Happy Easter!

We are blurry monsters! Happy Easter, Rar!


I had such a fun Easter this year!  My friend Becca had 2 free snowboarding passes for the last day of the season at Brighton.  To save money, Todd stayed home and let me use the pass.
Becca and I started the day by waking up at 4:30 a.m. and took the tram up to Snowbird to watch the sunrise.  They do it every year for free, and supply hot chocolate and have an Easter service.  It was awesome.
We then came down the valley and ate breakfast at Rich's bagels, meeting some people who were headed up to Brighton as well.
The snowboarding was GREAT.  It reminded me why I used to love it so much.  It was warm and beautiful and challenging and hard and we did jumps and spins and tricks.  Or tried to jump and spin and trick anyway.  I wish Todd were there with me. : )
We ate lunch at Molly's and bumped into the Rich's Bagels crew, who invited us to a "Season's end party" that we decided to check out.  We snowboarded and hiked to a ridge overlooking mountains, clouds, and Heber- it was gorgeous.  And someone brought a Djembe drum.  Did I mention that I wish Todd were there with me?  lol
We didn't stay long and rather than hike back down we sat (me) and laid (Becca) on our boards and used them as sleds to get back to the run.  And boarded back to the car.
Then my parents-in-law supplied me with a subperb Easter feast.  They take good care of me!

And then we showed our families our condo we got as a rental property.  (Pictures to come.  Maybe.)

By the end of the day I was pretty wiped out but happy for having had so much fun.

Happy Easter

And one more for fun:

The Dresser

I found this website that has totally motivated me to start refinishing furniture and redecorating my house:
http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/

I love the stuff she does on there!   Tiff and I refinished an old dresser of hers, and it's now in my bedroom. 

Before:  (I really think it looked cool before, but I wanted the white with black glaze look)


We primed and painted it antique white:


And then painted black-tinted glaze on, then wiped it off.  This left a nice effect in the crooks and crannies of the dresser, making the details pop:



And after more glazing and reattaching the hardware, she's finished and sitting happily in my bedroom!

All things Crafty

This creative monster has emerged from inside me, and I'm loving all these projects I've been working on! I've been painting, crocheting, photographing, and I even refinished a dresser with my sister Tiff. Here are some of the latest things I've been working on.

It all started with wanting to copy the Starry Night by VanGogh- I LOVE that picture! So I bought supplies and surprised Todd with an "art night." He was a good sport and painted a portrait of the cat, lol.

The dining room AKA art studio:





Oops I didn't mean to upload this blurry one. Oh well.


The finales:




The cat checking out her portrait:


After I posted a photo of my Starry Night ripoff my brother-in-law asked me to paint his house for him. It took me a long time because I was worried about giving him a lame painting! But I really liked how it turned out in the end.




While in Portland Becca Eike and I did some art projects:



We glued maps onto canvas, and then painted on the maps:



On top is our attempts at painting birds. Eike's lovely masterpiece is in the middle, and mine is on the bottom. Somehow I managed to paint flying dolphins instead of birds ha ha!



I also did an owl in a tree.



Here is one of many beanies I've crocheted. I make a lot of stuff to use with photography and to give away. I considered trying to sell some of them them on etsy.com, but they take so long to make that it'd be really hard for me to let them go to strangers. So I'll just use them as gifts. :)



Here's to all things crafty!  It's soooo nice not to have homework to do every evening.  I can't get enough of the freedom of not being a student any more!!! :)

Vernal

Last weekend I visited my sister who had a beautiful baby girl!  Her name is Coraline Isolee.  Cora has been one of my favorite girl names for a long time and I'm glad it's in my family :)  Isolee was made up by her daddy.  Here are a few photos.  To see more click here: http://brittasphotography.blogspot.com/2011/04/cora.html

More of Moab

Two weekends ago we went to Moab with some of Todd's coworkers.  We rode slickrock, which was hard but so fun, we camped under amazing stars which were beautiful, and we lost a fight against a sand storm, which sucked!  The sand storm was pretty crazy- you could hardly see anything because the sand clouds were so thick!  And then it started raining, so the red dirt stuck to everything.  And I mean everything!!  It's still in my purse and all our camping equipment, all over inside Todd's car, and who knows where else.
It was a great trip, totally worth redoing, minus the sand.



Some of Todd's coworkers: (One of them only has one arm! He's better than I am at mountain-biking, It's pretty dang cool! He's not in the photo)



Me near the end of the ride muscling up hill:



And walking because I couldn't do it! Ha ha



Our great campsite view:



We also found a live band to listen to with free entertainment. The people dancing were pretty fun to watch, lol! Here's a video of one such person: