Caves and kids

We have had a lot of fun this last week. Regan, Aaron and my mom came for a visit. As I put all the pictures on the computer I realized we didn't have many pictures, and I only had a few of our guests :o( Well here is some of what we did. The family and my mom went out in search of a ghost town. On the way up a back road we saw this and stopped the car. It was crazy. Just off the side of the road so close that you could just fit your car by it with out falling in.

Matt really wanted to go in. I was not so happy about that! He looked around a bit but we had no flash light so he stayed out, and i was so glad about that. After we started to drive away I found Matt's head lamp in the van. Thankfully the kids asked him not to go in there!
Here is Matt and Levi near the old town site of Ward. This is what we came to see, but when we got here we found a sign that said most of the town was moved 100 years ago and then there was a fire. We did see some building foundations and some other things. It was really neat even if there wasn't much there.

Levi and Owen

When Regan and Aaron were here we went to Lehman Caves. It was SO AWESOME!!! This is the original opening to the caves. This is how visitors use to get in.

While we were at the park the kids became Jr Rangers.

Here are some pictures of the caves. It was really amazing. There are some names written on the walls from the 1800's.

Thanks to Regan for taking a family picture!

Here is one of the only pictures of Regan and Aaron on our camera. I need to be better.

I was worried with how the kids would do. The tour was an hour long, but they did amazing. Levi stayed out with Grandma so she wouldn't be alone :o)

Here is Noah and Levi all ready for Church. He is growing up so fast and the kids love him to bits.

We also went to cave lake and garnet hill. We found some good garnets this time. I will have to ask Regan and my mom if they have any pictures and I can post more later!

UGLY BATHROOM

We have a bathroom in our basement. It is a blessing because it is right by the playroom, and if you have kids you know that when they have to go they have to go RIGHT NOW! But there was a problem, the bathroom was on the, shall we say, scary side! The kids hated to go in there( to be honest, I would not go in there either) This room was on the top of our list to fix up. Here is a before pic. Matt didn't like that he happened to be in the mirror so I smiley faced him :o)

Here is another before pic. It really is sad that it doesn't capture all the creepiness. But it was creepy!

Here is our after! We took down the cabinet that was above the sink and glued a mirror to the wall (they left behind this mirror). Then we built a frame out of 1x4 and 1x6 boards. We painted the cabinet and changed that door and drawer pulls. Painted the walls and put down new flooring, and decorated a bit. Before

After

We are so happy to be done, and just in time for our guests to use this Monday ;o) Makes me want to get my bathroom done now! I am happy to report that the kids use this bathroom now and are pretty happy about it. They even flush now, something that they would never do before because they just wanted to get out of there :o)Here is Matt working hard. Because it is a bathroom and in the basement we couldn't put down wood :o( We found this product and it is amazing. It looks nice and is waterproof. It was good practice since we want to put wood upstairs. It took us 4 hours to get it down. We thought that it would be easy because it was so small, but it was tricky because we had to make so many cuts but it was well worth it! Soon I will have to post some pictures of the kids!

Mirror Magic

I posted about this mirror before, but had to re-post after the work Matt did. We both liked the mirror frame but thought that it was a bit plain. (I don't know if Matt really did think that or if he was tired of me asking "Do you think the frame is to plain?" We had some base board that was left behind and I asked Matt if he would build me a frame to go inside the other frame he built. he wasn't really sure about it but went along with me. Here is the before.....

Here is the after!!! Much better. Matt did an amazing job and the frame fit perfectly.

Here is a close up. I am pretty happy with my $8.00 mirror. So I would like to thank my husband for always being willing to help me, even if he has NO idea what it is I want. He is the BEST :o)

Our New Life :o)

Matt is done, and life begins. Not that we weren't living before, but life after school is so amazing. I feel like I have my Matthew back, he's been gone for 7 or so years. We laugh now looking back at our time in Rexburg when he worked nights and was gone all day at school and had all our little kids. We see now how the Lord really blessed us, because now looking back I don't know how we made it, but at the time we were having so much fun! I think about Matt applying for Pharmacy school, wondering if he would get in and if not what would we do next. I should have known it would work out, Matt got in to all three schools he applied to. The dean of one of the schools even called him and told him he was accepted. That first year of pharmacy school :o( what a hard year, hoping we could make it to the end. Not long after the end of that school year my Dad passed away. We are so sad that he wasn't able to be there for Matthew's graduation. He and Matt were such good friends. Anyway before I start to cry here are some pictures of the past few months. I will post more in a few days :o)


Here is our family at Matt's Grad...

This is what most of the pictures of our family turned out like. It is hard to get 7 people to look forward at the same time! Matt and his parents. We were so glad that they were able to make it.Great friends! Ya, we know, we are really short.

Kinda hard to see, but here is Matt being hooded.

Grandma Walker and Levi

Matt is loving his job. It is much better than he thought that it would be. There is a lot of responsibility he is the Director of Pharmacy at the hospital. He is starting new programs and checking charts, billing, ordering, you name it he does it. He is on call 24/7, but having a husband who loves his job is so worth it. Here is some things that we have been doing on the weekends...

Here we are at the charcoal ovens

This is cave lake, and anyone who says that Nevada is ugly has never been here!

We got to ride the train here. It was so much fun.

Levi thought that it was neat

We also got robbed :o) They put on a big show, it was really neat.

We are in the middle of a ton of mountains

Here is the mine, just out side of town

Owen is 4. Crazy how fast he has grown up. I will post more pictures later.

Here is our snowman and his puppy. People drove by and took pictures, it was really funny.
Playing in the water. Do you see that white lump??? That is the snowman. We sure have crazy weather. Snow one day, HOT the next. And I thought that Idaho's weather was crazy :o)

Feeding the birds

Now here are some before and after pictures of our house. We have been working and working, but loving every minute of it. Our back yard was in BAD shape. This grass was a garden, we wanted a fire pit. Here is the before...(Noah took this picture for me, he really likes to zoom in ;o)
Here is the after. It was lots of work but so worth it. Soon the fence and those benches will not be blue.
This one is for my Mom :o)

Here is a before of our main bathroom. We took down the wall paper, painted the trim and walls and the cabinet.Here is the after. We are going to change the lights and put a frame on the mirror. Soon...

Here is our hallway. The trim in the house was so dark. I only have a bit more to paint, but I had to take a break from painting trim because I was going crazy.

Here is the after. So much better. We are going to change the lights here too.

Here is our fire place before. This is a picture the real estate agent sent us. i forgot to take a before picture of the fireplace.

Here is the after. I really wanted a mirror, and lucky us they left us a few. I told Matt what I wanted and he built the frame and I painted and distressed it. It only cost us $8.00, better than $100!!!
Here is the beam in our basement, Matt stained and painted it.
Here is the after. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but it looks so much better now.

So there you go. There is a lot more i could post, but I am blogged out. I am so thankful for all of our blessings. I am so thankful for Matthew and all his hard work through school. I can't believe we have made it here, and it is so much better than I could have ever imagined!!!