Sunday, July 26, 2009

Camping and Jewelry-making

Jeff and I went camping up in the Uintahs for almost a week. It's nice to get away (from work and civilization), but I was ready to come home after a few days. I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I probably could have because the night we got up there, I came down with a cold, so I was sick all week. I still have a little bit of a cold, but I'm getting over it. We spent Friday evening (July 17) shopping for the things we needed, then we were packing all Saturday morning and afternoon and didn't get out of the valley till maybe 7:00-ish or a little after. We didn't get up there until 10:30. I am not doing that again. If we don't start packing until the day we leave, I don't want to leave until at least the next day. We also didn't sleep well that night because we have a cot with an air mattress on top and it wasn't holding air. We would fill it up, get what sleep we could before it ran out of air and we'd have to fill it up with air again in the middle of the night. We had to drive a couple or so hours to Vernal (the closest city with a Wal-Mart) to buy a new air mattress, so we would have better sleep the next night. I didn't take any pictures up there (like I did last year), so I don't have any pictures to post from the trip.

I do have pictures of some jewelry I made for myself while we were up there. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law started making jewelry (necklaces and bracelets) a few months ago and have been selling some. A day or two before the end of our trip, I decided I wanted to make a couple bracelets. It was really fun and I thought it would be fun to start making some to sell. I'm not sure when I'll start making some because I'm slowly getting the stuff I'll need to make them. If anyone is interested in necklaces and/or bracelets (for themselves or as gifts), I'll be trying out this small little business on the side. :-) They won't be too expensive (like other jewelry), so it'll be quite affordable. My mother-in-law has so many colors, shapes, and sizes of beads it was hard to choose what I wanted for my bracelets. I also decided to make myself a necklace so I could learn how to make those. Here are the pictures of my bracelets and necklace I made ....





The third bracelet down, my mother-in-law liked so much that she made the exact same one to sell. :-)

Once I get things up and running (hopefully in a few months), I'll have to do some advertising somehow. :-) If anyone has any tips or ideas on how to do that, let me know!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Jason's mission call (Jeff's younger brother)

This is a picture of Jason, Jeff's brother (picture taken on our cruise this past January) ....


On Wednesday, he received his mission call and all the family (plus a couple cousins and a friend) was able to see him open it and read it. He was called to serve in the Argentina Mendoza Mission (Spanish-speaking) and will report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo on November 4. It was exciting to find out where he would be going. He'll be an awesome missionary!!!