"summery" activities

Lately Matson has been making fun of me because almost everyday I say, "let's do something summery!" Then when we are doing something "summery" is that even a word? he makes some snide comment like, "Look Erica we are doing something SUMMERY!"

anyway...

we have been going on hikes not way intense we are mountaineers kind of hikes every Saturday the past few weeks. It is much more fun and a good mix up to do things outside instead of the gym. We love it and really get a good workout while enjoying nature! We have ran the Y, hiked/jogged Stewart Falls, and hiked (more like rock climbed because we do not take the real pathway) Bridal Veil Falls a couple of times. 

Here are few shots from our hikes that we thought we would share with you. Our friend, T*, has been coming along with us while his wife has been out of town for forever! And last night our brother-in-law, C*, came on a long bike ride all the way up the canyon and a rock climbing adventure.

Matson and T* taking a rest on the Y trail.

Matson thinks it is hilarious to take pictures of people while they are running so he must get one of T* at the end of every hike. Sorry T*, but here is the Y one!

On the Stewart Falls hike, there were many avalanches this year so a lot of trees were crossing the path that we had to climb on or under. There was a coupld spots full of rocks to walk over and lots of snow.

Me with the falls behind me and to the left of the falls you can see all the snow still there.

Matson and T* by the opening of the snow cave. It lead to the stream/river from the falls. People were crazy walking right over it. It could of collapsed!!

T* at the end of our Stewart Falls jog.

We are really enjoying our "summery" activities! I hope you are all too! If you have a hike suggestion for us, then comment! And come along anytime!

Listography

for those of you that know me i mean really know me like spent more than 72 hours with me and not just a high school math period listening to my ramblings kind of know me then you know that i make lists. yes, lists like with bullet points actually more like little boxes as the bullet points so I can check the box off once it is done and random tasks and reminders one after another and after another. i have this serious obsession with making lists. i make them every single day. more like night. every night before i go to bed i make a list of every single thing i need to do the next day. Plus, each week i make a "Week To Do" list (yes every weekly list is titled with that exact title i also kind of have a little obsession with naming every single one of my lists like "Monday To Do", "Do Before Work", or "Finish before Vacation"). Plus, I make lists in my journals, phone, and just random lists for goals, keeping track of expenses, and grocery lists. Plus, i make lists for Matson with random Saturday chores or homework/things he needs to get done for the day (these lists I make for him are not always "Honey Do" lists, but sometimes just to help him stay organized).

Ok right now all of you are either thinking, "what the heck, this chick is crazy pants about lists," or "wow, what a waste of time!"

But let me just tell you there is this huge sensation about checking something off a list, about getting something done, and then feeling totally accomplished! Matson hates it sometimes though because he says once i check one thing off i have something[s] to replace it. he is right there always is something to do, something to get done...which leads me to this list I am going to share with you.

this is not just your average erica obsessed list. this is a fun, relaxing list. a list of things i want to do this summer.

so here you go. enjoy my list, take these things i want to do and you do them too, or even better call me and we can do them together!

Erica's Summer List

• Make homemade root beer (sugar, dry ice, water, extract exact measurements somewhere in the internet world)
•  Run through sprinklers
•  Have a "Change Competition" with friends: for FHE or any night have everyone walk around in the mall or somewhere for an hour to find loose change. Whoever finds the most wins!
• Go to the Creativity Art Studio
• Put a sprinkler under a trampoline I did this as a child and want to do it again!
• Go to Strawberry Days, Orem Days, etc.
• Float down the Provo River on a tube and then go another time and float down on a blow up mattress i saw some teenage girls doing this once and it looked hard and fun
• Go on a nice drive: Nebo Loop, Alpine Loop, Provo Canyon, etc. 
• Put goldfish in the swimming pool I know how horrible of us but my siblings and I do this every summer...it's like scuba diving in your own pool
• Bike around Utah Lake
• Fish on Provo River
• Go Ice Skating
• Pick my own berries and veggies!
• St. George Weekend with friends or something-maybe go see Grease or Little Mermaid at the Tuacahn
• Go Ice Skating
• Have a Girl's Day in SLC & go to the Grand America for Afternoon Tea 
• Play a lot of Laser Tag I need to go more and get a better score than the last time we went it was only 300.
• Go Star Gazing with Matson
• Make beautiful art with sidewalk chalk
• Point of the Moutain Paragliding
• Go on the Heber Valley Railroad (I have never been on it)
• Try Roller Blading
• Go to Molly's Cafe
• Try Roller Blading for the 1st time since I was 8
• Have a Backyard Drive Inn Movie Theatre party with friends
• Make little cardboard boxed cars
• Have fun little popcorn bags
• and use my parent's huge outside screen and projector
• Have many BBQ's
• Have a Game Night Party with friends (Flag football, kickball, steal the flag, etc)
• Go to an actualy drive in movie
• Go to the Provo's Farmers Market
• Go horseback riding
• Sundance Moonlift Ride (once again I think I have done this for the last 4 summers and love it)
• Go to This is the place!
• Make homemade ice cream
• Try a new craft
• Enjoy all of the events that are part of Provo's Freedom Festival
• Go to as many Utah LDS Temples as possible

