September Update

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Here are some short snip-its of what we did in September!

Jepsen Reunion
(actually in August and deserving of it's own post)
The reunion this year was in Saugatuck, MI. It was my first time being around the Great Lakes and it was beautiful country.

Some of the brothers went fishing in Lake Michigan and we had many fish fries to celebrate!
The "Full Weight" of all 7 brothers on a cousin's fiance.
Welcome to the family!Walking on the beach. It felt pretty much like being at the ocean.
The annual Jepsen baseball game. Nick and I both played pretty well. I actually had good hits every time - where were those skills in YM softball games?
Shuffleboard at the Goshorn Lake Resort
5-6 hours kayaking = major sunburns!
Picking fresh blueberries. Yum!

Organizing our house
Once we got back home, it was to work on all of the boxes we had been stacking in Grandpa's laundry room since we got married. It was a lot of work, but we're finally organized.

Laundry room before:

Laundry room after:

Craft supplies stuffed in our "closet room":

Craft supplies happily organized in my new sewing room (aka, Grandpa's spare bedroom with no bed since we're using it!)

Our messy living room for weeks while sorting:

Our clean living room:

Mini-golfing w/Jeff & Em
One of my favorite things about not working is being able to spend more time with my friends and family. I hadn't seen Jeff & Emily for WAY too long, so it was really fun to re-connect over mini-golfing and dinner.

Salt Lake Bees Game
Chel and Ady were in town at the same time and we got to hang out at the baseball game.

"Pants" weekend
My friend Nicole and I wanted to make our own "Sisterhood" pants to remind us of each other as we move away and can't hang out as often.
We met in Price and spent a wonderful day eating pizza (of course), watching the Sisterhood movies and decorating our pants with things that remind us of each other. There is a dragonfly for Gilmore Girls, a bejeweled MB symbol for Michael Buble, a vine with flowers where we will put a ladybug for each child born (two right now for Nicole's cute little girls). What else, charms for being school teachers, Nauvoo, a snowflake, a giraffe, and a cow. They aren't officially finished yet (sorry Nicole), but they are super cute so far!

Stewart's Farewell
One of my mom's cousins went overseas for two years. His family had a going-away barbecue for him. It was great to see family that we usually don't see. This is the only picture I took with my camera.

Cleaning out mom's basement

My mom had a week off of work so I went down to help her clean out her basement. We hoped that it would only take us 2 days and we could enjoy the rest of the week. No such luck. It was a very long project, but I am very proud of all we got done. You can actually see the floor in the basement :)

Before and during the sorting:

Treasures we found along the way:

Building storage shelves:

After pictures:

IVs
While I was at mom's Kristen needed to practice putting in IVs. I was brave, and have good veins, and she got one working! Matthew, on the other hand, was not so lucky. His veins were not cooperating and after several attempts in the arm and hand, we had to give up on him.

Tending Dallan

We got to tend Dallan for the day. He has such a fun imagination, and just loves to play with Uncle Nick. They were going lion hunting. Nick was the lion and Dallan was the hunter.

The lion attacking:
Check to see if the lion is really dead:
Oh no! He was just pretending!

Taking out the ivy
This was one of our more difficult fall projects. Grandpa's ivy has been getting very out-of-control and we thought it was time for it to just be gone. People, never plant ivy. Trust me. It might look pretty for a season or two, but those roots are growing deep and thick and spiders are living there. It is not fun to get rid of!

Ta-Da! There really was a chimney under there!

Color Me Mine
I've been wanting to go to Color Me Mine for a long time. The last time I painted pottery was Mrs. Delling's class in 5th grade, and I loved it! So, Nick went with me and we made a date of it. It was hard to choose what to paint, but we finally decided to work together on this serving dish set. We did not intend for the colors we used to match the ones they have on their bags, it just turned out that way. We had a lot of fun, but found that it took longer than we thought. Since we had so many pieces we started to get lazy at the end, so our last two don't look so spectacular.

In other news from September, after applying for and visiting many offices (even driving to CA), we found no jobs or places to spend our year. We are officially taking FR up on their deal to wait out the year and hope they offer us a job again next October. So, here we are in Utah enjoying a year free to do what we want. Nick is volunteering 4 days a week at Utah Legal Services, and I am keeping busy with a long to-do list of projects I've been wanting/needing to do. We're keeping tabs on grandpa, making sure he eats well, his laundry gets done and his bills get paid. It's fun to think of things we can do with him to keep him from getting too bored or depressed. We are loving spending time with each other and doing things together every day! I feel blessed to have this year to be with family and friends and to serve, even though it's difficult to know what will come at the end.