Happy Halloween!

From "Elder and Sister" Hipp

jj cole fall warehouse sale

Nightstand and Cinnamon Rolls... yum!

I don't know why, but I was really excited about this little nightstand... We found it at the DI for pretty cheap and a little primer, paint and glaze and...
voila... (or however you would spell that)

We thought it would be funny if we put Mose's bed in it and could get him to sleep in there, but he wasn't having it. He would start to get in and then jump back all freaked out. We're not giving up... with a little coaxing I think he could really like it! Please ignore the empty frame on our wall, it's taken us over a year to even get this far with any decorations in our room. Now for a lamp for our nightstand...

I got ambitious this week and made cinnamon rolls for the first time in my life!!! My awesome mom pretty much coached me through it. I called her from the store to see if she had any good recipes and then picked up the items I didn't have while she instructed me on where to find them. Then when I got home and called her so I could write down the recipe, she was in the process of making her own cinnamon rolls! (I think she did it so she could help me while I did it!) I was pretty proud of myself for two reasons... 1. I used real yeast for the first time. 2. I kneaded the dough (not for the first time, but, well... it may have been a first too -I don't remember)

my dough...

Here they are before I put them in.

And taadaa...

They were pretty good, but I'm excited to try it again so I can do it a little different to hopefully perfect them! I'm not much of a cook, I pretty much avoid it unless it has to do with eggs or chopping vegi's. hehe! Poor Nate, I always tell him, 'you knew what I was when you picked me up'. (anyone know what that's from?)

until next time.

A New Table and a New Tree!

We've been wanting something to fill the empty space under our picture in the living room. We thought either a sofa/entrance table, or a nice chair would be nice.

Well... last Monday Nate called me from the DI to ask if I thought he should buy a table he found. While we were on the phone he said there was another woman looking at the table while she was talking to someone on the phone... basically doing the same thing he was. I think that's what really helped him go for it. ;) So the 'before' pictures of the table are on his phone and we don't know how to get it off. But it had a brown top with matching wooden knobs, and the bottom was all black (cute, but not really our style). Saturday we went to every store in Logan to find the right color paint and some cute knobs and here is the finished product!!

It was a little scary to actually spray AQUA paint on it (Nate said he was worried it would look like we live in a Dora the Explorer house). We are really happy with how it turned out though... much thanks to this website www.allthingsthrifty.com for the idea!

We also found a little Honey Locust tree for 75% off, so we planted it in the front yard on Saturday (it's obviously the tiny one in the front of the picture). We have one in the back that we really love.

Oh summer, please never leave!!! We don't want to be stuck inside for 5 months!

The Garden Isle

Nate and I got the chance to go with our good friends, the Wegeners, to Kaua'i!! It was a pretty short trip, but so so fun! We pulled out on Wednesday (August 25) morning at 8:30am to head down to the airport. After about 6-7 hours if travel time, and a four hour time gain, we got to Hawaii early Wednesday evening. That night we grabbed dinner and did a little grocery shopping, not recommended, everything was SO expensive! Then back to the hotel and to bed.

Thursday we went to a place our friends had recommended, Kipu Falls. We had to walk through a field like this:

...to get to a really pretty waterfall. There wasn't really a safe way to take the camera down by the water to get a photo of the waterfall though.

There was a sweet rope swing; here is Andy... mid-swing!
And we all took a couple turns cliff jumping off the side of the waterfall into the pool (for lack of a better word).After Kipu Falls we took a drive to the south-west side of the island to a beach my parents recommended, Barking Sands. There was probably 8-10 miles of beauiful beach with about 6 other groups on the whole thing, it was beautiful!

We all did some body surfing, I was terrible at it... It felt so good to get some much needed sun!

Thursday evening we drove back around the island to the north side where we camped just off the beach, it was an awesome spot! It did rain quite a bit while we were there and there were about 3 roosters that made sure we were all up by about 6:30 am, but we loved it anyway!

Friday morning we hiked part of the Na pali shoreline trail, we had wanted to backpack the whole thing (11 miles each way), but that weekend there just happened to be a goat hunt... so we just hiked what was still open and then up to a beautiful waterfall instead (total was about 8 miles). Didn't even see one goat either...

It was such a pretty view from the trail, after the hike we did a little snorkling on the reef you can see in this picture.

Hanakapia beach is claimed to be very dangerous due to strong currents. We counted 82 supposed deaths accounted for on the sign...

Still pretty though

The falls...

the locals...fishing

Steep trail back

I have no idea why this humongous sign was necessary... maybe it is because of the rain...

Na pali coast. Within seconds the view would change due to the clouds

Waimea Falls. Reminded us of Havasupai.

Thanks Hawaii for including Kauai in your islands -nate