Saturday, March 30, 2013

Making of the Sunflower chair

I think its funny how I name all of the chairs that I paint. I recently painted the Sunflower chair for a friend of mine. I started the chair before my most recent car accident so it took longer then I had anticipated.
The start. I like to start my chairs with the seat..then everything evolves around how the seat turns out.

I used the tip of a pencil eraser to do the center of the flower.

Almost done!

I love doing stripes in different shades of the same color.

The finishing touches are finally done, the chair is sealed up and its all done!
Stay tuned for my next chair...it has already been named The Jungle chair. ;-)

Mom's peach cobbler

  When I was younger, my mom would make this peach cobbler on special occasions. It is one of my all time favorite desserts.

It was my turn to make the treat for Family Home Evening last week and it took me a while to find my special cookbook with THE recipe in it.

I decided to blog it so that I never have to stress over finding the recipe.

Melt one stick of butter in a 9x13 pan.

Mix 2 c. flour, 1 1/2c. sugar, 1 TBS baking powder, and 1 1/2 c. milk together. Then pour it right over the butter. Don't mix it in. Just pour it on and leave it alone.
Pour one quart of peaches right on top of the batter. Juice and all! Don't mix it in, just leave it be.

Cook at 350* for about an hour or until the top is crusty brown.

Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream. Either is very good!


Bye bye green!!

For the past 8 years we have had two toned green walls.  For 7 of those years I loved them. But this last year I have really had a desire to change them. Finally, the perfect opportunity arose to paint them.

James had a court of honor coming up for scouts. And when it became known that he was only 2 merit badges away from earning his Star rank we took action! Especially since he was already mostly done with two of his required merit badges. For one of those merit badges we needed to do a family project. Bingo! The project of painting the living room began!












 We pulled a ton of books out of bookshelves...














Cleaned and washed the walls....Ben and Mark really enjoyed this part. I'm sure it was tears of joy that they were sharing!

Then we painted! And painted...and painted...and painted.. and three coats later we finally finshed!!















Of course, the final product I forgot to take a picture.

James did a great job organizing the project. He received his Star just like he wanted. Congrats James!











Now if we can get the project of new flooring going!!!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Pearl Harbor Veterans

This semester, one of the classes that Luke is taking at the commonwealth is Hero Project. It is a class that teaches about World War II.  One of the assignments that he had was to interview a veteran from WWII.  I knew that my grandpa was a veteran (he passed away in 2007), but other then that I didn't know any.
From left to right: Linda our host, Garth Sawyers (WWII vet), John Spirey (Vietnam Vet and Linda's husband), Lee Waren (WWII vet), Wardell Jenkins (WWII vet).



Wardel Jenkins shot down a plane with his rifle! He also told an amazing story of the Fijian people and finding Christianity while he was there. Plus he has had 32 holes in one on the gold course!!

Quiet Garth.

Then, one day at the glorious Deseret Industries, I noticed a mini van with the bumper sticker on it that read "Pearl Harbor Survivor." Luke wasn't with me, so I prayed for forgiveness (since it was Luke's project not mine and he clearly wanted to do it)  as we placed a note on the van reading that we were in search of WWII vets to interview for a school project. And thank goodness she called Luke!! She turned out to be a gem! --this helped Luke not be upset at me as well.

After Pearl Harbor, the soldiers were only allowed one telegram that said that they were ok. No other information was allowed to be given.
It turned out that Linda was the organizer for the Pearl Harbor Survivor reunions. She said that there were only 5 left in Utah and that 3 of them were currently in the area for the winter. She arranged everything. She had all three of them come, brought all of her photographs, provided lunch, and was the most gracious host for more then 3 hours as Luke learned from these great men.

I then taught Luke how to use the movie making program and he whittled the 3 hours into 15 minutes. He talks about making more of the stories into viedos as well. There were some amazing stories. They all survived Pearl Harbor and then they all survived  the Bougainville campaign

 It was an amazing addition to my education as I am only familiar with the bullet points of WWII. --especially the Pacific battles.

Here is the video that Luke made.  I can't wait to see what we learn next!



My only regret is that I didn't get a picture with Luke and these amazing men. Hopefully we will see them again!