Well enjoy your summer and my list. 

Nice weather has finally hit my neck of the woods!

Pinterest? explain.

dear smart people of the internet,

maybe i am behind the times but will someone explain to me what this new at least to me site is?
Pinterest.
looks fun-i saw crafts, clothing, recipes.
i just do not understand it.
it is all over the blogs, facebook, etc.
i want to know what it is now.
explanation needed.

it would be much appreciated.
 thanks.

xoxo,
me the "behind the times" girl

clean out.

need a fun summer activity?

find a free afternoon, morning, whatever and

go through your grandma's closet or your mom's, aunt's, great aunt's...whoever.

 In this post I talked about how we went to Grandma's house and cleaned out her house.

We went through a lot of her clothes. Lots of boxes of clothes were titled "1988", "1995 summer clothing", "1992 Clothes to Keep", etc. 

So a lot of trends have been recycled and recycled...so we took some of her clothes that are being recycled today!

Since my Grandma and I are not the same size I really only found swimsuit cover ups.

After washing the clothes, I tried them all and love them!

Here are a few of the fun pieces I found

oh and you are free to make fun of my hilariously horrible mirror pictures 

(some are even phone pics)

Loving this romper (already worn it to the pool this summer twice). The ruffles are so cute and the pockets! It seriously looks like Juicy. Thank you 1992 box.

T-shirt style dress thing. I could see chicks buying this at Forever 21, but Grandma bought this in Mazatlan in the 80's or something? So I thought it was a little ugs and made me look huge.

So I added a thin belt and fun swimsuit cover up.

This one is a little Hippie. But still could be cute with a fun summer hat and sandles!

love this romper! so cute. the belt on it is precious and there is a little pocket on the right leg. The only problem is the short length is a little long. If you can't tell I tried them on for you...

See a little long? So I may shorten them. But otherwise totally love it!

Have fun cleaning out your relatives closets and adding to your wardrobe! You never know what you will find!

luncheon video.

video is such a weird word. like e seriously sounds like how you say the letter "e". instead of like the e in adventure. anyway...here is a link to a video that matson's family made for us and showed at our wedding luncheon! enjoy :)

Wedding Luncheon Video

once again. this video might be boring for you. it is our families just telling silly things about us.

One man's junk is another man's treatsure.

a while ago, our neighbor had some chairs outside on their lawn with a sign next to them that said $1 each. my mother and I just HAD to check these chairs out. In the random quest of being creative we purchased them. there were 4 kitchen table chairs without the table but still you could paint them and find a cool antique table to go with and one family room rocking/cushioned chair with horrible white leather-ish fabric but yet had much potential if you got some new fabric and such to spruce it up. 

then a couple weeks after that we bought some good chair fabric that would match the colors of my family room, from a cheap fabric store sorry do not remember the name of the store we decided to give the rocking/cushioned chair an extreme makeover.

then a week after that my cousin M*, who is quite crafty herself, she actually has a blog where she shares her crafty such things but I think it is private came over to my mom's and helped us pull apart this chair. All the fabric and such things hidden in this chair came off with much dust and who knows what rising in the air of the garage (such things in the chair=money ok maybe only a few cents, food, crumbs, and yuck). 

