My Newest Obsession: Wood Projects.

Hi blog. It's been awhile. Usually when school starts that's what happens, and I'm really sorry. But I thought since I have just a few days left I would give a little update.

Recently I have found a new hobby that I love much more than I EVER thought I would. After I had to stop dancing I was in a little bit of a rut trying to find what my next "thing" would be, and it was hard. Boy, it was hard. Just ask my dear husband you had to witness a few too many tears on the particular matter. BUT. I think I have found it.

I have always had this odd obsession with wood. I love the smell, look, feel, etc of something so natural. Isn't that really strange? I know. But I love what wood can do and what it creates! When I first told Zach I wanted to make a bed frame that I had found on Pinterest I didn't quite know if I was serious. Ha. But Zach was excited and helped me believe that I could do it! So we sat down and talked with Zach's dad about the project. Mark (Zach's dad) is so great. I really love the guy. As soon as I told him about my idea, he was right on board. He told me the wood I would need, how much of it, and took Zach and I to home depot. This place is now one of my favorite places. We got the wood and spent the new few  (like two I think? It was a pretty quick project) Saturdays working on our bed. 

My favorite part of the process is the staining. Mark has this tool that sprays the stain which makes the process much faster (and way more fun). (You can tell I'm still learning because I still use terms like "spray stainer", "that one kind of saw", "the thing that makes pocket holes" haha. Good thing we have Mark!) Zach once asked what I have learned the most about this "new world" of wood and my response was "I had no idea there were so many different ways to cut things!" And it's true. There are a lot of different ways. Anyways. Here are some pictures of the process of our bed. I should have been better and actually taken my camera with me but I didn't. I'll do better on the next project.

We got the idea from someone using bookcases from IKEA for bed frames. I really wanted the wood look and so that's what we did! We made three "cases" and sectioned off the sides so that they have 3 cubbie things and the end has 2 (as you'll see in the pictures). It cost us just above $180 I think. (We did it in like July so I can't really remember.) But it was worth it. Looking at how much I would have had to spend getting the shelves at IKEA it would have been around $300. We don't have a head board (I'm still trying to decide on what I want it to actually look like) but I absolutely love how they have turned out. We have put books, shoes, my camera bag, etc without making it look like everything is just stuffed in there. I just really love them.

How it all starts.

The "boxes" that go along the side of the bed.

Staining with the cool strain gun.

Please ignore the fact that I totally didn't make the bed to get this picture. Ha. But this is essentially what it all looks like!

Our next project was to do some bedside tables. My parents have had these two that used to sit in the basement for forever. They had drawings, scratches, dings, and dents but we decided to sand them down and re-stain them and they turned out beautiful! The sanding took quite a long time on these because we had to sand around every grove and the drawers but they turned out perfect. We used the same stain color as we did the bed so they go together really well. I want to get some different knobs for them but haven't looked into it too much yet. I get carried away with the next project in mind and kind of forget that stuff.. ha.

Sanding the bedside tables.

Staining the tables now that they have been totally sanded.

Worst picture of me ever? yes. But this is what they looked like all done!

Our latest project was a coffee table. We didn't really need one of these but I saw the design online and after talking with Mark about it we just decided to go for it! I'm so glad we did. We looked for casters (the wheels) online and every where was like $30.00 at least! I didn't really want to spend that much per wheel so Mark suggested cutting them himself. He has a plasma cutter so he did the spoke parts of the wheel on that and then used 7" pipe that is about 1/4" thick and cut them to the width we wanted the wheels to be. He's a genius. Looking back we probably would have done 8" pipe but all is well. We also did a walnut inlay around the top that I really love. To add a little more of a rustic look to it we also put on metal corners that were also cut on the plasma cutter. We had to bead blast and paint them (same with the wheels) but it really adds to the rustic feel.

How the coffee table looked when we first got started! 

The top all done. Another thing I learned is that you have to clamp everything very tightly or else the wood warps and then you hate life. 

How the under part looks. 

With the wheels attached.

