Brought to you by Pinterest

Hello friends! Today's post is brought to you by Pinterest.

We all spend a lot of hours looking at all the wonderful things that some perfect person out there apparently made with their own hands, and every now and then we get brave enough to try them... Some of my pinterest creations were epic fails, or as my husband likes to say - Nailed it!  I wish I had more pictures to share, but here are a few semi successful pinterest creations.

1. Cookie Ice cream bowl - Nailed It! (if you haven't noticed yet, that's a bad thing)

They are supposed to look something like this.
Link

Ours came out a little different! 

Chance is a good sport and made them work anyway! 

2. Birthday Sign - Not too shabby

Link

This little banner turned out a lot better than I thought it would.  Mostly because it had a link for me to print off the letters - all I had to do was add a little color and hang it up!

3. Watermelon cookies - No proof

Ok so I didn't get a picture of this one, so you're just going to have to trust me when I say it turned out ok.

Link

I will warn you that the shape of the cookie can be pretty critical on this one, but if you feed all the ugly cookies to your husband and only frost the cute ones, it turns out great.

Ok, your turn to tell my your favorite Pinterest fail or share with me your amazing fail-proof craft/recipe/whatever.

Happy pinning & posting!

Love,
Star

Busy, Busy, Busy…

Hello Friends! I promised myself I was going to be better at the whole blogging thing (since it's pretty much my journal), but time is slipping through our fingers over here at the Basinger residence.  Mostly because we are keeping so busy.  Last week included dinner with our friend Dee from DC (who we met on our honeymoon).  She was in town for business and we were so excited she would take a little time to come hang out with us.

We also got to go to a Bees game with Matt and Holly; there is no picture though… Chance is very good at avoiding pictures!

In other news, Chance worked 72 hours last week – oh ya.  I guess that’s what happens when you get two jobs instead of one. It's another 60 hours this week - graveyards. Yuck!

Poor guy comes home absolutely exhausted! 

We are starting to gear up for our trek this summer.  I am attempting to find ‘pioneer clothes’ for us.  What this really means is that I had to find a bonnet and an apron and now I need to go to DI to buy old clothes that can be thrown away when we are done.  I’m still looking for some kind of breathable hat for Chance.  If you have ideas of a good & inexpensive one, let me know.  He has threatened to wear an umbrella hat so he can bring his own shade. Can't wait to show you the outfits i'm coming up with.  ;) I'm also loving researching my pioneer ancestors and brushing up on their stories. (Days of '47 for life)

If you have a great pioneer story I would love to hear it!

Love,

Star 

Bad Dreams...

They're back - pageant nightmares. I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever been deep into the performing arts has had these dreams.  I used to get them all the time around ballet performances when I was younger.  You know the dream - you show up and they've added a dance that you don't know the choreography for or your partner doesn't show up and you are now doing that pas de deux by yourself or with someone you've never met, or you go to put on your costume and it doesn't fit or is missing all together.... ya, that's the type of dream i'm talking about.

I've had this dream before and my mom says she had them for years after she did pageants.  I'm in studio A upstairs at Capital Theater and all I have is a leotard, tights and my point shoes and i'm competing at Miss Utah.  I keep telling them i'm married and I don't want to compete and I don't even know why i'm there, and they just keep telling me i'm on the schedule and
i'll let so many people down if I don't do it. So there I am, no music, no costume, no choreography and i'm going on stage.  So I start going through other contestants ipods trying to see if anyone has a tarantella so that I can try to throw some choreography I already know to a new piece of music.  Oh yes, and I am also going trough the Ballet West dancers lockers trying to find a practice tutu because that will be better than nothing, right?

Then I wake up exhausted because I just spent the last hour of "sleep" freaking out about a competition i'm not even in. Gotta' love it!

Birthday weekend

Chance had his 29th birthday last Thursday, so we spent the weekend partying! Lucky us.  His special day included lunch at the Cheesecake factory (a repeat from his birthday with me last year),

Jadens first swim meet,

killing a snake,

and a surprise dinner with friends at Chances favorite Thai place (it's called Tai Aroy-D, check it out)

Oh wait, what about the snake killing? That's not a normal birthday ritual at your house? Oh, well then let me tell you the story...

