My New Family

Last week, the Hendersons hosted an adult dinner at their new cabin. It was such a blast! Mark (my father-in-law) had us all meet down at the dam, to all ride up together in the green machine (shown above). What was even more amazing was that it seated all of us! Mark had carpet installed and it looked awesome. That thing even has a heater! Now I realize why Mark loves grooming trails so much, or "making corduroy". (You can't access the cabin in your car, even with four wheel drive in the winter). We were about 100 yards away from the cabin and the Green Machine gave out, so Tony, Sean, and Trav took turns driving us up on snowmobiles.

Once we all arrived, we ate dinner. It was amazing, as always...especially Jeanene's rolls, which I managed to hit two people in the face with while "passing them" across the table.

It was awesome to have everyone together. We even had Sean and Siri from Arizona up there with us. To be honest, I don't think we all have been together since our wedding. That's what happens when you have a big family with 18 (soon to be 19) grand-children.

Thanks Mark and Jeanene for an awesome meal and ride!

Going for Green.

I fell in love with these Scrapile Benches when I saw them on AT. I finally found where they are sold....at feelmorehuman.com. Too bad the size I needed was over $900! They are made from scraps of wood which are laminated together. SO, realizing that Zach would never let me spend $2,000 on benches, I turned to Chris Barlow. He's amazing. He owns Zoe Dane, a custom furniture business. He told me he could make them easy! He just gathered a bunch of extra scraps from around his shop, and busted them out! So I bought two for either side of our dining table! I LOVE THEM! They are just as I imagined/prayed they would be! I wanted them to be made out of scraps, but larger, thicker pieces of wood. His daughter Zoe (2) apparently was super upset when I came to pick them up, she wanted them to "sleep at her house."

Our sweet sustainable benches....yeah....Zach and I are eco-friendly. Unfortunately, I think with all the glue and lacquer he had to use to get these pieces fused together, I believe we hurt the environment more than we helped. It's the thought that counts, right?



He is also making our low coffee table, which will be this exact shape....



But be made out of walnut....like this.....



Check out his site! ZOE DANE

Bah Humbug.

I am a Humbug, officially. These are our only Christmas decorations this year. I went and bought ornaments, because I had an intention of buying a tree, but I got super distracted being Santa. SO, we finally got our dining table, our two dining chairs, barstools, and couch. So I decided we would use our dining table as a tree. Sort of.




And with the ornaments?
Well they replaced bows this year, and went on the gifts.



Yep. This is as festive as we got this year.

Now all we need is the benches that go on either side of the dining table. MONDAY!
It's crazy, it feels like we have so much more to do, but we'll get there....without a Christmas tree. :(

Heli Christmas Light Tour

Every year, Classic Aviation does Christmas helicopter tours. This year, they didn't do them for the public though. Mark was nice enough to take all his employees and their families on a ride. So, this year Zach and I got to go! Last minute, there was a spot on our ride, and I got to take my little nephew Cam! Cam is full of questions. He asks "Why?" to everything. This 20 minute ride was the first time I have ever heard Cam completely silent. He just stared out the window and looked at all the people skating at the Gallivan Center, Temple Square, and all the cars on the streets. It was hilarious. As soon as we landed and got inside the hangar, he was back to normal. "Where does the helicopter sleep?" "Why does Rob the pilot where a helmet?" This went on for some time. Either way, Zach and I had a blast seeing the lights from the sky, and one little boy got the coolest Christmas present ever. I hope Classic still does this when we have kids!!!

Dear Santa...

Zach and I are pretty low-key Christmas people. We usually just do whatever our families are doing, and switch off between us. Last Christmas Eve was with my fam, so this year we are spending Christmas Eve with the Hendersons. It will be a blast to do that annual tradition of dinner and a movie! I feel really bad that we don't have a Christmas tree this year, I love decorating trees. I feel like I am not a very festive wife, but I know that next year when we have furniture and the walls all painted, then I can go crazy with a tree. I am too busy trying to get all of our furniture here before Christmas.
So in tradition of the holiday, Zach and I "tell Santa" what we want for Christmas. So funny. Here are our Christmas lists:

Zach's Christmas List:

Play Station 3
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Madden '10
XBox Live for 1 year
XBox Live Wifi Plug-In

Katie's Christmas List:

Boots

It seems like fate though, because when Santa sees Zach's list, that is all the Katie is going to get....because Santa can't afford any more for our little family.

I Heart Blu Dot

Our Counter Stools and Dining Chairs.



Oh please, please, please come before Christmas!

Furniture-less

Have you ever been to someone's house, and there is really nowhere to sit? So you stand around awkwardly until you find a barstool or something random to sit and chat? Well that's our house. We were in Paris when our sofa was supposed to arrive, and because of Christmas, shipping is backed up like crazy everywhere. I ordered this sofa/sectional Nov. 2nd. So that is officially a month tomorrow we have been waiting. So. We have been sitting on the floor to watch TV, eat dinner, and have conversations. So if we haven't invited you over to see the casa yet, don't be offended, because you have nowhere to sit. Poor Morg and Britton were our last visitors and they sat/lounged on our living room floor. No worries though, because soon we will have a dining table, dining chairs and benches, barstools, and a sectional to sit on. I just ordered the dining table today, so I guess it will get here.....in two more months. Just kidding, it said 7-10 days. I don't believe it.

Our future sofa:



Our future dining table, but NOT our future dining chairs:
We have a lot of wood in our house. So I decided to do metal and glass. I LOVE this table.



Next week I am going to order some office stuff. I have always dreamed of owning an Eames Office Chair. So, we're gonna do it.

This chair:



I dream of Eames.

With this desk:





I found this picture and thought, THEY READ MY MIND...except a different chair is all. This will be Zach's desk. He loves it. He asks about it all the time. I never thought he would be interested in buying furniture but he is very passionate about a few things.