Vacation "Out West" circa 1993

For a while now, I've been meaning to scan old pictures to have a back up and have them more accessible with the rest of my digital pictures. Tonight I finally started this project! I scanned pictures of a trip that I took the summer after 5th grade with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle David. Here are some of the highlights!

We started the trip by driving to St. Louis. You'd expect that I would have taken pictures of the arch and other famous St. Louis landmarks, but instead I documented a picture of one of the "best playgrounds I'd ever seen" (according to my writing on the back of the picture). I think it may have been at a truck stop.

From there we made our way to South Dakota. I remember being amazed at the Corn Palace, where they had murals made of corn. Random!

Here are some great pictures from the Badlands:

Uncle David, me, Grandpa

Uncle David, Grandma and Grandpa

Here is Devil's Tower, also in South Dakota.

 And I can still remember watching the prarie dogs play! So cute!

We visited Mt. Rushmore -

And Yellowstone National Park -

A highlight of the trip was playing in the snow in the middle of the summer when it wasn't even cold outside! I think these pictures are all from Glacier National Park.

This was my first time leaving the United States, since we decided to drive into Canada for a bit. I'm probably remembering this story wrong, but as I remember it, the Customs officials had no problem letting my grandparents carry me out of the country without any documentation. However, when it came time to drive back into the US, they wouldn't let us through because they didn't have documentation from my parents saying it was ok! So I tell the story that we were stuck in Canada, but I'm sure it wasn't for very long at all!

From Montana we drove down to Utah and saw the sights around Salt Lake City...

The great Salt Lake -

 The Mormon Cathedral (if that is what it's called, I don't know!)

 And a cool mine.

We visited Dinosaur National Monument where we saw plenty of dinosaur fosssils and good photo ops!

At some point in the trip, we came across the Gardner River and of courses stopped to take pictures.

Finally, here are some miscellaneous pictures that I'm not sure exactly where they were taken, but they are blog-worthy anyway!

Nursery Decorations!

Justin and I started working on our nursery as soon as we found out that we are having a GIRL, but I haven't posted pictures because it's been such a work in progress. Those that know us know we have quite a few projects going at any point in time... and we start them at a faster rate than we finish them!

I decided as soon as I started looking at nursery decor that I wanted one of those big tree wall decals, so that was my first purchase. I also wanted white furniture, partly because I like it, and partly because then we could buy anything and paint it to match! My good friend Lisa offered me her old crib, which happened to be white, so we had a starting point.

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself...

We had been planning to redo the floors in our three downstairs bedrooms for a while, but hadn't gotten around to it. They were all shag carpet, and although we had it professionally cleaned, it was questionable how clean that carpet could actually get. I like hard floors where if they are dirty, you can tell it, but at least you know they are really clean. They look better in this picture than they did in real life:

It was quite a project, but we ripped up the carpet in our bedroom, the guest bedroom and the office (that would become the nursery) and replaced it with hardwood, which I LOVE! My only complaint is the pitter-patter of little dog toenails ALL NIGHT LONG! (We still need to put a transition piece between the hallway and the bedrooms, but that will come)

We're also doing work in the Jack and Jill bathroom, but that's a post for another day (when that project is finished!)

Once the floors were installed, we decided on a paint color, painted the room, decided we (ok, I) didn't like the color, picked another one and painted again. I'm really happy with the color now, though, so I'm glad that we took the time to redo it.

Justin and I worked together to hang the pink and white cherry blossom tree decal, which was cumbersome to hang but not difficult. We bought "Penelope" bedding from Pottery Barn outlet, since the pink birds go so well with the tree. Here is a picture of that side of the room -

The blue tape is the (approximate) location of bookshelves that Justin is making, so that will be in a later post!

The next project was a dresser that we will use as a changing table. I wanted something more functional than a plain changing table, with drawers, and something big enough to fill up the wall. We found a used dresser for $50 that was in very good shape. It just needed a couple pieces of molding replaced and a coat (or 3) of white paint!

Mom and Dad were in town this past weekend and helped with this project and others, which we REALLY enjoyed and appreciated. Mom and I made it our mission to pick out curtains and we bought and returned quite a few sets on Saturday and Sunday but eventually settled on these soft pink, pleated ones. Dad also helped us to hang the chandelier properly. This is the light fixture that was in the room when we bought the house, but we replaced it because it's really not right for an office. Luckily, Justin stuck it in the attic so we hung it back up!

We still want to hang artwork about the changing table and I'd love to find a cute rug, but at least the big stuff is done!