Welcome Home Surpsrises!

Brandon knows that I love surprises so when I got home from my trip to California he had lots of surprises waiting for me :) Not only did he have the entire house cleaned spotless...he also bought me this...

A brand new desk for my craft room!

(This is a close up of the desk top & legs)

(super inexpensive decor idea...paint on rocks! I'm still looking for the perfect large egg shaped rock to go in the back :)

AND...My most favorite flowers (the flowers that we chose for our wedding).

AND...A wonderful futon couch for the craft room (we're still hunting for the perfect pillows).

Here is the very first craft I started working on my new desk...Can you guess who it is?

It's a pointillism picture of Christ.

Yep! just a bunch of little dots. It's my final project for one of my classes. I'm really nervous to do his face...that's why I've done pretty much everything but that!

What do you think? Do I have the best husband or what?!

My Trip to California: Part 2

Carpinteria!

Every summer my family goes camping at Carpinteria and it is my most favorite trip of the year! Although I am still in school, I decided to take a week off and spend my time relaxing on the beach with my family. Here are some of the things we did...

Sunday was Uncle Mikes birthday so we had dinner and celebrated with him at Aunt Lynn's beach house.

Beach fun!

On our way to Solvang!

Dinner at Giovanni's Pizza...then dessert at Foster's Freeze, a Carp tradition!

Getting ready for s'more fun!

Scott's six marshmallow s'more

A big thanks to all of our fun visitors throughout the week: Mike & Lynn Schuffert, Kori Hale & Fiance, Donald Riddle & kids, Tami Hill & kids, Brad & Mandy Larkins Family, Auntie Ri & kids, Dre & Adam, Jaymi Chang, Tera Williams & kids, and the Arizona team!

Red Rock Swimming Hole

Donald Riddle took us to this awesome swimming hole aboud 30 mins from camp. We had so much fun hiking in, swimming around, and jumping off the rocks!

You can barely see C.j. ...he jumped off this one and he's about half way down the rock in this pic!

My trip to California: Part 1

My trip has been SO much fun and it's only been one day! My parents picked me up last night from LAX and took me straight to my favorite restaurant...Don Cuco. I got my usual meal and then we headed home to spend some time with my siblings. They are all growing up so fast!

Today I spent more time with my family, did some homework, and packed up for Carpinteria. This afternoon, my little brother took me off roading in his sweeeet truck equipped with a custom sound system, freight train air horns, and a siren. We had so much together, it's not often that I get to spend one on one time with my brother.

Later that evening I was able to have dinner and spend some time with the Williams. I loved being able to relax and spend time with everyone and especially see my sweet baby niece Abbey (practically for the first time). She has gotten so big since the last time I saw her. Hopefully they will be able to make a trip up to Carpinteria so I can see her again before I head back to UT.

After dinner I went home to finish up my homework, spend some time with my cousin Jaymi, and help my sister babysit our cute friend Ethan.

After a long and eventful day, I am more than ready for an even longer nights sleep :)

p.s. to my wonderful husband: I miss you so much and I wish you could be here! I love you and hope you are having so much fun with the boys...try not to have too much fun without me! I love you!

Weekend Project!

Brandon is the best husband ever! I always tell him how much I love doing crafts and different fun projects but it's just such a pain to dig through a bunch of cardboard boxes in the back of our closet. So he decided that we should turn our spare room into a craft room. I was so thrilled to get started on this project! We cleaned everything out of the room, reorganized the closets, did a few creative crafts and redecorated.

What do you think of the end result?

My wonderfully organized craft shelf...I made the damask paper holder :)

Some water colors I painted and hung with black ribbon...

This used to be an ugly blue cork board but a little ribbon and a few pictures spruced it right up!

Some of my shoes that still don't fit on my shoe rack...

Brandon's Corner ;)

The End

---------Sprout Update---------

My Dad

Happy Father's Day Dad!!

Things that remind me of you Dad: building block castles, hard work, always giving 110%, M-Field, political chat rooms, random phrases being shouted about the house, blue oatmeal, role model, pink lemonade, broadening my horizons through classical & rock music, amazing support system, sitting in Burger King for hours just talking, Webers, Hollyweird, late night trips to Vons, steak outs (namely that peeping Tom we called the cops on), fun adventures in the valley, Don Cuco, making me do things I didn't want to do that ended up being very helpful, always knowing which of my friends were real friends, net nanny & TV guardian, work boots, playing name that song/artist for a quarter, hotel pools, Vegas fight scene, supercross, monster truck shows, sports games, concerts, inspiration, gas, church, yummy BBQ, falling asleep in the middle of the bed waiting for you to come home from work (I don't remember that but I've seen pictures), your awesome Halloween costumes, great movie recommendations, painting your toe nails rainbow colored when you were drugged up after tearing the ligaments in your leg, camping, hiking, shooting, and tons tons more fun!

Thank you so much for all that you do Dad! I love you and can't wait to see you on Friday!!

Love,

Renee

Success!

Last Saturday Brandon and I decided to plant a little garden on our front porch. I was really worried that it would be too late in the year to plant seeds but we did it anyway.

The packet said the flowers would sprout in 7 days...well needless to say, on the seventh day this is what we found...

Little sprouts!!!

A Mother's Sacrifice

Please help if you can!

Chloe, Safiya & Carol Decker

Carol's Story
Carol Decker is a young mother of two beautiful girls, Chloe and Safiya. Last year, Carol was rushed to the hospital for an emergency c-section for Safiya. Due to complications during her delivery she lost her arm, both legs, and her eye sight. Her miraculous progress has left Carol and her husband with high hopes. There is a 3 day silent auction held for the Decker family from June 14th-June 16th to help pay for Carol's medical bills. All of the items in the auction have been donated and 100% of the profits from the auction will go to the Decker family. For more information about Carol and the silent auction, please visit her blog.