Good Dog

The move to Florida hasn’t been so great for Rex.  If he wasn’t part of the family, we would have left him in Nebraska where he can live the good life being a cattle dog.  He has to spend most of his time tied up and has only moved cows once since we got here.  The poor old man is getting fat.  I guess Jason and I might be projecting our feelings onto Rex.  We’re struggling to adjust to Florida.  You’d think we’d like the shorter work day, the beach every Saturday, the 20 minute trip into town, the walk across the street to church, but we just don’t love it yet.  All of these things are convenient, but the sacrifices we made in Nebraska didn’t seem like sacrifices because we loved life there.  I miss the ranch life.  And being able to work.  And no traffic.  And neighbors 10 minutes away.  And the Alliance Branch.  And even shopping in Alliance (those of you who have been to Alliance are probably asking, “what shopping?” ).  We have great neighbors and belong to a great ward and we know we are supposed to be here.  We’re just struggling to fit into this life.

Out and About

We went out with Jason to see some of the ranch.  It was nice to see something other than the church across the street and the trees in the back yard. 

Slip-n-Slide Fun

We were invited to the Youth Camp for Home Evening with a few other families.  We had a fun time, and even though the slide was pretty rough, the kids kept at it for hours and there was only one big accident.  Even Riggin loved it.  He’d ride down with Kache or Ryder and then make the long climb back up the hill for another run.

Mijken, I thought you’d like this.  Jason playing in his boots and jeans.  He even brought his swim suit, he just didn’t bother to change.  But there were two other dads doing the same thing.

Early Weekend Project

We decided to paint last night instead of waiting for the weekend.  It is a little darker than I was expecting, but I still like it a lot better than the green.  I think it makes the red in the kitchen look more like a dark pink now, but I don’t think we are changing anything anytime soon.

We still have the tall wall to paint, but we’ll have to borrow a latter from the service missionaries for that.  I’m excited to finally hang some pictures!

Saturday Projects

We’ve been spending lots of time and money at Home Depot lately.  I guess Jason’s Monday through Friday job does have its benefits.  My table is finally getting built.

We installed drawer and cupboard pulls.  I’m worried we may have just put lipstick on the pig.  The pulls look higher quality than the cupboards.  The before:

The after:

I think this is my favorite project so far.  We got this canvas from Rex Ranch for Christmas a couple years ago and it finally has a frame.  The barn wood is from the McGinley. 

This wood will also be our table top, but our frame is new 2x4s so I need to decide what to do with it.  I think a white base would be best since the barn wood is grey.  This is the best idea I’ve found:

I just have to figure out how to make mine look like this.  Our project for the coming weekend is the painting the great room.  I’m not looking forward to it.