Now that summer is over, Zack and I can take a breather from all the weddings we have had. It's been great to celebrate these exciting days with loved ones, but it has also kept us very busy.
At the end of June we headed out to California for our friend Sheryl's wedding. It worked out nicely for us because we had the chance to stay with the family in Oceanside! We had a beach day and even though the water was pretty cold in the beginning, I toughened up and got in the ocean (I'm use to east coast Florida water). Sheryl's wedding day was beautiful and I am just so happy for her and Christian.
Such a beautiful day at such a beautiful temple!
We love the beach!
Then it was time for Austin and Annie's wedding in July.
It was a fun weekend and while it was busy, we loved having our friends stay at our house.
To end our summer, Riley and Sabri got married. Now I have a new sister-in-law and I'm excited to get to know her more over the years.
Waiting for the bride.
Look at Zack work it!
(written by Zack)
We have a new house!!! It’s both more wonderful and more
stressful than anything we’ve done before. There’s just something to be said
about having your own big space you can decorate and change however you want. 8 years of living in apartments makes you so sick of the small spaces, landlords, rent money you'll never see again, and so on.
For the first year of our marriage we lived in a married
complex near BYU called Harmony Square, but were tired of the noise and having
our stuff stacked to the ceiling due to a lack of space. We moved into the
complex because of some other married friends, but when everyone started
talking about moving out we figured we’d do the same. So where to go? In order
to even think about that, we had to figure out what we’d be doing the next few
years. If we were leaving the state soon we’d find another place to rent, but
if not then we’d find a place to buy. Since I have a pretty good deal going on
with Vivint, we figured we’d stick around 5 years and see how that pans out. So
lets buy!
I started reading all I could about buying a house, getting
a mortgage, etc. and spent many weeks looking at houses around Saratoga Springs
and all places west of I-15. We found a few we liked, but none we were set on
until a real estate agent was showing me some homes in Eagle Mountain and I found
one that I knew I had to have.
It sits up on a hill overlooking the valley and the lake, and it has plenty (more than we need by far) of space inside. The view alone made me want it, but it was complemented by lots of space inside and plenty of upgrades planned. Only issue was that it wasn't finished yet! We hadn't planned on buying a brand new house, but this one made me change my mind. I called Hannah and told her this was the house I wanted, so she made a trip out to see it after school one day and agreed. It was great!
Three months later, we signed the papers and got the keys to our brand new house, where we've been living for over a month now! We've been blessed to have such a great house that we can turn into our own home. We have lots of plans for the inside and outside, but for now we're content to have room to ourselves. Come and visit us!
(written by Hannah)
This winter was just a little too cold to stay outside for
long, but without any snow on the ground, we never had the chance to go
sledding or build a snowman. Instead, we did a lot of puzzles to pass the time.
These are just a few that we completed. I liked the Disney
ones the best!
To kickoff the nice spring weather, our friends recently
took us shooting!I’ve never seen Zack
shoot before so when he consistently hit the bullseye, it was safe to say that
I was extremely impressed! He made it look easy! I wasn’t a terrible shot, but
he definitely hit the target more than I did.
So focused
Last weekend was General Conference and the whole family
came into town. We haven’t all been together since Christmas, so having us all
together again was great! Some of us girls went shopping at City Creek during the
Priesthood session and caught up with our cousins. We should have known
that every woman in Utah would have the same idea because the mall was packed.
Oh well! We still had a great time.
Once again the talks given by the leaders of the church were
amazing! One of my favorite parts about conference was Music and the Spoken
Word given right before the start of the Sunday morning session.I have memories of Dad turning it on Sunday
mornings and enjoying the music given by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I was not
disappointed this year as it was just as beautiful.
On Easter Sunday, between sessions, Zack and I
colored Easter eggs! It was a pretty low key decorating party with cheap dye that I had to crush by hand in the end. Later that day we went over to Lindsey and Aaron’s place for
dinner. We ate way too much food and played Apples to Apples. I love being
around my family and feel so blessed that we can be together forever!
Baby Sanders loves us!
(Written by Zack)
A few months ago I was browsing Imgur (a picture sharing website) and saw a post where a few guys decided to make a canoe out of pvc and duct tape. I sent it to Tanner saying we should do it - mostly joking - but then decided after about a week that I should give it a shot.
I looked up a lot of other articles and DIY instructions for building a duct tape canoe/kayak, but wasn't too impressed with what I found. If you're going to spend that time and money, why not making it something worthwhile? Here are a few of the examples:
Noble efforts, but neither seem to work very well or be very comfortable. That guy is almost capsizing with his legs not even in the boat!
I drew up several plans, initially wanting to use some PVC connectors and such, but I realized that would make it very boxy, kind of like this guys:
Not a very good looking boat. Using connectors just doesn't allow for the gentle curve that a canoe should have, so I scratched that design and decided to find a different way to build a sturdy frame. I saw an idea on one of the DIY kayaks that helped (the guy in the second picture did it, though not very effectively it seems). So here's what we did!
It would be no fun if only one person could be in the canoe at a time, so in order to make it log enough for Hannah and I to both have space we decided to make it about 14' long. We bought about 5 pieces of 20' 3/4" pipe to build our frame with, 1 piece of 10' 1" pipe to serve as our makeshift connectors, and a lot of duct tape to hold it all together. Using the above guy's suggestion, we cut a few sections of 1" pipe into about 8" pieces, and then cut them in half length-wise. Using a lighter, we softened the middle of the cut lengths and bent them to make a V shape, then used them to hold the frame in place.
