Dove Hunting

At the beginning of the year I bought a hunting license.  I went out with my brother once, but we didnt see anything! 8 months later, I finally went out again, with someone who actually knew a place.  I had 3 opportunities to shoot. The first time, my saftey was on, 2nd was a really good distance and the third time, I hadnt ejected the shell.  I had a complete blast despite not bagging any.  I chalked it up to, never hunting before.  My mechanics were horrible.  Everytime I wanted to shoot, I was so worried about my line of sight, where everyone else was etc.  Im def not use to just being able to swing around and shoot- its so dangerous!  Maybe next year I will do better!

Billy's Baptism

Billy Bronco finally got baptized. I had to give the talk on the Holy Ghost and wasn’t very happy when I walked in to find a completely full room of people! I thought there would only be a few people there.

The best part was when Don Whitmer was talking to him about Baptism and asked him, have you ever done anything bad and his response was, yeah a lot. He talked to him about a chalkboard and how our sins are erased and asked if we wrote all his sins on the chalkboard would there be a lot and he responded, I’d fill up two chalkboards!

The Mega Wedding

It was national news when 5 siblings all got married on the same day! When our boy Will proposed to Emily it started a chain reaction. We really have missed Will these last few months and are looking forward to getting him back once everything gets back to normal.

My favorite part about Will and Emily is how perfect Emily is for Will!

The reception was a lot of fun, I was dying to see how it would turn out. Each bride had her own little section of tables and decorations. At first I thought it would suck to have to share your wedding day, but by the end I wished I had siblings to get married with!

The only downside was how hot it was, granted, if I had had a pony tail holder I would have been unstoppable.

Im so happy for Will and can’t wait to party with them in the future!

Brandon and I try to sneak a pic and Will photo bombs us!

Design Team

It has been so long since all 4 of us have been together---way too long. And not exactly the best picture-evil eyes, we get that from Julia.  Design Team Reunited

Design Team Reunited

Gum Surgery

If you know me, then you know that I hate the dentist! It’s been a while since I have had insurance, so as soon as I was covered I booked an appt to get my teeth cleaned. I was sure I had at least 6 cavities. I knew exactly where it hurt and which teeth needed fixed. When the first thing the doctor told me was, “You don’t have any cavities” I naturally didn’t believe him. Then he told me about how my nerves were exposed and the reason that I was having so much pain when brushing my teeth was because I was brushing the nerve. This is what he told me is called receding gums. Apparently it hereditary and braces don’t help the effects. He then gave me a referral to see a periodontist.

I really hate missing work, so I wanted to do everything in one day. Turns out they must have been slow one week, so they were able to do it in July. The only problem was that it was during the same week my parents were out of town. Thankfully I have great friends, one in particular that did a great job caring for a big baby! Thanks Cinwin. She woke up early to take me. Watched me cry through the whole consultation. Activated my health savings card. Picked up my medications. Bought me yogurt, peas and chapstick. Watched 10 episodes of Friday Night Lights with me. And finally drove me home that night.

Obviously I don’t do well at the dentist, and I absolutely hated the dentist office that was painted completely purple. I cried almost the entire time he was talking to me and at one point I thought he said he was going to use pig skin for my gums. I had to get an IV which I have never had before, I think it was a baby one though and I actually didn’t do as bad as I thought I was going to on that part. But then when the assistant said are you ok, I started crying again. The doctor tried to get my mind off of things, asked me where I worked, which I could say. Then he asked me where I went to school and I could say it. But when he asked what I studied I was crying to hard by then to get it the word Linguistics out. They said I would sleep, but that was a lie, I was awake the whole time.

The medicine that I had to take made me sick for a week and a half. Everyone would ask how my mouth was and it didn’t really hurt surprisingly but I felt like throwing up all day long. I didn’t want to eat because I felt so sick but of course to take the medicine I had to eat- It was a vicious cycle!

