Early spring we tagged along on one of Casey’s work trip to Orlando. Each Christmas we like to do a trip in the next year as our family’s present, so for our Christmas 2018 trip we took advantage of Casey going to Orlando and we all went to Disney World! Casey and I both really enjoy Disney, but had always said we’d wait to make a Disneyland/World trip until our kids were old enough to “enjoy it.” (You pay a lot for that Disney magic, we wanted to make sure we’d get our monies worth!) We didn’t know how Rhett would do since he was so young, but he had an absolute blast! It actually changed my opinion on Disney with small kids- he may not remember, but I always will! I loved watching him experience all the sights, rides, characters and shows- it’s true what they say about experiencing magic through your kids’ eyes. The weather was actually pretty cold and rainy while we were there, but we were coming from an even colder and snowy Utah, so it didn’t stop our fun! I’ve been reminiscing on this trip a lot lately and thinking we need to compare it with Disneyland… what do you say, Casey? (;

This spring I also relaunched my shop, Baby Gowns Co, which sells knotted baby sleepers. It’s been a labor of love, especially while I was pregnant and put on bed rest! But it’s been really fun and I’ve loved being able to improve my sewing skills. I’m proud of what I’ve grown and have lots of dreams and goals for my shop and am excited (and nervous, to be honest!) to see where things go.

We grew a garden, which was definitely Casey’s labor of love (you can read about it here) and it was so much fun to watch grow and eat from it all summer and into the fall! He spent so much time tending to it and learning all about the fruits and vegetables he grew, and honestly really has a talent and true green thumb! We’ve been missing it these past few weeks since the frost came and killed everything off!

We spent a few days in McCall, Idaho, where Casey’s dad lives. My sister-in-law Sierra got married in the most picturesque wedding there on the lake. She made all of her own decorations and gave me allllll the DIY project goals! Casey’s dad walked her down the aisle and Rhett kept calling for “grandpa!” He kept doing it during the ceremony as well and couldn’t understand why his grandpa wasn’t turning around to play with him. He was being so cute and sweet, but I’m sorry it kind of ruined the ambience, Sierra! It was such a beautiful wedding and a fun trip spent with family.

The biggest event of the summer was definitely the arrival of our second son, Jack. He was induced three weeks early since I was high risk with preeclampsia. Everything went well, other than my epidural wearing off right as it was time to push- that was real fun. Not really, it wasn’t fun at all haha! He has a head of dark brown hair, which was a total surprise to us since Casey, Rhett and I were all bald babies- we didn’t know we could make a baby with hair! He also has the sweetest bright blue eyes, which none of the rest of us have, but I’m hoping they’ll stay that way! Rhett is obsessed with Jack, always wanting to hold, kiss and love on him, which I feel has helped make the transition a lot easier. He is such a sweetheart and the perfect addition to our family, we seriously love him so much!

After Jack was born I blinked and now it’s three months later. I wasn’t kidding when I said this years been the fastest! Rhett turned two, which also blows my mind! He’s at such a fun stage right now, so celebrating his birthday was extra special. He knows every word to the Happy Birthday song and looooved that everyone kept singing to him haha! We woke him up by filling his crib with balloons, which are one of his very most favorite things and we’ve decided we’ll continue this tradition with each of our kids forever haha! He is the most loved little two year old and just the best. These boys bring so much fun, joy and cRaZy into our lives.

We’ve also started making changes to our home, which is really exciting to me. We have lots of big plans for the house, so it’s fun to see things finally happening. I’d love to share our ideas, before and after’s and progress here on the blog- let me know your guys’ thoughts and if thats something you’d all be into!

I have a feeling these next two months are going to go even faster, but am excited for the upcoming festivities, holidays and fun with our two little ones!

The strawberries came up on their own from the previous owners, but we added the white one. The white Strawberry is called a Hula Berry, which tastes like a pineapple. Super delicious!

We grew big beef, celebrity, sun gold cherry and martian giant. Most of our tomatoes were small, but we had a couple decent sized ones.