Using this technique, we built a basic skeleton frame for the canoe. The 1" pipe halves held the 3/4" pip nicely, so with a bit of PVC cement and some tape it held the long ends together very well. We used pipe about 14' long for the top part of the frame, and about 13'10 for the bottom. That way it was a little thinner on the bottom and curved outward as it went up.
For the pieces that connected the long top bowed section to the bottom (the trapezoid shape in the middle) we used more of the 1" pipe semicircle pieces bend in 90 degree angles to cup the 3/4" pipe. It holds impressively well, its a tight fit with the glue alone, and the duct tape provides that guarantee of sturdiness.
We built out the frame a little more to make sure it was sturdy all around. I also bought some cheap plastic school chairs off craigslist for about $10, to make seats for Hannah and I. Here's a shot of the chairs in the places they'll eventually end up just sitting in the completed frame:
(a lot of netflix was watched in the making of this canoe!)
Satisfied that the frame was sturdy enough, we started to make it seaworthy. A lot of DIY canoes/kayaks used trash bags to help keep it watertight, but Hannah and I bought some painter's plastic normally used to cover furniture during painting. It was about 25'x10x, so plenty big to cover our whole canoe in a single sheet. We didn't want to do it in small plastic sections, better if the whole sheet was uncut to ensure that no water would leak through some gaps.
(Typical Netflix being judgemental - "Are you STILL watching this show?")
That done, it was time to cover the whole thing in duct tape. This took a long time, Hannah was very patient and a great helper!
All done with the canoe frame!
To mount the seats, I drilled the legs off the plastic chair part and mounted them on some 18"x3' sections of thin plywood. I sat them up on some blocks to make sure we were sitting high enough in the canoe to paddle. The wood we found mostly for free from Home Depot in their scrap lumber section.
Only thing left to do was test it. We took a little too long while building the canoe, so by the time we were done the weather had already turned cold. So weeks went by while people repeatedly told me they didn't think it would float (apparently buoyancy wasn't taught very well in school) and we waited for a nice warm day. So this last Saturday, the clouds parted and the wind died and Utah Lake beckoned. We loaded it up on top of the Jeep, got lots of weird looks, and headed for the lake.
Hannah was fairly trusting but a little skeptical, so we set it in the water for a few minutes while we waited for Tanner and Becca to come and provide both moral support and to be our lifesavers in case of emergency. But it floated! No leaks!
Once our temporary lifeguards showed up, we hopped in. Took us a minute to get the balance down, but once we did, it worked like a charm! We could paddle out around the little harbor and make sure no water was coming in.
Victory!
Satisfied that our canoe worked and happy to get it out of our living room, it's currently spending the winter at the Archibald's where they kindly let us store it in their garage. It's too cold to get wet right now, but now we know we have a canoe to take on adventures come summer! Can't wait!
Here's a small video of our first test as a reward for reading this far :)
(Written by Hannah)
Zack and I have been slacking off on our blog so let me just
play catch up for a moment. Summer was a busy time! Let’s see…what happened
that is note worthy to mention?? Oh I don’t know…wait.Only the biggest and happiest event of
my life! Zack and I got married!!
The wedding was perfect! People that we love came to support
us and all of the long months of planning finally paid off. Both sides of the
family got to meet one another and everyone really seemed to like eat other!
Good thing too because we are going to see a lot of each other over the next forever years!
I am so in love with my new husband and let me just say, I
highly recommend marriage. Living with your best friend is so much fun!
So after our perfect wedding day that was filled with joy,
laughter and yes, maybe a few tears our married life began.
Our summer consisted of several camping trips. From Wall
Lake to Silver Lake we experienced the beautiful Utah at its finest…well except
for the mosquitos. At Wall Lake we did not expect toencounter so many mosquitos! They maliciously
swarmed us and our only defense was to sit in the smoke of the fire. Yes I
know, typically you want to avoid the smoke, but not me! It was my refuge. We learned
our lesson though. BringA LOT of bug
spray!
During the month of July my sister Lindsey got married. My
poor parents had to plan two weddings just one month apart, but they did a
great job! Her wedding was wonderful.
August we got some unexpected news. Zack saw a doctor
for his wrists. He thought he had circulation problems because whenever he did
some sort of physical activity, his wrists got icy cold.After different tests and a couple weeks of
waiting, the doctor told Zack that he had thyroid cancer. Cancer?! Really?
When Zack told me my thoughts jumped to scenarios of radiation and chemo. After
calming me down, Zack explained that that thyroid cancer is 99% treatable. He
just needed to get surgery, remove his thyroid, and then the cancer would be
gone. Before Zack went into surgery though, Zack and I went on our honeymoon.
We decided to postpone our honeymoon until August because we had more time. It worked out perfectly because we both
definitely needed a vacation. Our honeymoon was in Cancun. We stayed at an all-inclusive
resort, which is the way to go in my opinion, for a week. The beaches were
fantastic and I have never seen the water so blue. It was stunning!
We also zip lined (a first for me) at this adventure land
called Selvatica.Having the week away
from our daily routine was needed. We loved every bit of it and hope to go back
some day.
Once home, we celebrated Zack’s birthday and then just a few
weeks later, mine!
This picture makes me laugh! Our nephew wanted to blow out
the candles before Zack could and our niece's face is priceless. Note that Zack has a pink cake. He picked it out himself.
In betweenboth
birthday’s, Zack had his surgery and you know what? Everything went well and his
recovery was great! Zack's dad and brother stopped by before the surgery. Why are they all soooo tall?
Now he just has a scar which will fade with time. We are so
blessed that we could remove the cancer and get Zack healthy again.