Now that I am semi in recovery, I don’t even think anything is different. Thankfully they took pictures so hopefully I will be able to see the difference, cause right now I think it looks like he cut me up for no reason at all! Plus I still haven’t seen my bill and I can’t wait to see how much this torture is going to cost me!

Since I work all the time I hardly get to go to lunch with my friends like I use to do when I was unemployed. Therefore, anytime I have a dentist appt. we try to go to lunch. Even after gum surgery we ended up at Ah-So for Carter, my god brother’s birthday. I use to hate Ah-So and now I love it and it was so good. The downside was coming back to Cindy’s house and feeling like throwing up the whole afternoon, like I almost did 3 times. I had to close my eyes so much!

My favorite part of the day was right before we went to lunch. I wanted more medicine and Cindy said I couldn’t have any so I started crying. She said, “Does your mouth hurt” and I said “no.” Then she said “Are you just emotional” and I cried “yes”. I just thought it was so classic Bree craziness.

What scares me the most is the fact that I feel like I’m going to have to get this done again!

Girls Camp

Girl’s camp was way different this year! Not only was it only 3 days instead of 5 and not on a Sunday, but more than half my normal posse was missing. I thought I would just totally hate it only being 3 days, but I think I kinda loved it! For some reason, I’m guessing mostly cause my friends were gone, but I slept more at camp than I ever have in my life. Besides my friends not being there, it seemed like we never got a break, I didn’t get to check out sports or crafts or learn the dance at all and I taught the same girls for 2 hours straight which I felt bad for them having to sit there and listen to me for so long. But like every year, I had great girls and that always makes it fun. Plus we got to dance a lot and I loved that part. A huge huge snipe/gorilla made camp seem worth it. I knew what was going on in the woods and that it was just Jason in the suit, but I still was a little scared! Jason did an amazing job, acting like a big huge monster! I only wish we could have spray painted his shoes black….next year for sure! Mostly camp consisted of talking about spray tanning and all the different reality shows we watch and of course scarring Cindy which is always a highlight.

Mason Jars

Up next on my project list was a mason jar chandelier. I of course saw it on pinterest and really the only place I could do anything with a light like that would be above my kitchen table. I would say it only took a Saturday but because of the changes I made, it ended up being a week long project. I originally had built it for only 8 jars, but once I started looking at it, I decided to do 12. The pottery barn one has 16 but my table is def not that big.

The hardest part was finding the electrical wire that holds the lights. I wanted wire that had like a cloth over it, but it costs almost 6-8 dollars a foot. So I went to ikea and they had these light fixtures that were only about 3 bucks and came with 15 feet of wire. I spray painted them a walnut brown, but the paint like never dried. It literally was the most frustrating part of the project! I also used the same stain that I used on my table for the 2 by 4s.

Other than finding the right wire, the second hardest thing to do was figuring out how to mount it to my ceiling. It’s not like home depot sells a kit for hanging your homemade chandelier, so after thinking and thinking, I finally came up with an idea. It’s been hanging for about almost a month, so far it has worked and I hope that it continues to, cause it ever falls, it will be a horrible mess for sure!

I daisy chained all the wires together, remembered to cut the power in the kitchen, hooked them up and they actually worked!!! I was so thankful too, cause without some nice wire cutters it took more than a while to strip, twist, and tape over 24 connections! Once it was up, I had the lights in and they were super super bright…apparently 60 watts is too much- so I had to get 40 watts and it’s a whole lot better!

Out of all the projects I’ve done over the last little while, this is def my favorite. I catch myself walking by and thinking, that looks kinda cool. Plus I’ve kinda been using it as a backlight. One of my favorite things about having my Christmas tree up for a whole year was putting the lights on at night, so now I like turning these lights on, for just a little light. The pottery barn light costs 400 dollars and I ended up spending just under 100 bucks. The most expensive part is the keyless light socket, which are about 3 dollars apiece! If anyone wants one, I can build another no problem, just for the price of the parts and a pair of wire cutters.