Unfortunately, our pumpkin plant was attacked by squash bugs and so we only got two pumpkins from this plant.

Cantaloupes are still growing as I write this. I think they are almost ripe. We have about 5 right now that are about the size of a softball.

We probably ended up with about 30 cucumbers. They were a nice snack that I would pick in the morning and eat at work for lunch.

We grew a garden! We had a lot of fun this year and hope to get a little bit more before the weather cools down. I plan on doing an even bigger garden next year and with my experience this year, everything should grow a lot smoother.

Did you do a garden this year? What’s your favorite thing to grow? Any suggestions for what we should grow next year?

KITCHEN

• Plates and bowls
• Utensils
• Glasses/ cups and mugs
• Pots and pans
• Baking sheet
• Serving utensils
• Mixing bowls (various sizes)
• Cutting board
• Knives
• Watcher pitcher
• Hand towels
• Paper towels
• Dish soap
• Sponge and cleaning rags
• Hand soap
• Microwave
• Fire extinguisher

BATHROOM

• Toilet paper
• Hand towels
• Face towels
• Bath towels
• Bath mat outside shower
• Hand soap
• Complimentary travel size toiletries
• Clorox wipes
• Toilet bowl cleaner
• Multi-surface cleaner
• Toilet brush and plunger

BEDROOM/ Living Space

• Extra set of sheets
• Pillows
• Nightstands with lamps
• Television
• Heater/ fan
• Hangers in the closet
• Extra blankets
• Laundry hamper

I feel like there are little things missing, so I’ll be sure to update this list if I come across more items to include! I would love to hear what YOU have included in your Air Bnb or if there are items that you’ve appreciated and were impressed by in your travels! Let me know if there’s anything we should add to our list!

This is a continuation of the series of our renovations to our basement; turning it into an apartment. Last article I wrote about doing the walls. You can read that here. This part I go over how we added the cabinets, plumbing and appliances.

Cabinets

Before we even bought our house, Tara and I made a trip to Ikea to look for things we would need and how much they would cost. While looking for cabinets, we found modular cabinets that were inexpensive and looked good too. Tara found some gold pulls online that would work perfect for these cabinets. Once we bought our house, we went back and bought the cabinets and set them up. Tara and her sister, Gabby, set these up almost entirely by themselves (thank you, thank you, thank you!) and we installed them shortly before everything was finished.

Plumbing

The plumbing was actually one of the first things we had done when we moved into our home. We were pretty lucky because our upstairs kitchen drain went right where we had wanted to put the downstairs kitchen. It could have been very pricey, but having the drain so close made it a lot easier.

Once the cabinets were installed, Doug and I added the plumbing fixtures. It took a good amount of planning and creativity. Because the sink was not aligned with the pipes, it made the drain pipes a little difficult.

The sink and faucet we also got from Ikea and cut into the countertop to install. We got a simple sink that had a metal part on the side for drying dishes.

Appliances

Luckily for us, our local classifieds typically have some cheap appliances in good shape. We bought our stove oven for only $20 from a family that had just remodeled and were “just wanting to get rid of it”. We also got our fridge from a family for $100 and we were given our microwave from some friends. So for 3 appliances in really good shape, we paid $120.

Thanks for reading! If you haven’t already, subscribe to our blog or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Any questions? Leave a comment below.

He ends up saying yes to things he normally would have never agreed to and his life is changed forever. He ends taking guitar lessons, learns Korean, goes out with his friends he had been neglecting. The list goes on.

The “Yes Man” Experiment in Practice

For years I’ve wondered what that would be like in practice. So, I finally decided to try a “yes man experiment” last week. Obviously, I put some limitations to it. I wasn’t going to do anything illegal nor anything to jeopardize my marriage. Even with that, I never was faced with any of these things. I decided that I would only do this for a week, Monday-Monday and I wouldn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Here’s what happened during that week:

What Happened

A lot of the requests came from my wife, Tara. Most of them were small requests, like changing Rhett’s diaper or taking out the trash. Some helped grow our relationship like a back rub before bed or going with her to the Doctor. On one occasion, we could see fireworks off in the distance. Tara said we should go find them. We went and found them close to our house and enjoyed a random firework show in the middle of February.