Getting ready to stain.

After we use the really cool stain gun thing we use rags to make sure it is all even. This is after the first coat. We ended up doing two coats.

All done!

Zach jokes that we will never be able to have a house with a basement because the coffee table and bed "boxes" are so heavy and our ideas for upcoming project will probably be ten times heavier (the table we are wanting to make is TO DIE FOR but will weigh more than an elephant I'm sure) but I think it will hold up just fine. ;)

Our next project is a crib for my brother and sister-in-law. We are so excited! It's going to be a little different because we will need to create the plans for it but that's what also makes it more exciting!

Zach's parents have been so kind to let us use their shop and have helped us and encouraged us so much! I truly feel so blessed!

My family (and Zach for that matter) have no realized that a Home Depot gift card is the best gift I could get and is definitely the way to my heart. Grateful for that too.

Anyways. I'll have to do better about taking pictures and doing more of a tutorial for the crib since we will be making the plans ourselves and such so stayed tuned! Maybe one day Zach and I will sell some of these things. ;)

JULY!

(Yes I realize August is basically over but this month was too good not to document!) I love July. It really is one of the best months of the year and it sure was a busy one for us!

We spent the 4th of July in Koosharem with some of Zach's family. Koosharem is a teeny tiny town close to Fish Lake. We usually ride four wheelers and just relax. Zach got to fight his airplanes and I got to read my book so all was well! We also went to the Salina Rodeo. I've never been to a rodeo and so I was excited to see what it was like. Haha. It was so fun but definitely a red neck party. The announcer was on a horse that had never been in a rodeo and was going crazy the whole time. I think everyone there had tears from laughing so hard.

Speaking of laughing so hard, Zach and I had quite the experience this month. At the first of the month we watch the last Harry Potter movie and Voldemort freaks me out. I don't know why and I realize that's the most childish thing ever but he does! I think it's the whole nose thing. Anyway. Zach was really tired and fell right asleep but I took my sweet time getting ready for bed while humming primary songs. All of a sudden I hear this big BOOM! I pee my pants and scream thinking someone has been shot and totally wake up Zach. Another big boom happens and Zach just looks at me and says, "that was a firework". Ha! That darn Voldemort was just scaring me!

BUT a few weeks later Zach and I are asleep (it's like 2 in the morning at this point) and all of a sudden there is this really loud CRASH!!! Terrifyingly loud. It obviously wakes us both up. I turn to Zach and ask what the heck he thinks it was and he just calmly replies "it was something upstairs". I, trusting him, try to go back to sleep. Then out of no where Zach has one arm over me and is sitting strait up. He starts yelling, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Okay by this moment I may or may not have had a few tears. I was SO scared. Zach just keeps yelling that and I think we are both dead. Goners. I tell him to grab his phone and turn on the flash light and he yells "I'M CALLING THE COPS!" Now I'm really terrified and Zach's hands are shaking so bad. He won't turn on the flash light because he is so scared and I say "Zach turn on the flash light!!!" He replies, "Then they will know where we are!" HAHAHAHAHAHA. We live in a two bedroom apartment and he's just been yelling at this "person" for the last ten minutes. Hahaha. Oh man I'm even just crying typing this. Haha. Anyway. He finally builds up the courage to turn on the flash light and we discover what he thought was a person was just a towel hanging over the door in the other room. Zach thought the towel was really long hair and someone peeking around the door. So we had some "hippie" invade our basement. It turned out our clock in the living room fell. Haha. The next day we went out to get food and we started talking about the traumatizing experience and literally couldn't even talk we were laughing so hard. Haha. Oh it was one of the best things. Just picture two little frightened newly weds shaking with fear and one yelling, "I'M CALLING THE COPS!!!" Haha!! I can only imagine what our upstairs people are thinking. We talked about getting a gun but I can only imagine how well that would go, "I HAVE A GUN!!!" The upstairs would for sure think something is terribly wrong with us. Haha! The best thing. We were really glad to be safe and I made Zach check every little space to make sure we really were safe. Oh man.. One of the best and scariest of times. Haha! I can't even get over it. Zach.. what a guy.

Anyway. Aside from a long haired hippy breaking into our house (insert crying emoji here) the rest of the month went very well.

For Pioneer Day we went up to my family's ranch in Bone, Idaho. It's a little place in basically the middle of no where. We sleep in tents, four wheel all day long, eat lots of treats, laugh, and sing around the camp fire. My family has gone up there practically every year since my mom was about 5. Last year I was in Ecuador helping the cutest babies (that I still miss all the time) when they went so I was really excited to take Zach up there. It rained. A LOT. But we still had fun. We had something like 11 four wheelers and 2 little motorbikes. My dad got a little 80 for a day and Zach was in heaven but after Steph crashed into the bushes (the softest spot in the whole place) my dad got a little worried and exchanged it for a four wheeler. I love being up there. It is SO beautiful. You have no cell phone reception and just trails for days! I always just wish we could explore for 3 days all the different trails up there. I'm sure we still wouldn't get to all of them. There really are so many!! But we really enjoyed the time to just get away. We almost didn't get there because the cows in the road wouldn't move! Haha. That was pretty good.

Overall we had quite the month. Reading over this I think July is the month we laughed a whole lot. August is turning out to be.. well… interesting. But you'll have to wait for that update next month. I'm so glad I have decided to do a little update each month because now I'll always have these moments to look back on. So thanks blog for having my back and stuff.

Did I mention we also ate at 180 tacos again like a million time? I'm not mad.

JOYFUL JUNE

June is always such a good month isn't it?

It was good to us.

We didn't really do much of our online classes.. (woops.) But that's what July is for right? Right.

Each time I remember that I promised myself I would do a little update on how the month went, I sit down and then remember nothing. I mean I swear we did more than just eat at 180 Tacos and work right? Haha. The struggle is real.

But thankfully we did more than that! We kicked off our summer just right and went and saw Kates play a show at UVU. She's in a band called the Blue Aces (look them up! they are crazy talented girls!) as they were one of the bands opening for Neon Trees. (Or Trees on Knees as Zach likes to call them). Before Zach met me he hadn't really ever been to a concert. Now he's probably been to more than he would have liked to been too haha. Just kidding. We love going! They had food trucks there so we tried a pizza one and it was awesome. We stuck around for a little while after Katie played then decided to head home. BUT. Then we remembered there was going to be a firework show, and I LOVE fireworks. So we got in our comf's (sweats) and grabbed some popcorn and headed back to UVU. We had the perfect spot on this hill and could even see where they were lighting the fireworks! Then just before they started going off an officer made us move (even though the other officer said we were okay). It was still an awesome experience. Trev and Steph joined us and we were all pretty amazed with how it went.

The next week we headed to St. George. NuSkin has a house down there and we get one week there out of the year. We LOVE it. My dad and Trev usually play golf as much as possible and we go swim as much as possible. We also played lots of "Settlers of Catan" and became quite obsessed with the game. Other than that we usually watch movies, eat lots of food and just kind of hang out. Last year I took Zach with us but it was fun to go this time being married. We also went and saw Inside Out while we were down there and LOVED it. It is so creative and we all laughed pretty hard. Highly recommend it. We also did the tunnel drive at Zion's which was really cool. I've been there before to hike but have never driven through the famous tunnel. Lastly, we saw Beauty and the Beast at Tuacahn. It was really good. Last year we saw The Little Mermaid and it was so incredible so we had a pretty high bar for this show and it was good!

Coming back to reality after that dream was the worst. But Zach started his new job at John Deere and was really excited. He's loving it for the most part. It's a lot of physical labor so he gets really tired but he's really enjoying it. On his last day at UVU I took his office Swig cookies. He works with all girls and really liked everyone he worked with so I thought we needed to say thank you for putting up with him. ;)

We've also been married for 9 months as of June 25th. We celebrated with 180 Tacos of course. If you have never been you need to go and get the buffalo chicken taco. I'm drooling just thinking of it.

