3 Years.

Yesterday marked 3 years with Dave. It's weird and exciting at the same time. I feel like we've been together forever, but that time has passed so quickly. We didn't do much to celebrate. In fact, I was working. He called me on my break, and we wished each other a happy unofficial anniversary. And then we shared some Sweeto Burritos for dinner later that night while he was at work.

It was a simple, perfect way to celebrate 3 happy years.


I love you Dave!!!


Alex

XOXO

This was our first picture together. Halloween 2011

Sleepin with the Fishes.

That's where my blog would be, if it were a gold fish. It would be dead.

I promise I'll work on updating this thing tonight while Dave is at work. It will require a bit of backblogging, so please be patient with all the weird dates.



XOXO

Alex

BE WARNED

July and most of August have been INSANE. So please forgive me as I back-blog....

Savers Haul

I don't typically shop at Savers. I have to be in the right mood, and for sure have to be going on the right day. Some days I can find a lot of great stuff, some days I feel too grossed out, or just can't find a damn thing!!

This weekend I went up to the Savers in Salt Lake, and holy cow!!! I came across some amazing finds!! (Including a European designer shirt!!!) Most of the clothes I found were either brand new, or lightly used. And they looked to be mostly from boutiques.

Butterfly Shirt

Cosmos Shirt 

Flowy shirt/Kimono

Long Sleeve Pattern Shirt

Polka Dot Sweater

Red and white blouse (European Designer!!!)

Purple Sweater

Polka Dot Skirt

Yellow embroidered top

The best part of this haul....it was only 33$ for all of these clothes!!! This averages about 3$ per piece!!! I love shopping!! Especially for great deals.

ALL THE FURNITURE (DIY)

Dave and I have been refurbishing all kinds of furniture. I don't believe in paying full price for anything (and truthfully, our furniture budget for our house is pretty tight, so we're just making it work). We have created some beautiful furniture, and I'll post before and after pictures just to show ya!!



Dave and I were passing down the street when we saw some big cabinets with a free sign on them. We thought about it for a while, and decided that we did want to expand out entertainment center (that Dave had refinished before we were married) and make it much larger. We grabbed my mother-in-law's truck, and hauled them away to her garage to work on them. They were solid wood!! SCORE! I love high quality things, and solid wood is a great place to start. There was a lot of work that had to be done. Here is the picture story.

This is what the looked like originally. Pretty damn ugly.

We pulled off all the cabinet doors, and pulled out the drawers.

Adding trim to the edges to give it a nice finish

Dave had to carefully cut down the edges of the drawers so the fit flush with the cabinet

Added an additional shelf, and finished the trim

All the components together

Dave custom made the drawer fronts to match our existing entertainment center

All painted. It took two days, and lots and lots of patience.

Finished product. We love it!!!!!

We had another big project to work on. We had purchased a beautiful kitchen table with a lovely dark top at the RC Willey Clearance center. (We got it for a steal. Dave had to fix a few components, but Dave is handy, and it was worth the discount.) However, the table didn't come with chairs. I had seen a lot of kitchen inspirations on pinterest, and I decided that I wanted 4 matching chairs, with 2 captain chairs. (I'm pretty sure that's what it's called.) It took a ridiculously long time to find suitable chairs off of KSL. We didn't want crazy old chairs, or chairs from dining sets in the 90's. Dave found some incredible soft seated chairs, with a modern frame from a woman in SLC. And we got all 4 for about 75$. It was very exciting. We knew we had to stain and reupholsters the chairs to match the captain seats we had purchased at Target. Here is the process.

This is what the chairs looked like originally

Close up of the cushions. They were in good shape, but the wrong fabric.

This is the cushion we were trying to match

It took FOREVER to pull out all the staples from the chair. 2 bruised hands, and 100000 staples later, they were ready to reupholster

Finished cushions. We went to pretty much every fabric store in Utah  Valley to find the same fabric in charcoal. We found it in black instead. We figured it would match just fine.  It took lots of trial and error to get them to fit correctly.

Frames of the chairs



We had the leg from the chair we were trying to mimic matched at Kwal paint to get the right color of stain. We used my dad's stain gun to get an even texture. BIG difference. We love the color!!

Finished product. They look great, but most importantly, they match!!!



 These projects took about a week's time to finish. I'll post more DIY's as we finish them. But overall, I'm very happy with the progress we're making towards being homeowners!!!

Thoughts On Saying Good Bye.

As some of you may or may not know, my dear Grandpa (Don) Friske passed away a few weeks ago. In my final moments with him, I had scattered thoughts that I would like to share.




+ Flying still freaks me out. My dad is a pilot, and I'm still a basket case during take off and landing.

+ Flying with my mom is the absolute best. (Especially in first class...) I adore my mama, and I was so grateful to have her there with me during such difficult moments.

+ Montana is truly a magical place. It doesn't matter the circumstance that I'm there, it's simply magic.

+ Hospitals make me uncomfortable. Even though my husband works at one, I still hate spending time in hospitals. They are freezing, they smell funny, and they provide sandpaper as tissues.

+ Holding hands with Grandpa was an incredible experience. He needed to hold a hand. And I needed to hold his just as bad.

