The Never Ending Project...Completed!

The title says it all. This project, of painting our dining room table, took 3 months. That might not seem too long, but we expected to get it done in a weekend...2 max. I guess we didn't realize how long it takes to sand everything down, put a couple of coats of paint and finish on, and reupholster chairs (very misleading project). We are very pleased with the finished product!

Here are the fotos...

This is the only before pic I could find. It's from x-mas of 2007. I guess I didn't think to take my before picture.

Matt sanding everything down in the garage. A bit dusty...

Table in dinning area half painted. It was too cold to paint in the garage.

The Master Painter at work.

The new upholstery on our first completed chair. You'll never guess where I got this Pottery Barn looking fabric.... Starts with a Wal and ends with a Mart.

Completed!

I think the hard work paid off for sure! Yes I'm bragging. That is one good looking table.

Stay tuned for Matt's recently completed project... the entertainment area. Can somebody say Plasma! :) It's a goodie.

The Shelby's Untold Stories of 2008

Matt wins an iPod for being the smartest kid in class. Not kidding. He took a job training class in Seattle for two weeks (I was lonely) and they had a test every day. His average score was like 99%. So... need insurance? Apparently this guy is really good at what he does. :)

The Lyn-Tron Charity Golf Classic

You can read a little about it here.

Utah Valley UNIVERSITY Alumni Game

I had so much fun seeing all my old teammates and coaches. It was also great seeing all the school's changes now that UVSC is a University (UVU).

The Spokane Falls were raging this year!

During the summer, Riverfront Park has amazing snow cones. The huckleberry flavor is money!

We drove to Seattle for the BYU/University of Washington Football game. Cougs blocked the Huskies PAT with no time left to win by one point. It was a nail biter. This was also the loudest stadium I've ever been in. Thanks to our Wii friends for the tickets. :)

Wakeboarding ALL summer! Killer air Matt!

Elder Wickman from the seventy came for stake conference and stopped by to give my dad a blessing. It was pretty amazing. Tears were flowing a bit, if you couldn't tell by the picture.

Elder Shelby returns from Honduras. We are all so proud of him!

Jason Mraz Concert! We highly recommend this concert if he ever comes to your town. He is insane live! Here is the song you all know...

Thanks for stopping by our blog all year. I'll try to post more often in 2009!

Chicken fried? No, Turkey fried!

This year Matt and I spent Thanksgiving at my old stomping grounds, the Lynn home. Yet, we wanted to bring a little Shelby flare to the festivities. So we decided to deep fry a turkey, a Shelby tradition. Matt's older brother Kreg went to Texas on his mission, and apparently this is big down there. He's the one that started this little tradition and we're all grateful for it. If you've never had a deep fried turkey your missing out! So yummy! We thought we would show you the most important steps in this amazing process. Here they are. Enjoy!

Set up your burner.

Get supplies out and ready

Try to look as manly as possible.

Drop in your bird.

Make sure you have a vicious guard dog to protect your bird. Thanks, Tommy.

As you wait, make one of the boys snap a picture of you so your friends know you were really there.

Find a trustworthy, buff, pan holder. You don't want someone that will drop it!

Have your excited little bro in the background to make him feel involved. Oh, and don't tell him your family found him under a rock when he was baby and decided to keep him. Might hurt his feelings.

Continue to look as manly as possible, even though you're wearing oven mitts.

Get one last picture of yourself with the bird before you start cutting, only to remember you don't know how to cut, so your father-in-law takes over because everyone is ready to eat.

The Night of Twilight

The movie Twilight opened last weekend so my sisters, mom, and I decided to throw a Twilight Party, then go to the Midnight release! Makes us seem a bit obsessed... but we had a great time! I was amazed by the turnout of the party (about 20-25) but then again it was a Twilight party, and who wouldn't want to come to that! We had some yummy food and a fun battle of Twilight Jeopardy. This is where I realized I know a lot more about the book than I should. Here are some pictures from the night.

House/Living Room decorated for the festivities

Again...

Entertainment "Twilight" Issues

Twilight Jeopardy

People eating yummy grub

Sharing Twilight thoughts...

Playing Jeopardy

Don't we just look like Twilight fans?

At the Midnight release. The line wrapped around the building. Crazy.

Overall, I thought the movie was entertaining. Was it as good as the book? Not even close! It's hard taking a 500 + page book and making it a 2 hour movie on a limited budget. Yet, as a fan, I was pleased and am planning on seeing it again. Thanks to everyone that came to the party! We'll do it again when "New Moon," comes out. :)

Mini Makeover Part 1

After we moved into our house we tackled a few mini projects. Here is our first project... painting the master bedroom. It's always a bit scary when picking out paint because you know it always looks completely different on the wall than the little square sample. Luckily, ours turned out great! Well...in our opinion. Don't tell us if you hate it. :)

Before

(dark green...blah)

Primed

After
("Feather Gray" from Benjamin Moore Paints)

Stay tuned for more updates!

Update/Lady Vols/Man to Man “D”

I know it’s been a while since our last post, but I have a really good excuse. We are officially in debt and moved into our house!! Yea! This also means we haven’t switched our internet over. So there’s our excuse. We will have it set up next week some time, and by then hopefully the house will be a bit more organized so I can get a couple pictures up. Don’t hold me to that though, the place is a mess!

Until then, while I’m at work, I have a question…

At work, I do the CAD (Computer Aided Design) work, so I’m considered a “CAD Draftsman.” I even have that under my name in my email signature. Yet, some people have mentioned that I should change it to CAD DraftsWOMAN. Do you think I should change it?? I mean, I’m all about equal rights or whatever (I even did reports on Title IX in school), but sometimes I wonder if women change names or titles of things just to make a statement. Like in Legally Blonde when that girl wants to change “Semester” to “Ovester.” Ha! Or why do sports teams need to specify that it’s a Woman’s team, like the Tennessee Lady Vols. It’s not like they say the Tennessee Man Vols. Some things I would just not change. For example, I wouldn’t say, “Hey Coach, what defense are we in?? Woman to woman?” What?!? So I’m undecided on this issue. Am I a CAD Draftsman or a CAD Draftswoman?

THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!!!!

Yes, I'm talking about Disneyland, and yes, it's still the happiest place ever! I have been there quite a few times, growing up in California and all, but Matt has only gone one previous time when he was young and can't even remember it. We went on a perfect day (cloudy, during the school year, on a week day) that wasn't too crowded which allowed us to go on all the best rides a few times.

After a long debate, and some hard thinking, we came up with our list of best rides:

1) Screaming California (California Adventure)

2) Indiana Jones (Disneyland)

3) Hollywood Hotel Tower (C.A.)

4) Soaring Over California (C.A.)

5) Space Mountain (D)

Actually, if you scrambled all these, the list would still probably work for us.

Here are some pics from the day.

Our Niece Kalle (like Halle Berry, but Kalle) loves Belle and the "doggy" show, so we snapped pics of the REAL Belle and Q. Devil (not going to try to spell that one).

This is the scary Hollywood Hotel Tower. Super scary, but super fun!! See the open windows...?

That's where the elevator would open right before it dropped. AHH!!

Waiting in the massive (or non existent) line of the Indiana Jones ride.

In front of California Adventure...

(click on for larger view)

And last but not least, words of advise from Indiana himself!