That's about it. Already July has been quite the month and I can't wait to do a recap.

Katie's show. It was really sunny. And hot.

Treats before the movie of course.

The look Zach is usually giving me :)

Happy 9 months!

MAY

Is it just me or did May feel like it didn't even exist? I can't even believe it's June already! Summer time, slow down!

May was quite the month for us over here. We both had lots of work things and I finished my online class! I'm taking another online class through the summer and so is Zach but we are hoping if we both have an online class we will actually get it done.. so far it hasn't worked out for us too well. Ha! Too good.

I was asked to take pictures for the Miss Orem pageant this year. Two years ago (2013) I ran myself and ended up getting 1st attendant. I had never done anything like that but learned so much! It was fun being on the other side of things this time and just worrying about getting good pictures instead of trying to walk in heals. :) After each girl did their talent I was blown away! Seriously I don't know how those judges decide on things, I would be a wreck. But it turned out great!

We also decided we won't be going to Africa anymore.. As we were filling out the Visa information to get into Nigeria they asked for identification marks on our bodies in case we... what? DIED?! Got TAKEN?! Ha it was pretty interesting filling out the whole thing. We got to the end of it and tried to pay and found out you can only use a Master Card and the card has to have your FIRST and LAST name. So Zach and I would have to both get a Master Card. After a million phone calls back and forth to my aunt Natty she finally said "That's it. I can't go there. By the time I get a Master Card it would be too late!" So we aren't going. HOWEVER. She then told us about another trip she needed to take in August that we could tag along with. Let's just say we are SO excited about it. I'll wait this time to share the location until those plane tickets are booked. :)

I also got to help out at the clogging Nationals and do all the music. I was VERY a little bit nervous because if one thing goes wrong not only do I get the stares from everyone watching but also the directions shoot fire out of their stares. Thankfully the only thing that went wrong was a speaker died. Anyways, it was really fun and hard. I told myself over and over driving up there that I would be okay and not cry and every time I drove back home those tears would come. You see, the past 12? (maybe even more) years I've been at Nationals competing and this time I couldn't dance. It was pretty hard but it also reminded me of how hard I would work for Nationals because really that's where all the hard work payed off. It reminded me of what dancing taught me. Besides the footwork, the bloody toes, the sore feet, the amazing friends, and the feeling of actually pulling off what you wanted to accomplish, clogging taught me that a dream can never be too big but you have to be willing to work hard enough to get there. And for that I will forever be grateful. On the plus side my feet are doing a little better. After what feels like millions of different things I think they are finally starting to come along. As long as I go to yoga twice a week and stretch my muscles I usually have pretty good days! There is a light at the end of this crazy long tunnel!

To end off the month (technically it may have been the first few days in June but still), we went to Kyle's show. They are moving to Nashville and had a few goodbye shows in Provo. They did a ton of their older songs so it was the best! We also took family pictures up the canyon using a tripod. It was actually hilarious. Every time we would be ready and wait for the count down a HUGE gust of wind would come. Haha! Most of the pictures are probably just the girls trying to hold their hair down. It was pretty classic. Also, by some small (huge) miracle, Lex, Han, Tiff, Marc, and I were able to get together for the first time in almost 3 years. Can you believe that!? It was SO fun catching up with everyone. We could have probably sat and talked for 24 hours but the few hours we did have were so special. I owe quite a bit to those girls for how great my senior year was, so thank you, you sweeties.

Last, but not least, Zach got a new job! He is so excited and I'm so so happy for him! He will be a mechanic at John Deere working (at first) on small engines, like lawnmowers and such. He's been working at UVU in their One Stop center (aka answering phone calls of angry students and their mother's) for almost 2 years and was really hoping to make a change. This is a great change because this new job also will help him get his foot in the door for what he thinks he wants to do! Plus it's full time which is what he was wanting. Blessings!

Other than that we are very excited for June. Summer time is here!