I got asked to do a lot of things at work too. There were random emails I would get inviting me to optional meetings. I went to those meetings. One of them was a wellness meeting teaching us how to make healthier meals. It was informative and I wouldn’t have thought of making those things in the first place.

With Rhett, I was more willing to play with him and cater to his wants and needs. There were plenty of times where he wanted to play, but I was in the middle of something. I am so glad that I stopped what I was doing because we had a lot of fun.

What I Discovered

I discovered that I said no to a lot of things. Most of the time I didn’t explicitly say “no”, but I would ignore questions or find ways around it. I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on.  It’s definitely hard to say yes to certain things. Some of the time I was saying yes to stuff I didn’t really want to do, but it ended up being really good for me.

It’s sometimes hard for me to stop what I’m doing in the moment and go do something else. I noticed this more during this week. I got invited to play a board game with my family at my parent’s. I’m glad I stopped what I was doing and played with them.

I highly recommend that you find ways to say yes more often in your life. This was a week long experiment for me, but I plan to implement this more into my life.

Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you. – Eckhart Tolle

Any questions about my “experiment”? When have you said yes to things that you normally wouldn’t have? What happened? Share your comments below, or on our Facebook page.

This is a continuation of the series of our renovations to our basement; turning it into an apartment. Last article I wrote about doing the flooring. You can read that here.

After finishing the floor, the next part of our basement renovation was to add a door and some walls to block off the apartment from the rest of our basement and living space. My father-in-law Doug helped me a lot with everything. He worked in framing years ago and is very detail oriented, which was a huge help.

The first step we took was to cut out the drywall and studs to make way for the door. While cutting, we ran into a problem. The bottom of the wall had a piece of concrete and metal sticking out about a foot from the ground. This was going to make it more difficult than we had anticipated. We prepared for a long hard day of work, but after cutting off the metal piece, we realized it was just cinder block.

Within a few minutes we had knocked the cinder block out and were super relieved! Because they were cinder blocks, there were some holes that needed to be filled to level it along the ground. We used concrete to fill the holes and then Doug cut a piece of metal which we used as the threshold.

Once everything was cut and where we wanted it to be, we hung the door. We made sure to buy a wider door than normal because we knew tenants would be moving big furniture into the room and we wanted to avoid having dings on the wall.

Next we framed the walls. This didn’t take too long, but did require some meticulous planning to make sure everything was where we wanted it to be. Doug’s expertise really came in handy here.

Once the walls were framed we hung the drywall. My dad came into town to help with this as well and my sister’s fiance, Steven, who was a big help. Because it was only a wall and not the ceiling, it wasn’t too hard to hang the drywall and we got it done fairly quickly. We also got some help from a family friend to help tape and joint the drywall, which was very helpful and we were very grateful for!

We could have done all of this on our own, but the help made things go much more smoothly and made the process a whole lot less stressful! Having help was huge for us getting it done in a timely manner and done well, but if you are considering doing this yourself, don’t feel that you have to have expert help! All you really need is a plan, patience and to watch all the YouTube videos and you’ll be golden!

Let us know what you think of our renovations in the comments below! If you have any extra questions about what we did, feel free to comment below or email us at thefundfamily@gmail.com

Let me start by saying that Tara and I have very little experience in renovating a house. We relied heavily on the experience of others, mainly our dads, and tons of YouTube videos. It has been a really good experience for us and we were surprised at how fun it has been.

We will make a couple different articles that outline everything we have done. This article will highlight the flooring that we did.

The floor

The first thing we started with was tearing up the existing carpet. The room was around 200 square feet of entirely carpet. It was easy to actually tear up the carpet, but was difficult to move the carpet out of the room because it was so heavy.

The first thing we started with was tearing up the existing carpet. The room was around 200 square feet of entirely carpet. It was easy to actually tear up the carpet, but was difficult to move the carpet out of the room because it was so heavy.

