Bump the TV Star

I finally edited down and uploaded Bump's videos from his 2 TV appearances. The first one was done in Jackson Hole for a show called Great Adventures on the Leisure Channel. The second one was done in Breckenridge, CO for a show called Diamond Adventures (a small cable show in the south).

Kind of fun. I thought I would share.

2011 Sociable

We had a fun and busy week with the Grantsville Sociable. On Thursday was the Children's Sociable and Gabby and the other little Genies did so good! They had to perform their dance on the big stage in the High School auditorium 4 different times throughout the day.

Here they are lined up waiting to go on stage.
These two pictures were taken right before the 4th and last performance. The girls had been really running around and playing hard in the gym while they waited between performances, so their faces were a bit red.
These two girls with Gabby are both in our ward and they are in the same dance class together. They sure had a lot of fun with this.
Saturday night was the actual Old Folks Sociable. There are 2 performances of the program, so Bump had to be there early for the first performance, then he came out and met me, my nieces, Sage and Amber, and Bump's parents for a really good prime rib dinner. After we ate we headed in for the second performance.

The program was all about music through the decades and it began with the 30's and 40's. Bump was singing "I'll Be Seeing You" as performed by Frank Sinatra so he was in the first group of people. I may be a bit biased, but he was so amazing! He was definitely one of the very best of the whole night. He felt really good about his performances (which says a lot). And he looked pretty darn good too!

After the program we headed down to the gym to listen to good music and do a bit of dancing. We had a great night and look forward to next year's sociable.

Ear Candy

The Old Folk's Sociable was a hit last Saturday and my man totally rocked! He even felt good about his performance which says a lot since he is so hard on himself. :) Eat your heart out girls, this guy is taken!

Shower Partial Transformation

So, if you remember in my previous post from February this is how the shower was left after Bump demolished it.

Well we made a few phone calls, got a few quotes and decided to let the pro's do our shower right. It's hard for me to admit that I can't just do everything myself, and I am sure that I could have done this, but it would not have turned out as well.

First, our long-time friend and handy-man extraordinaire, Paul Crowther, came to help us hang new green board. I didn't want to tackle this because of what the outside wall looked like with no studs (see here if you don't remember). When he got here we talked about other options to let more light in from the window (ie. glass wall, or no wall, etc.) and I didn't love anything that he was suggesting. We even talked about putting in a tub instead, but the window placement wouldn't allow it. Then he suggested that we face the shower door the other direction. Why didn't I think of that right away? It was the perfect suggestion and so Paul tore out the old wall and rebuilt a new and improved wall on the other side. When he did that he actually increased the size of the shower another 4 inches, or so - every little bit helps when it comes to showers right?

It also solved the problem we had with the vent in the bathroom. The heat/ac vent was on the floor right when you got out of the shower, so I had a hard time with where to place floor mats and water dripping into the vent, etc. It drove me crazy! It's not easy to move a vent and where do you move it to? Anyway, no more worries about getting out of the shower onto the vent. Hooray! Here is what it looked like when Paul was finished.
Next, our friend, the AP from my mission and our cousin-in-law's brother (all of which are the same person), Scott Bangerter, from Gary Bangerter Plumbing in West Bountiful - came and redid the plumbing for us so it's all up to code and the proper height, etc. No more leaky valve (this is what started the whole process in the first place).
Then yesterday the installer from CMS (Cultured Marble Specialists) in Woods Cross came out to install our cultured marble surround. Things didn't start off too well and I was really glad that Bump stayed home from work with a migraine and neck ache. When the installer tried to remove the drain the bolts were so rusted that they just broke off - dang! I had to leave the kids (I was watching 2 extra) with Bump and quickly run to the plumbing supply store in Tooele to get a new drain. Then Bump had to crawl down in the crawl space to undo the old pipe so the new one could go in. The good news is that the drain is in, but right now we need to re-build the p-trap to fit into the space where he removed the old p-trap. I am sure I am not making sense, but anyway the installer was able to finish his work.

The shower is beautiful! We chose white on white color to keep things clean and hopefully not dated in the future. I hesitate putting these pictures up because things are still not complete. The cultured marble is in and beautiful. I told him not to caulk the front part because we haven't painted it yet (I didn't know what exactly was going to be covered with the marble, so I didn't know where to paint) and they use the non-paintable kind of caulk. So, you can see some gaps on the front - they will be gone. Also, I haven't put the shower handle on or the shower head yet.

You can see where we have started to paint. We painted the top part a nice green/gray that looks really good with our green tile (that I am not about to tear out at this point - too much work). We will be doing the "fake" wainscoting below and painting it all a nice bright white. I think it will look really good when it's all finished.

So, here is the partially finished shower/bathroom.



It's hard to get a good picture when you can't back up any more. It looks so good!

On a side note: here is the Before picture of our vanity area. I am stripping and painting the old vanity to save money, getting new pulls and putting a new top on, new medicine cabinet and, of course, new lights. Hopefully I can get this done sooner rather than later, stay posted!

Twinkles

We had our first chicken die on Friday night (we found her Saturday morning). It was really a bummer because she was one of my favorites. Twinkles, Gabby named her, was an Americana and laid cool green colored "Easter" eggs. Her feathers were beautiful and her face looked like a hawk. She was a very energetic chicken and was always the first to come running when we would call, so when she got sick it was very obvious.

We don't know what happened, it was pretty quick. I let the chickens out in the yard on Friday and she was hardly walking. She would just sit by the water spout and drink and close her eyes. I called and told Bump that she was not looking good and we needed to check her out and see if she had mites or something that could be making her sick.

The next morning Bump told Gabby to go and let the chickens out. I stopped him and said that maybe he should be the one to check them out, just in case. He came back in a few minutes later and said, "good call". Twinkles had indeed died and it would have devastated Gabby to be the one to find her. She still cried a bit and we explained that chickens don't live a long time and sometimes these things happen.

One really cool thing for our kids is that they have a sister who passed away so when one of our animals die we just have to tell the kids that now their sister has a pet in heaven. The tears go away, everyone is happy and it makes them feel closer to her.

So, rest in peace, Twinkles. We won't eat you because we don't know what was wrong with you. :) By the way, I would be a terrible farmers wife! I guess you just can't name your chickens if you are planning on eating them! I will miss those cool green eggs.