Thinking about Catalina

We will go again next summer, here are just a few memories. I went every summer from the time I was 7. As we got older we would invite lots of friends, the girls would split the cost of two rooms with a shared bathroom in the Atwater Hotel. The boys would split a smaller room on the opposite side of the hotel. I always wondered, did my mom plan it that way? lol. A dorky story: I used to always hike up to the bell tower and look out over the bay and wonder what my life would be like the next year, example, "next year will I have a boyfriend?", "next year will I be married?" "next year will I be pregnant?" etc. etc.
When Blaine and I got married we were pretty poor, so we went to Catalina for our honeymoon, Hawaii or the Caribbean it wasn't, but I loved it! When we started having kids we decided to go every other year so on the off year we could do other vacations with the kids, Oklahoma, Utah, Georgia, Oregon, Arkansas, Missouri, usually to visit family or go camping and see the national parks like the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.
I will always love Catalina and look forward to sharing it with the next generation, my grandkids!

I finished the kitchen

A new coat of paint on the cabinets and new stainless steel hardware sure brightened up the kitchen, I painted everyday for 5 days and in the 97 degree house with doors open, bless Manus Berry who fixed our A/C today!! Now to finish the bathrooms, I chose a beautiful moss color called garden wall, it matches colors in the floor, pictures to follow when it's done too.

Ugh!!!

Our downstairs A/C went out. Manus told us what part to order but he went to girl's camp so we have to wait until he gets back on Thursday to come help Blaine put in the new motor. I was painting today and it was about 95 in my house, my mom got faint so I had her go upstairs and sit on my couch, at least my upstairs room has A/C. It was going to be a little crowded with my mom sleeping on my couch in my room so Blaine went to Home Depot and got a portable A/C unit that rolls and we put it in her room, it cools up to 400 square feet and once the A/C is fixed we will put it in the living room/dining room and that will help cool the front of the house, it blows really cold air... Back to our fiasco, Blaine did attempt to install it himslef (not a good idea if you know him, murphies law, lol) but the motor was the wrong size so he took it back and they didn't have the right size (do they ever?) so they gave him an attachment called a bushing with a keeper to make it work, well once on the roof he lost the keeper, it flipped out of his hands and hit the roof and then flipped into the neghbors yard, (of course). I went over to her JUNGLE and searched and searched but could not find it. He had and idea but he could not find his drill bits, he finally gave up and decided to wait for the expert to come back to town. Oh and while he was trying to fix it, I decide to put my feet in the pool and cool off the dogs, first I sat Rusty on the pool step and put water on his head and back and he loved it, next I did the same with Katrina, then I grabbed Sammie and started to put water on her back and he leaped out and started swimming across the pool, I figured she would just climb up the steps as she was headed right to the steps but then she turned and tried to get up in the corner, I kept calling her to the steps but she wouldn't go that direction, she tried again to get up in the corner and then slipped and went completely under so I dove in with all my clothes on and rescued her. What a day! Good thing Jazmine went to camp or she would be sleeping on our couch.

James' family Bday and spending the night

I sure enjoy my silly grandsons. James had his cousin Dylan over, they are too cute. After the party we put them to bed and they keep trading toys to sleep with, then they came upstairs and told me that they are missing something, their fan! I had brought it out to cool the kitchen. Andrew told me, "nana you know we need the noise" Like Father like son, lol. It's 10:30 now and they are still talking and carrying on the cutest conversations about their toys and they talk non stop about the submarine and taking a bath with it in the morning, lol. The picture of Andrew, "nana where is my fork" then "ok now I have a fork I can smile"

Kitchen Cabinets

Ok, well we picked out the Natural wicker, has a beige hint, I painted the first 4 cabinets, I can't lift my arms, taking all the hardware off, the staining the oak around the doors once they are all off, sanding, painting 2 coats letting it dry in between, then putting all the hardware back on and hanging, ugh! Took me 4 hours, now it's too hot so I'll shoot for 4 or 5 per day, we'll see how it goes. I painted the white baseboards the same color and I really like it. I may end of having to change my lazy daze color paint with a touch of peach on my kitchen walls? We'll see when I'm all done with the cabinets. I really like it and the oak looks good against the wicker color that has a touch of beige. The flash left a glare, looks better in person. The picture is before I painted the baseboards, now I'm wiped out.

Well that was fun!

I loved the movie! It had a lot of comedy too. We got there about 3 1/2 hours early and we lucked out as we walked into the theater an usher came out of theater 2 and said come in here we don't have that many people yet and we got the front row of the upper level, no one in front of us and does not hurt your neck looking up. It was warm sitting out there but I enjoyed my first midnight showing and I slept in till 10:00 the next morning, whoo! It's 11:00 and Jaz is still asleep, we got to bed around 3:30 am so that ok.

James and Andrew you are too cute

In the church program today, James's name was in the happy birthday section, he was totally excited had to show each of us and he hung on to that program out of sheer joy. Once he sat it down and Andrew sat on it and he said "Stop, don't sit on my birthday" That was the cutest thing, I love you James! And Andrew I love you too, I loved how you hung on to your mommies arm when we were singing "Happy Family" during nursery lesson. Thanks again Carla for subbing, it gets a little crazy with 15 kids under 3.

Color Incompetent

Well now I have to pick out a color for my kitchen cabinets that will go with the stainless steel appliances and the floor, HGTV says for an inexpensive kitchen remodel just to paint the cabinets and add new hardware, the new stainless steel hardware was easy, choosing a color not so much, help???

Almost Finished

I need to buy a tiny narrow brush to get around the dowels where the tape was, then the clear top coat that I will use in the spray can form! That was much harder than I thought it would be and my back is killing me! Ugh, too old. I almost forgot to take the before pic, lol, the color is cranberry, the camera flash makes it look like bright Fire Engine red but it's not that bright, trust me I had the sample.

Summer Projects

Well, I've decided to take some advice from the HGTV Rate My Space comments, After every comment said lose the coffee table I got rid of it and put the smaller matching table in there. I am going to start with something cheap that I can do, paint my kitchen table that is currently white legs and white chair legs and back slats to a beautiful Cranberry color. Going to get rid of the yellow and orange 70's colors, lol. I'll post the final result when I'm done, a nice before and after shot. I am getting so excited to go on our vacation to Arkansas, I am looking forward to going to Silver Dollar City in Branson and seeing the boys on their first Plane flight, James went to Hawaii as an infant but that doesn't count. :)
Going to the Temple on Sat.!!

A Little Bummed

Parenting isn't always easy, just reflecting on a lot of my flaws and there were many. I can admit I made a lot of errors. Even when you know what you should do doesn't mean you always do it, even when you know you are messing up it's hard to change how you approach hard situations. I guess some people are better in some situations than others. I am still learning, I guess it never ends. I guess until you walk in someone shoes you can speculate how you would react but you never know for sure, even when you KNOW how you should react it's not always that easy, I'm beginning to understand that now and regret ever putting down someone when I thought I could do better. Hopefully my kids will be a lot better at parenting than I was, but my shortcomings were not from any lack of trying and I love all of my children sooo much.

The 3rd of July Fireworks Show

WE had a wonderful time at the show, got to see more Holsonbake's and the weather turned out really nice, there was a cool breeze, it was great!!