Friday, August 23, 2013

blitz room makeover

When my mom was visiting Utah for my dance show at the end of June, I had just recently decided to rearrange our living room. The results were disastrous. Our beige walled living room with beige carpet and greyish-beige couch with orangey colored pillows just looked awful in the new configuration.

I am so sick of beige--it is the go-to color of all Utah interiors, it seems. Sure, we are in a rental, but come on people!

The impetus for this move was the prospect of at some point, some way, getting two large leather chairs that previously lived in my dad's office in Madison. We didn't know how we were going to get them out to Provo, but I was starting to plan for it.

Anyways, when my mom was out, we started dreaming and designing things in our minds. We started looking for color inspiration, and went off to some fabric stores to find fabric inspiration to pull all the colors together that we were thinking of.

Then we went to Pier 1 Imports and decided to just buy it all. Ha. Blitz Room Makeover.

Unfortunately, I am struggling to find any "Before" photos... though I am sure I posted some once upon a time when we moved here.

The "After" photos are better anyways, right?! Our motto was "MORE COLOR!"








Oh, and now that WE OWN THIS PLACE (as of today), there will hopefully be many more upgrades and makeovers to come!

And in case your curiosity is killing you, we did, in fact, get the chairs out to Provo, thanks to some Madison friends. They are big and tan :) We've found some pretty good spots for them, though.

My eye is now turned to the baby room...

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

friends in utah!

Emily and Benedita, my friends from high school, came out to Utah for a visit over the first weekend in August. Luckily the rain had stopped and the weather forecast was looking hot and sunny! I had never been to Bear Lake--The Caribbean of the Rockies, so I thought we would go adventure up there together.

Little did we know it was Raspberry Days. Hooray for raspberries and raspberry milk shakes, but boo for crowded campgrounds.


We were just a little stressed out about finding a place to set up camp. Also, all the closest beaches were flooded and we were told we'd have to go all the way to the north or south end. We chose south since it was closer, and the map said there was camping there. But, of course, that too was full. In desperation to find a campsite, we kept driving around the east side of the lake to the more "primitive" campgrounds.

I guess primitive means perfect! Our own private beach access:


We got in the cold, cold water before the sun went down, and then gorged ourselves on our many snacks, including cheese curds Emily brought from Wisconsin.



Before the sun went down, we built a fire--with the conveniently left logs waiting for us in our fire pit. 


We had prepared a tin-foil dinner mixture and were, yet again, nervous about how exactly to go about cooking them and knowing when they would be done. Taking them out of the fire was the exciting part. I used two sticks, one which was bent perfectly to help the process along, and Benedita held the "dinner rock" nearby for transportation to the table.

Benedita and I were in girl scouts together when we were wee and here you can see we remembered camping rule number one: No sandals by the fire.


Everything was cooked--in fact, some bits were a bit too charred. But we ate something that wasn't sugary snacks!

The next morning, after it got deceivingly cold that night, and we three were crammed in a two person tent, and Emily was forced to be in the middle, we huddled in blankets eating some breakfast until the sun came over the ridge behind us and then we promptly went for another chilling swim. This time the waves weren't so forceful and we could more easily see where to step without hurting our feet.


Eventually, after many many rounds of Bananagrams, we packed our things and headed out towards Park City to ride the Alpine Coaster. We didn't know we had to drive through Wyoming to get there, but that was all the better. 

Back in Provo we had dinner at Black Sheep Cafe, walked around "downtown" Provo, which to Aaron and my surprise, they thought was cute and interesting. We got frozen yogurt, and came back home for some Jungle Speed. *Highlight: Aaron dragging Benedita across the table and floor and Benedita refusing to let go of the totem. They were fighting for nothing--neither of them could get rid of any cards if they won.*

The next day, Sunday, we made waffles for breakfast and then went on a jaunt up Rock Canyon. It was really hot. We only brought one water bottle and we didn't ration too well. Luckily there was a water fountain on the trail. Unluckily it was swarming with bees. Emily the courageous filled it up.




It was so fun to have these ladies out for a visit!