We've got PAINT!

Since we finally got the outside of the house painted we thought we would show you the "Before" and "After" shots.

If you will notice the in "Before" shot (the first image) there is some brick work to the immediate left of the tree. That is a flower bed. You can still see that flower bed in the "After" shot. It is at the very right of the picture. There is a brown door that separates two flower beds in the "Before" shot. Everything from the corner of that door to the garage is now filled in with what you see in the "After" shot. It is only 510 sqft but is sure makes the house look different. The new roof as you can see makes the house look monstrous in comparison.

Lynette wanted to paint the house with earthy toned colors so the main body of the house is a tanish color. Not sure if you can really tell from the "After" shot but the trim is an olivey color. Lynette wanted to try to match the color of some of the brick on the front of the house. I think she did a great job of picking out the colors.

We have spent the last few nights in putting up the casing around the doors inside and boy does that make a huge difference. We are going to start on the baseboard this week and then we hope to have carpet in before all the family comes for Joshalyn's baptism. That way there is someplace for everyone to stay.

Also I wanted to show you a close up of the front door. We spent some time Saturday doing little things like what you see here. Lynette was so excited when we got it done. She said, "It's starting to feel like our house again." Anyhow, I think it looks nice the way she wanted to decorate the front door area. It's all the same stuff we had before but hung in different locations and on the new siding.

Twin Falls Temple Open House

We went to the Twin Falls Temple open house on July 11th. We met Lynette's Mom and her niece Trynity there. What a wonderful time. This is the second Temple open house that we have taken our kids to see. We also took them to see the Rexburg Temple. They enjoyed it very much. It was fun to give them a pamphlet of the Open House and show them the pictures as we went through and tell them "We are in this room now". They really liked the baptismal font and the Celestial Room. The carpets in the Celestial Room are hand trimmed Syringa flowers throughout. VERY BEAUTIFUL!!!! Of course we could not take a camera into the temple so we don't have any pictures for you to see but we have lovely images in our heads of the different rooms in the temple. Since we can't share those images that are in our heads nor express in very good terms how we felt as we toured the temple and the grounds we would strongly encourage any of you who have never had an opportunity to go to a temple during the open house before the dedication to do so. You will not be disappointed. For those of you who are not members of our Faith, this will give you a good idea of what the temple means to us and what it is that we do in the Temples of the Lord.

Las Vegas is HOT!!!

We had a wonderful 4th of July and of course as with everything else I am slow to get something new on the blog.

While in Las Vegas we were at Max and Merrillyn's house. I think the kids were in the pool everyday. After I got there we had to talk Lynette into getting in to her swimming suit. Once we did that we figured we needed a family picture.

If you look closely at Shad you will see that he is wearing a yellow life jacket. The funny thing about that is he is wearing it around his bum. One of the cousins told him to wear it like that and we couldn't talk him into using it any other way. It worked really well for him though. He thought he was made to be in the water. Of course so did Hyrum and Joshalyn. They had swimming lessons in June and as you can tell by looking at them they are a couple of fish. Joshalyn cracked me up. I think she thought she was born in a pool.

We had a good 4th. We lit of fireworks but were bummed by the package we bought. The fireworks weren't very good. Well what I mean is that there wasn't a lot of the fun stuff that we wanted to see. It was very "Family Friendly". Although we thought some of the kids were either going to get run over or caught on fire because they kept standing up and running in the street.

John (Lynette's brother) and I went to see a show at the Wynn casino. Spam-A-Lot. That was a funny show. I enjoyed it. It was the only time during the week that I was in a casino. Lynette and the kids did go to the Bellagio which for those of you who may not know it is a water show that dances to music as she calls it. It has become a favorite attraction when we go to Las Vegas. Funny thing about that is that the guy that taught the lesson for Lynette's sunday school class told everyone that he thought we were probably in one of the casinos right then gambling away all our money (or something like that). Hard to do that when you don't go in the casinos. Of course Lynette didn't have time to do any of that because if my memory serves me correctly she finished 26 pages of scrapbooking.

The whole vactation was wonderful and very much needed. When I got there I could see written all over Lynette's face that this vacation was just what the doctor ordered for her. It was good for all of us but I must say that the next time we go to Vegas we have to do it at a cooler time of year. Thank goodness for the pool!!!