Fun at the Pool

Yesterday Christy invited us to go swimming with her and her girls in the pool by her house.

Kaitlyn wanted me to get a picture of her jumping in the pool.

Kevin does a lot better in the pool with his floaty swimsuit.

Here's Ethan with his usual ornery face. Although I don't think he was ornery at the moment.

Christy and I. Please ignore my chin and droopy eye.

Here's Christy's youngest, Gigi. She didn't want me to take a picture.

World of Blogging

I have been blogging, but it has been on my other blogs (links to the right). I would put it all on one blog, but I don't want this one to become inundated with posts about my runs. No, I haven't been spending a lot of extra time in the bathroom. I'm talking about getting outside and running. But come to think of it, neither of those are particularly enjoyable. I have a hard time deciding which is worst, almost.

I also read a lot (although I have been slowing down lately), so I blog about my books on a different book blog. Same thing with movies, when I remember.

And lately I've been spending WAY too much time looking at other peoples' blogs. Do you know how much time you can waste doing that? You could spend hours. You could even find that's it's 1:00 in the morning, and you're still on the internet, looking at blogs. And then there are blogs that spotlight other blogs. It's getting a bit ridiculous, if you want to know the truth. Not that those blogs are ridiculous, just the time I'm wasting. What's even worse is that I'm looking at all these blogs and websites about homemaking, getting all these great ideas, but never having any time to do anything because I'm looking at all these blogs and websites about homemaking to get all these great ideas. Do you see my problem?

Anyway, I will share a couple of my recent favorites. We'll start with Organizing Junkie. Then move on to Like a Warm Cup of Coffee. Then mosey on over to At the Well . I'm not even going to tell you about Today's Creative Blog, where you'll find out about a bunch of OTHER blogs. Because I'm not mean, and I don't want to pass on my time-wasting problems to you.

Night in Park City

For our anniversary, Troy and I went and stayed at a bed and breakfast in Park City last Friday night. Mom and Dad were nice enough to watch our kids, so we could have some time to ourselves. We stayed at the Woodside Inn. There were some nice things about it, but we wouldn't stay there again because the bed was hard and uncomfortable. Our bed at home is ten times nicer.

On Friday night we did a lot of walking along historic Main Street. We stopped in a few shops waiting until the restaurants opened for dinner because we were both starving. Finally it was eating time, and we went to The Eating Establishment. We had gotten a coupon at the B&B for a 2 for 1 entree. On the coupon, it also said they would add a 17% gratuity to the bill. Well, the food was good and we were stuffed, but we got our bill and the waiter had added about 30% gratuity. We really didn't want to pay that much, but it feels petty to call the waiter over to tell him we didn't want to give him that big of a tip. If he had made a mistake on the other portion of the bill, it wouldn't have been a big deal. So we didn't say anything.

The rest of the night was spent walking around Main Street, and walking back and forth to our bed and breakfast. There were some really cute houses on the walk. There was one that was purple that I really loved. I don't know if I personally would like a purple house, but this one sure was cute.

On Saturday we went to the outlet mall. We thought we'd spend maybe an hour, and then have time to do something else before we had to pick up the kids. That didn't happen. We ended up spending about four hours there, and shopped right through lunchtime. We both got a new wallet, new watches, and a few clothes. I'm not used to wearing a watch, so it felt a little weird at first, but I found one that was cute enough that it made up for the weirdness.

It was a fun couple of days, and I love spending time with my honey. I wish it would have been longer, only with a softer bed.

Coupla Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from the women's retreat. Nothing too exciting. In the first one I'm in the pinkish red shirt, and in the second one I'm in the green shirt.

Easily fixing up your blog

A couple people have asked me how to do the blog prettifying thingy, so I'm going to explain here exactly what I do. Then you'll all know how easy it is, and no one will think I'm amazing and talented anymore, but that's okay. I will teach you how to fake it like I do.

To make a header, I go to scrapblog. If you already have an account there, go ahead and sign in, if not, click on "get started for free". From there, you can either choose a theme, or just start from scratch. In the past, I've always started with a theme, because then it's all matchy to begin with, and it's easier. This time I started with a theme, but then didn't use a thing from it, so I may as well have started from scratch. So that's where I get my headers. Once you make it, you have to publish it, and then you can save it to your computer by clicking "export as jpeg" under the file tab.

I also usually grab a couple of backgrounds from scrapblog and save them to my computer, because they'll have something that matches my header. My current background, though, I found by doing a search for fabrics that matched the patterns in my header. You can also search through scrapbook paper online and find backgrounds that way.

On the blog template, I believe I used minima. To add your own background, upload whatever background you want to photobucket or the like, then use this code when editing your html:

background:url("Your image URL goes here");
background-attachment: fixed;

That portion will go underneath the part that says
body {
background:$bgcolor;

You will then need to upload a background for your writing portion. You'll add that under the outer-wrapper portion, underneath the width. Copy and paste this:
background:url("http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o205/endoux/trees_Page_41.jpg") repeat left bottom;

You can use the above URL, if you're just looking for plain cream colored background, or upload your own the same way you did the other background.

Then, to widen your blog area, you just need to change a few numbers. Find where it says #header wrapper; underneath that, change the width to 940. Then find #outer wrapper; change that width to 940 as well. Underneath that, find #main wrapper, and change that number to 674.

If you don't want the border around your header, then under the header-wrapper section, where it says border, change that to 0px. And under the #header section, change the margin and border to 0px.

I believe that's it. You don't have to have a lot of knowledge of html. Just look through and play with it a little, and then preview after each change, so you'll know what didn't work if something looks wrong. If someone wants to make some changes and needs help, let me know and I can walk you through it.

Ooh Boy

I kind of want this. It looks like it would be tough, but if I could commit to it, I could get in pretty good shape. Maybe get rid of my belly. Oh Beachbody, why do you tempt me so?

On another note, I'll post some instructions for spiffying up and widening your blog later. It's not hard at all.

WILD Weekend

This weekend I went to a women's retreat at Big Canyon Ranch. I'm tired and sore, but it was an awesome weekend. We did so many fun things, and it was a great time of fellowship as well. On Friday night we went on a hike, and the view at the top might be one of the most beautiful places I've seen in Utah. It was green and absolutely gorgeous.

On Saturday we did rock wall climbing, and a bunch of other team activities. That's where I got my bruises and soreness. This morning my group did paintball. I've never done it before, and it was really fun. I'd love to do this kind of thing every weekend. I took my camera but didn't have an opportunity to take any pictures. I'm hoping to get some copies of pictures. I hear there's even a video of me getting hit by (or running into and bouncing off) a giant ball and doing some rolls. I'm not sure if I want to re-live that, though.