obstacle would be getting the house in tip top shape and then furnishing the whole thing. All four bedrooms, three bathrooms, 2600 sq. feet of it! Wowza!

It actually turned out to be a blessing that we had some lag time between finding out our renters were leaving and when they actually left. It gave us more rent money of course. Very good. But it also gave us time to make plans, shop around and wrap our heads around all of the things we would need to do to get this up and running. Black Friday was a lifesaver as far as cost for a lot of the household goods we needed.

Back to the return from San Antonio.

We got in from our Texas travels at about 9:30 Sunday night. We were beat after all the excitement. Come Monday morning, we kicked into high gear. After sending the kids off to school, I took the morning off of work to help Theo load up all the stuff we had amassed over the previous two months. We even borrowed a trailer from a friend and put a hitch on the Acadia. Theo was off to begin the renovation process.

Yes, that is as crazy loaded as it looks! Inside the car was packed inside to the roof which had a rug strapped on top, and the trailer was piled to the sky with everything from our washer and dryer to our dining room table and chairs (I got a new ones! Yay me!).

 

Theo spent a week in Page working on the house. Unfortunately, it needed more work than we had anticipated. We were so very lucky that many of our friends came and helped! Thanks Moses, Otis, Mac and of course Theo's mom, Lisa! They tore out carpet, hauled trash, took down blinds, patched holes, painted, painted, painted, and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed!

 

 

Also while in town, we had new floors put in the house. Wood in the kitchen and carpet everywhere else. This made such a huge difference!

 

 

With the days flying by, we had to save a lot more of the work for after Christmas. Theo is such a hard worker! He made so much progress. Check in again After Christmas for the second part of this story and all of the "after" pictures.