Next, we put on the new fabric. We all had never done this before so we started just wrapping the fabric onto the chair like a present almost. It was sometimes a challenge but we got pretty far all on our. 

Then we were stuck. We had gotten to the hardest part of the chair which is the top slash back of the chair. Then my Aunt C* who had done this many time before came into town one weekend and she had some time to rescue us and the chair! With her help the chair was finished! 

I wish we had a BEFORE picture of the chair, but here are the AFTER pictures of the chair so just imagine the before pictures...and if you can't do that just OOOHH and AWWW at my amazing chair that is now sitting in our little apartment as an accent chair! 

TAA-DA...the new (yet old) chair! I am still looking for a cute pillow to go on it.

Armrest. I polished the wood but kept it antique looking and we put the little pins (I totally forget what they are called) in for some fun decorative look!)

Different Angle.

  All in all...fun little crafty project. I learned a lot. It is a fun piece and just goes to show you don't need to spend lots of money to add a new piece of furniture to your home.

"One man's junk is another man's treasure."

driving trip

A month or so ago my brother came up with the idea to pop over to San Fran and check out his law school he will be starting in august (which is acutally located in Santa Clara). This idea boomed into a big driving trip to see family and see San Fran for the first time (at least for my siblings and I), which meant each leg of the trip was like 10+ hours of driving which I thought was going to be horrid, but wasn't too bad with all the movies we watched and playing Name That Tune.

this is going to be long. this blog is like my journal. so enjoy or just X out of this tab now before you get bored. haha.

First Stop...California

 We drove through Reno and such for what seemed like forever...we stopped at this sweet kind of ghetto diner in the middle of somewhere?

looking fly...who gets ready for a 12 hour drive when you leave super duper early in the morning?

then finally we made it to Santa Clara where we stayed the night and found out about the death of Osama...crazy news. On Monday we woke up and went to my brother J*'s law school, we checked it out, walked around, and looked for housing around it. It is a nice school and dang jealous that my bro will be living in such nice weather.  (Sadly I took no pictures of my brother's future home).

After Santa Clara we drove to San Fran for the day. It was my siblings and my first time there so we tried to squeeze all the sites into one day.

We drove down LOMBARD street in our Suburban. Let's just say that we probably woke the neighborhood up.

Us in front of Lombard Street.

We drove across the San Francisco Bridge

Everywhere you look, there's a face of somebody that needs you...when you're lost out there and you're all alone. WE LOVE FULL HOUSE!

We went to Fishermens Grotto for Lunch (apparently my dad has fond memories of this place from his childhood. Guarantee that it has not changed since he was a child. I would not recommend it, but then again who am I? I don't even like seafood).

Pops TRULY enjoying his crab at Lunch.

Riding the Trolley in San Fran to China Town

You know you're in China town when you see a bunch of Pokemon decorating the streets.

China Town San Francisco.

 Before leaving San Fran we stopped at Ghiradelli Square and ate some Ghiradelli ice cream.
Then we drove along to get out of the city traffic and stopped for the night in a little town on the border of California and Oregon.

Next Stop...Portland, Oregon

 We drove for a couple hours the next day and stopped in Portland to visit all of my mom's family and my grandparents. We went to dinner at Spaghetti Factory and again excuse my really cute not so cute car look in these pics of my cute cousins and family!

Me, my cute little cousin A* (she wouldn't smile), and my sister!

The Cousins at din din!

Brother J*, Me, Grandpa, Grandma, and A* outside the restaurant before heading on another drive!

After dinner, we said out goodbyes and kept driving on.

Next Stop...Washington

We drove into West Seattle my childhood stomping grounds and got into our house that we rented. We didn't visit family since it was so late. We got out "beauty" sleep so we could be prepared for helping clean out my other Grandparents' house. 

(Excuse my humid, wet, not so good looking hair in Seattle)

we went to Seattle to help my grandma with her problem of keeping too much. Her whole basement is full of treasures (some not so treasures and some are...my sister took home a bunch of new clothes that were in style 20 years ago and are back in style! It was quite fun!)

Straight after getting Matson at the airport and after all the work was done at Grandma's, we showed Matson our old houses then headed for dinner at Alki

Matson's Seattle Tour starting at our fave restaurant, Pegasus! (Now that's a restaurant I would HIGHLY recommend) We then went to Husky's for some ice cream, of course!

