Bear Lake

This past weekend we headed up to Bear Lake. We went with my sister and her family and some friends of ours. It was nice to get away and relax for a bit before Jake went to Pennsylvania to sell. We got a raspberry shake (yum!), went boating a little bit until the boat broke down, and played on the beach. Tean even went into the water all by himself! Tean loved being able to be outside all the time. He loved going in the boat, too. It was so relaxing for him that he even fell asleep! Jake and Lance thought it was funny pulling Tean's shorts all the way up, Steve Urkle style. Tean still looked cute, no matter what he wears. We had a great time! Thanks Milisa and Lance for letting us come up!

Refinishing a dresser

I have a dresser that I got from D.I. when I first moved to Pocatello. When I first got it I planned on painting it, but I never got around to it. I finally did it. I sanded down the dresser, just enough to get it roughed up a bit. Then I painted the dresser and the drawers. I was going to buy new handles for the dresser, but they were a lot of money. Then I was talking to Jake and him or me (not sure which) came up with the great idea of spray painting them. So I bought a can of spray paint (a ton cheaper than new handles), spray painted them, and now they look as good as new. I love the dresser now. This will go in the room that we will eventually put Tean in. I am slowly redecorating the room, and this piece is a great addition.

Birthday

Sunday was Jake's Mom's Birthday, so we invited them and Jake's brother's family over for dinner. We had a great time spending time together. And Tean and Ben loved the cake!

Camping at Ririe Lake

This past weekend, we went with Jake's family to Ririe Lake. We got there Friday night and set up camp. While we were eating dinner, it started sprinkling, but didn't start downpouring until we had put Tean to sleep. It got pretty cold, and all I brought for Tean was a sweatshirt. He was shivering while eating dinner, so I went looking for something to put on him, but all I found was a shirt that I had brought. It was huge on him, but he stopped shivering. After dinner, we went down to the lake and fished a little bit from the dock. We didn't have any luck catching anything.

We got to the campsite and there were no sites available, but the guy in charge was really nice and let us camp on this grassy area that was by the bathrooms. Well, there was a light there that was on ALL night and shined into our tent, so our tent didn't get very dark. I was worried that Tean might not go to sleep, but he only cried for about 5 minutes or so and then quieted down and jabbered for a little bit and then went to sleep. In the middle of the night he woke up and was starting to cry and whine a bit and I looked over at him and saw him standing up in his pack and play so I got him out, thinking it was around 6 or 7 in the morning. He was wide awake and was walking around our tent. I finally looked at my phone and saw that it was 3 AM! He walked around our tent, poked us in the eye saying "eye," looked at the dog, and would lay down every once in a while for a few minutes and then get back up and walk around. Finally about 5:30 I got him to lay still long enough to go to sleep for a couple of more hours. He still woke up earlier than he normally does. No one was very happy with him waking up in the middle of the night, and Jake's mom heard him saying "eye" and was wondering why I was quizzing Tean on his body parts in the middle of the night. Before we had breakfast, we went out in the boat and went fishing. Again we didn't have any luck. Getu did get a bite, but the fish got away.
Jake cooked everyone an awesome breakfast of pancakes and eggs!

After breakfast and packing up the camp, we went out in the boat. Jake and Mezi rode on the tube. Jake decided to try water skiing. On about the second time trying to get up, the rope broke on him. The boat started having problems (surprise, surprise!) around that time, so we loaded up the boat and headed home. We had a great time, even though it rained on us and Tean didn't let us sleep much!

Happy Birthday Jake!

Today is Jake's Birthday! He turned 27. We had a pretty relaxing day. We went out to eat this afternoon at Golden Corral. Being the cheapskates that we are, we went there at 3:45 to get the lunch price, but the dinner food (because they change to their dinner menu at 4:00). After that we went to the Bannock County fair and walked around. There weren't very many people there, so it was kind of nice we didn't have to fight the crowds. Then we came home and just chilled for the rest of the night.

I'm so glad that I married Jake. He works so hard for our family. I'm so glad that he supports me and I am able to stay home and take care of Tean. I'm glad that Jake makes me laugh all the time. He is such a great support to me, especially during these last few weeks. He's the best husband. I love him so much! Happy Birthday, Jake!

How To Make Homemade Laundry Soap

and save yourself a lot of money!

I saw that one of my friends made her own laundry soap and that it was super cheap, so I decided to try. I used the recipe that is shown here. It is really easy and I found most of the ingredients in Walmart (except the washing soda)Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. 20 Mule Team Borax
1 1/2 c. Washing Soda
Bar Soap
*note washing soda is NOT baking soda. I couldn't find washing soda in walmart. I wasn't sure where to get it, but looked online and found that you can buy it at your local swimming pool supply store. I got mine at Brady's here in Pocatello. It is also known as Soda Ash. When I asked about it, the guy at the store asked me what it was for and I told him I was going to make laundry soap, and he thought I was a little crazy. All they had is a 50 lb bag of it, which is a lot when all I needed was 1 1/2 cups, so if anyone in Pocatello wants to try to make it and doesn't want to buy 50 pounds of it, I can sell them some of it. With the bar soap, I used Zote. It is a bar laundry soap that is cheap, I got it for 97 cents. Another popular soap to use is Fels-Naptha bar soap. You can use any kind of bar soap you want. That is what your clothes will smell like.

1. Grate the soap into 18 c. of water. Heat the water on the stove until the soap is melted.
2. Add the washing soda. Stir until dissolved.

3. Add the borax. Sir until dissolved.
4. In a 5 gallon bucket, add 3 gallons of water. In the video, the recipe says to add 4 gallons and 2 cups, but when I added the 3 gallons (it might have been 3 1/2 gallons) and then the soap mixture, my 5 gallon bucket was pretty full.

5. Stir the mixture and then put a lid on and let set for 24 hours. After 24 hours, it will be a gel like watery mixture. Mix well, and then it is ready to use. Use 1/2 c. for top load washers and 1/4 c. for front load washers. This laundry soap is supposedly comparable to Tide. Tide costs about 20 cents per load. This laundry soap costs about 2.5 cents per load. A HUGE savings. I did one load, and it seemed to work fine. I'll know if it really works great tomorrow when I do all of my laundry.

Playing Outside

Tean loves being outside. He's not big on being in the water, but he sure does love to play with water. And, yes our lawn is full of weeds and mostly dead. We've pretty much neglected our lawn this year, mainly because our sprinkler system broke, but it is now fixed, and we are trying to get a decent looking lawn again.