+ I believe people can see the Other Side as they are passing. And I'm pretty sure Grandpa was there long before he passed.

+ Thank you Uncle Ryan for letting me stay with you at the hospital for so long.

+ "You're pretty." Grandpa said to me as he watched me for a few seconds before he fell back asleep.

+ After 10 hours at the hospital with Grandpa, I walked out to flowers illuminated by a hospital light. I felt God's presence with me.

+ I hate good byes. My final good bye to my Grandpa was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. We shared "I Love You's" and he asked me for a kiss. After a soft peck on the lips, I left the room in a flood of tears.

+ Families are Forever.

WELCOME HOME: Rainbow Family Gathering 2014

I went to rainbow gathering when I was 8. It was a strange surreal experience. Rainbow Gathering took place in UT this year for the first time in 11 years, so I went to check it out out of curiosity.

This year the Rainbow Gathering was held in the beautiful Uinta mountains just east of Heber. It was a wonderful ride with my sister Sophie up to Heber, where we met up with my Aunt Maria, and my cousins Ali, Lizzy, and Daniel. We met in the Smith's parking lot, (a half hour late, as usual) and Soph and I ran into Smith's to grab some snack bars to eat while we were at the gathering. . Lara bars were on sale for 10/10$ (which is so crazy cheap for Lara bars, plus they had pretty much every flavor.) So I loaded up on Larabars, and we were on our way.

The drive up to the gathering was beautiful and bumpy! But my Caliber took it like a champ, and we arrived to the huge parking area. 

We hiked about 3 miles in to get to the gathering. Mostly uphill. There were people saying "Welcome Home" the entire way up. It was such a beautiful hike. The mountains and fields of flowers were incredible. 

The trail up to the gathering

The welcome sign when we arrived to the gathering

Rap 151
It is tradition in our family to discourage alcohol use at the gathering. Everyone who attends the gathering needs a safe and healthy environment to celebrate in, especially the children. We respect peoples' desire to drink, as well as those who choose not to. RESPECT GETS RESPECT. The gathering is a prayer and peace sanctuary. This is NOT a festival. Be Whole, Be Healthy, Be True to yourself, and Be Yourself and Rainbow. Too much of anything from ONE affects ALL of us at the gathering. LOVE and Respect your family and they will LOVE and Respect you too.

These little blankets were set up along the trail. Take something, leave something.

Once at the gathering, we explored around. We heard some drums, and my cousins abandoned Sophie and I, so we went looking for them. We figured if  followed the sound of the drums we would find our cousins. I had to go to the bathroom on the way there, and successfully peed in the woods. (I feel this is important to mention because A) I didn't get any pee on myself, and B) I don't typically pee in the woods.) 

When we arrived to the camp, there were several people playing big tribal drums.  There was this blonde woman with a baby strapped to her chest singing about being comfortable in your own skin, and that society doesn't need to define who you were. She was dirty. But then again, so was everyone else. 

We continued through the camp, and found one of the cooking camps. They create this large ovens with mud, rocks, and metal barrels(?). They bake fresh rolls for everyone at the gathering. They smelled pretty good, actually. I would have loved to try one. (Stupid gluten.) 

Camp oven (Front)

Camp oven (back)

When the beans are burning, High Holies are sniveling. There will come a tribe of pirates,who care....sometimes. They will be known as the Ogres of the Ovens.

Fresh baked rolls

Lovin Ovens (and other signs)

Love-O-Meter 

We continued through the camps, and came across a tepee where a man named BalanceToe could give you a rock reading. He was a super tall native american man. (He was seriously 6'9" or something.) The rocks all had different meanings, and the way that they fell had different messages that BalanceToe could explain to you. My reading with BalanceToe was probably my favorite part of the gathering. I wish I would have taken a picture with him....

As we wandered through, we saw a few naked men. That's not an unusual occurrence. But more than men, there were SO many topless woman. Girl, how do you go along without a bra? (I was yelled at for wearing a bra, BTW. Thought I should mention that...) Do you WANT saggy boobs? And more than that, 70% of the rainbow family has dreadlocks, and there are so many wanderers. (Most commonly known as homeless.). Everything there was so freaking dusty and dirty. Everyone had this earthy smell (B.O) and everyone's dreads just looked awful. I'm not saying that all dreads are nasty, but the dreads I saw, looked more like caterpillar cocoons than hairs. I would not want to be naked there. There are some crevices that dirt should never be....just saying.

The other highlight was the trade circle. I had my face painted, and traded a ring for an upper arm
bracelet, and some old earrings for a pretty anklet. Everything was covered in dust. Including the people. Sophie and I were offered weed by probably 10 different people, and I was offered acid. Everything reeked of pot. And everyone was SOOOO freaking high. Hahahaha. Sophie was really uncomfortable, and totally out of her element. Then again, so was I.

Rainbow Gathering is an experience to be had. It's good for people watching, if you're into that kind of thing. Maybe I'll go again in 11 years when they come back to Utah....until then.

Peace and Love,

Alex

XOXO

Sophie and me

Rainbow Selfie

Beautiful greenery.

Beautiful sunset on the hike back

That's a dirt line. Not a tan line.