Matson LOVED his first night in Seattle and our view from our room. He is obsessed with Skylines.

The next day we started out our day with the Seagulls. (Most of you right now are probably thinking...you went to Seattle to feed seagulls? YES, we did. This whole part of the trip was to show Matson all the things I did and memories I have from my childhood). Our whole family was TOTALLY enjoying it, just like when we were younger. We through one piece of bread with no seagulls around us and then BAM 40 seagulls were by us. We had a blast with them. Seriously probably one of Matson's favorite parts of the day.

This picture was the best. Matson was laughing so hard and way into feeding the birds, as you can tell by his face.

After feeding the birds, we went on a ferry ride over to the piers and Downtown. We say a bunch of seals on our ride (maybe I will post those videos later).

The Guys standing outside of Ye Old Curiosity Shop

I loved the Curiosity Shop because I found my FAVE. Old Fashion TAFFY.

Pikes Place Market waiting for the Fish to be thrown...I loved all the beautiful flowers and arrangements. Then we bought some yummy mini doughnuts.

All of us outside of Pikes Place.

Next we headed to all the shopping and ate some lunch at Nordstrom Cafe, which my sister and I always ate at after my mom dragged us around for what seemed like hours and hours of shopping when we were kids. I had the best memories of the Snickerdoodles there and yep still so good!

A* and Matson at lunch at Nordstrom. I miss this Nordy's. P town's just isn't as great. I guess that's what happens when you are raised going to the flagship store.

One of my favorite pictures of the day. All of them with crossed legs and their phones out sitting in Nordstrom.

We took the Monorail to the Center. We tried to sit in front like we always did as kids but someone took it before us :(

It was raining but we decided to go up the Space Needle anyway

Me on the Space Needle and West Seattle behind me. Matson LOVED the Space Needle! Him and his love for views, skylines, nature, and such. It's good for me, he helps me appreciate them too!

Matson loved all the "Matson" ships and crate/boxes being shipped in to the ports

Pops and Matson by the fountain that we went to all the time as kids. I got impatient waiting for it to explode up so the picture isn't that cool. The best part of this photo is that my dad was trying to tell Matson that you have to touch the fountain to become TRULY apart of our family. He didn't fall for it.

 we ended Friday by walking around the city a little more and then we went to my Aunt's house (my dad's half sister) and we ate dinner with her and her family. I didn't take any pictures but we had a great time there...we talked for HOURS and HOURS. I learned a lot of family history about my dad's dad's family, so my grandpa's family. Sadly we did not know my grandpa very well due to my grandma and grandpa divorcing when my dad was 8 and we never really saw him. Anyway all the funny stories and facts I learned will be for another time. But let's just say...I am not sure if my maiden name is truly my real maiden name...it could all be a lie.

anyway the next day we went to breakfast in Bellvue with my Uncle P* and his family. The cousins all had baseball games that day so we could only spend time together at breakfast at Lil Jon's (HUGE yummy cinnamon rolls). After breakfast we went to the EMP (the music muesuem which I don't think I have ever been to because as kids it was newer and too old for us) then we went to watch our twin cousins softball games.

A* and Cousin B* at Lil Jon's

Me and Cousin L* (all in her cute Mariners Softball uniform)

Matson at EMP

At EMP, my dad and Matson got in a singing booth it was quite hilarious. I will have to post the video sometime.

Everybody at the Girls softball game!

We left the softball game (they won and L* even got the game ball which kinda means she did the best...I mean she did get a home run) to go visit our good friend W*. He was my grandma's business partner and good friend. He is almost like a grandpa to us! Matson was shocked at how smart and good he was for being 90 something. Right when he met Matson he said, "Well aren't you a hunk of meat." Matson loved that comment...anything having to do with his muscles makes him feel good...cocky boy.

Us all at W*'s house

We went to dinner in the Junction in West Seattle called West 5 (I think that's the name) but BEST mac n cheese ever! I'm such a kid...

We ended our night and trip spending an early Mother's Day with Grandma.

Next Stop...Home

All in all, we had a super fun trip. It was good to see everyone and show Matson where I grew up.