Road Trip to Arizona

once the semester was over, 

we packed up and headed down to Arizona

to sell pest control. 

well brent sells pest control and i do office work. 

i would die in the 115 degree weather. 

our road trip was long, exhausting, 

and beautiful!

 lake mead

 it's monsoon season, so lots of cool rainbows

 as we're driving, brent says "what is that?" 

can you tell? 

because we're still not sure what it was, 

but i tried to get some pictures so you could get an idea. 

 the pretty blue sky just totally disappeared!

 this is the best picture I think cuz ahead of us you can see

the pretty blue sky and behind us is the massive

dark cloud. 

cool huh? 

 i won't go as far as to say i hate Arizona,

i'll say i hate the heat

and i will say, it can be very beautiful at times. 

and if you know me, you know i love me some beautiful skies!

here's to the beginning of our arizona adventure. 

Newborn*shoot

tara lets me come along on her shoots. 

so for the next little bit i will be

posting from shoots i have been to with her. 

this is a sweet little girl we took pictures of recently. 

the whole set up was adorable.

 

 

Tara's Baby Shower

my bestie just had a wee baby : )
So so happy for her!!

i threw her a baby shower with lots of help from 

two of her cousins and another friend. 

it was a ton of fun and i'm so grateful for their help!

i think it turned out so cute. 

(and yes we got a lot of our ideas from

pinterest!)

 

these are the wonderful ladies that helped me put it all together!

 

 

 

i had to add this picture for Tara. 

whenever she would get excited about a gift, she'd put it up to her face....

case and point : ) 

Upper Coffee Pots

i've been trying to plan fun places for us to hike/camp/fish

and upper coffee pots was on my list. 

so we packed up our gear and headed north for a 

spur of the moment monday night camping trip. 

Island Park is about an hour north of Rexburg. 

it is known for it's beauty and good fishing. 

there are a lot of hikes and places to fish and camp 

up that way and we were 

really happy with 

Upper Coffee Pots. 

 

 

It took us an hour  to get there 

and although the directions we had were a bit confusing, 

we made it, thanks to brent's iPhone and following the

little blue dot! 

it is very common in Idaho to see a sign giving directions on the main road,

but once you've followed that sign, don't expect any more signs 

to give you further directions! 

we end up just driving around a lot,

and then later figuring out how close we were to something 

awesome. 

together brent and i don't do too well finding places...

part of the adventure, right?! 

all of the campgrounds at upper coffee pots are reservable 

and we just got lucky and someone happened to cancel the monday we showed up. 

it was a little pricey($13/night), 

but when we pulled up to our campsite, 

it was well worth it. 

Bring your own wood as there isn't much foraging and wood there is pricey. 

and for heaven's sake, bring your fishing license!

(cough, brent, cough)

 luckily just down the road we could pay to get it reprinted. 

and then only to find out, he forgot all his flies. 

this is typical for a brent and mette trip. 

again...part of the adventure. 

there is a hike you can do to get to the rapids. 

it's 5 miles round trip. 

apparently the rapids are named for the first man who traversed them, 

he lost everything but his coffee pot, hence the name.

we didn't end up doing it since we were only there for less than 24 hours, 

but i'd love to go back and try it sometime.

 

 

after a good tin foil dinner, evening fishing, and a nice camp fire,

we snuggled up in bed and said good night to the world. 

the next morning we broke camp and headed to Henry's lake

(about another 20 minutes up the highway), 

where we found you have to pay to get in...

so what did we do....

drove around to find some other place. 

which meant that we hiked through property, mud and trees to 

find a little river where we didn't see a single fish....

with no fishing success we headed back to rexburg to make up 

for the day of missed school.

 

All in all, it was a little rocky, 

but the scenery made up for all the mistakes. 

yay for getting outside and enjoying nature 

with the hubs.

this is how our drives usually end up here in Idaho... 

America the Beautiful

around these parts everyone knows about

Driggs and how beautiful it is.

every year on the 4th of July they throw a "celebrate america" 

event at Huntsman Springs Resort which is owned by Jon Huntsman Sr.

we took matt with us since tara was doing a photoshoot

out in Driggs anyway. she met up with us for the fireworks. 

by the time we got there they had already started taking booths down and 

the evening show had begun. 

Matt was stoked to find a DeLorean (aka Back to the Future Car) 

at the car show. Apparently it's his dream car. 

since they had already taken down all the food booths we braved the 

gas station across the street 

which I'm sure had the best selling day in the history of it's existence. 

the place was PACKED! 

not the greatest picture, but this place was pretty big.  

Our spot for the evening show which consisted of a really

good live band(even Jon Huntsman Jr. jammed with them 

for a song or two), a patriotic speech from the Huntsmans, 

and a really great firework show. 

I was pretty impressed.  

best part...it was ALL FREE! 

if you're in the eastern idaho area next 4th, I highly recommend the 

Celebrate America Event in Driggs.

Word to the wise. if you are going back towards Rexburg after the event, 

park across the street from the resort. They don't let people turn left out of certain 

areas, so being on that side of the road will 

come in nice and handy when you're trying to get home. 

Fairy Wands Tutorial

back a few months ago i went to 

women's conference 

with all my sisters and mom.

it was a wonderful experience and 

as you know, when we all get together it is a TON of fun. 

at the conference while you are listening to some of the talks,

you can go do service projects, 

so i made fairy wands. 

i snapped these pictures as i was putting it together. 

i hope the instructions and pictures 

make sense. 

let me know if you have any questions.

if you so have the desire to make one. 

they are cute and simple to make. 

my first one took me between 5-10 minutes to make.  

i'm sure it'd make any little girls day! 

Supplies:

   two discs

   small piece of string

   tulle

   two types of fairly thin ribbon

   plastic dowel

   plastic butterfly

   hot glue gun

   scissors

1. Holding two CDs back to back, thread tulle from back to front around the two 

discs. pull through the center of the disks and wrap around outside. 

Holding beginning end of tulle with thumb, keep threading until 

you have wrapped all the way around the cds. 

2. after you have wrapped all the way around, place scissors between CDs and cut tulle. 

3. Pull one disc off the tulle and place a small piece of string around 

middle of tulle bunch. Tie string in a knot to hold tulle secure. 

4. Pull second disk off tulle. Wa-La! you're first pompom!

5. Now repeat steps 1-4 to make a second pompom. 

6. Set pompoms aside and grab one ribbon and make a half knot around finger

leaving a piece of ribbon extending from the top.

7. Take the other ribbon and thread through the half knot also 

leaving some extended on top. 

8. Place plastic dowel through half knot

9. Place a dot of hot glue inside the knot

10. Cinch the knot tight about 1/2" from top of the dowel. 

11. Put a dot of glue on the side of the dowel, right below the top of the dowel

and press the center of one pompom on glue. 

Hold until set. 

Repeat with other pompom 

making them symmetrical.

12. Last Step! 

Put a dot of hot glue on the back of the plastic butterfly. 

Press the butterfly firmly onto the tulle. 

13. Stand back and be excited about your cute little wand!

Now go put a smile on a kids face!