Earlier that day the family had been cleaning out the vines over the garage and in the process they found a fun little nest full of cute brand new baby birds.  They set the step ladder up so that they could watch the birds as they grow.  This was nice.  So Chance came home a little later and wanted to check on the birds again. So he started to climb up the ladder when he looked up and saw a SNAKE in the nest.  It had eaten the babies and the mom bird was going crazy, which seemed like the logical thing to do, so he too went crazy. He grabbed a tree that had been recently dug out of our yard and started hitting the snake.  At this point my mom comes home with the boys and sees Chance going crazy and they join in.  William and Coleson went on the roof to try to corner the snake back down to Chance (because with all the bullying coming from the ground, the snake had ventured onto the roof).  This is the point at which I call home because i'm on my way home from work and want to orchestrate the final details of Chances surprise dinner with mom.  I told her to get the kids off the roof and for everyone to stop chasing a snake.  Much to Chances chagrin this caused the end of the snake hunt for now.  This is not the end of the story though.

I came home and Chance and I went to Jadens swim meet to kill a little time before Chances surprise dinner.  After the race Chance and I headed back home to go to dinner.  We walked back and we could see the mama bird crying on the roof, and Chance looked over at the nest again and the snake was back!!!!! SICK!!!!!!

So Chance resumed his original role as snake killer and proceded to pull the snake out of the vines with some kind of gardening tool... once he threw it to the ground he got the shovel and tried to cut his head off. This was not working, as the shovel must be a bit dull and the snake was rather fast. So finally Chance turned the shovel over and just squashed his head.  Thus the end of the baby-bird-eating-snake. SICK.

After all this excitement, Chance and I weren't really all that hungry.  However I had 7 couples waiting for us at his surprise dinner, so I convinced him to at least go for dessert.

That weekend Lindsay and Jake were in town so we also had a family bbq birthday party, complete with homemade birthday pie!  All in all I would say it was a pretty great weekend. 

And in other news - it was also our 6 month wedding anniversary! (any excuse to include a wedding picture, right?!)

Life Lately

So, now that you are officially ‘following’ the Basinger’s and their exciting lives, you are probably wondering what said exciting lives consist of…   Well, not a whole lot actually, and yet we seem to be running all over the place all the time.

I am working at Zions Bank (Zions Direct if you want to get technical) and LOVING it. I feel so blessed to have a job that I enjoy.  Chance is working at the U of U hospital preparing to go back to PA school, and volunteering a lot as usual.  Chance is in the Elders quorum and I’m the choir director at church, and we try to spend a little time together whenever our schedules permit. We’re looking forward to another temporary church calling as Pioneer Trek Ma and Pa this summer.  I’m sure you’ll hear more about that soon – it’s pretty much the highlight of my summer right now.  And no, I’m not being sarcastic. I’m almost as surprised as you are!  

Right now I am on a work trip in Chicago, which has been pretty fun, and has also allowed me a little extra solo time at night to work on the blog.  I’m attending a cause marketing conference that has been interesting and inspiring.  It’s great to see what companies are doing to give back and how they find a way to help people doing their normal everyday tasks make a difference.  It also reminds me how much I love nonprofits and how fulfilling the work is.  Every person I have met the past few days have been nothing if not passionate about what they do and how they are changing the world in their own little way. I love it! It’s contagious! I need a little more of it in my life.

The conference also gave me the opportunity to explore Chicago – a beautiful city!

I went to the Sears (Willis) Tower

The Chicago Art Institute

I walked the Magnificent Mile twice (it’s magnificent because it’s where all the wonderful shops are and beautiful architecture are)

I stopped in Millennium park to take my picture next to a giant silver bean (it was weird, but everyone else was doing it, so I joined in) as well as what ever that bear thing was…

I went to the Hancock Observatory (a lot like the sears tower, but a little less impressive)

Walked down to the aquarium and watched a fun dolphin/beluga whale/ sea lion/ dog show (I’m still trying to figure out why the dog part was there)

I also found a street artist market, walked along the river, ate Chicago deep dish pizza, found the Trevi fountain of Chicago, and in general just walked around.  Such a lovely day!

Next time I visit this city I’ll make sure to have my man by my side for all the adventures!

Love,

Starlee