To my surprise, there was linoleum underneath the carpet.   We had already bought some wood-look tile so there wasn’t any reason to keep the linoleum. One half of the linoleum had a black glue that made the square pieces pop up really easy. The other half used a different glue and was clumped together, making it extremely difficult to get off. I spent a few hours hacking away at it with a floor scraper before enlisting the help of my brother, who probably saved my sanity. Once the linoleum was all ripped up, I got rid of all the carpet tacks and nails.

For the tile, I enlisted my dad’s help. He’s a stone mason and has had some experience with laying tile. He came from Idaho for a weekend and we finished it all that Saturday. Again, I was surprised at how much fun I had doing this. A few days later, we finished it off by adding the grout and cleaning it. It turned out better than we had hoped and we are very proud of our work!

The Final Product

I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate the help I got from my family! Corbin, Rocky, Gabby and Austin! Thank you guys!

The next part in this series will go into adding a door and painting the walls. Be sure to check it out next week! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below. If you haven’t already, feel free to subscribe to our blog. Thanks again!

Every year on Labor Day, we head to Starvation with aunts, uncles, cousins, and any other friends and family that want to join. We all make the hour-and-a-half drive out to the middle of nowhere, where this beautiful reservoir is located. It’s basically our “Mini Lake Powell.” Upon arrival, we all try to help set up canopies for shade and haul in various snacks and treats that we all munch on throughout the day.

My family brings our boat along with a tube, wakeboard, water skis, and kneeboard. My aunt and uncle typically bring their kayaks and occasionally someone may rent some waverunners for all to enjoy.

My favorite part of this tradition is getting together with everyone one last time before the end of the summer. My summer wouldn’t feel complete without our family Labor Day trip to Starvation. When we hang out at the beach, it’s fun to catch up with everyone. When we are boating, it’s fun to get whipped around on the tubes or take a turn wakeboarding or water skiing. We also like to take a ride out to some cliffs where we can go cliff jumping. The weather every year seems to be perfect in the morning, a little windy in the afternoon, with a calm evening. Although two years ago, my husband failed to put on sunscreen because it felt cold outside and ended up getting one of the worst sunburns he has ever had!

Last year we were able to bring Adelyn to Starvation for the first time. She was only 6 weeks old at the time and wasn’t able to do much, but this year she had fun riding on the boat and playing in the water with cousins!

Family get-togethers have always been very special to me. Growing up, my cousins were my best friends and we love hanging out together, especially because we don’t get to see each other as much as when we were kids. This is why Labor Day at Starvation is one of my favorite traditions!

What family traditions do you have on Labor Day? Comment below!

This got me thinking and prompted me to make my own list. Here it is:

Ideal Day

• Wake up without an alarm
• Have pancakes/waffles/french toast
• Play Golf with my wife
• Work for 4 hours with a lunch break in between
• Play games with my son
• Play a sport with friends
• Wind down in the hot tub with my family
• Spend quality time with my wife
• Go to bed

Typical Day

My typical day isn’t quite the same. It looks a little more like this:

• Wake up to an alarm that I pressed snooze twice on
• Eat a small snack while driving to work to make it on time
• Work 8-9 hours
• Come home exhausted and eat dinner with my wife and son
• Spend a small amount of time with family
• Go to bed

As you can see, the difference between my ideal day and typical day is vast.

Ideal Day in Practice

I decided to try my best to have an ideal day on a typical day, so I took part of work off and did the following:

• Played Golf with Tara, Jacob and Carlee
• Had brunch with Tara and Rhett
• Went to work for 4 hours
• Played softball with some friends
• Had Dinner
• Spent some time outside by our apartment
• Cuddled while watching a movie with Tara
• Went to Bed

If I could have a day like this one everyday, I would be a lot happier!

Surprisingly, I got about the same amount of work done in half the amount of time. Feeling like I had less time to get things done, motivated me to work harder. I also felt a lot more rejuvenated to take on the tasks at work because it wasn’t taking up a big chunk of my day.

Granted, we can’t all have days like this. Sometimes work requires us to be there for large chunks of the day. It may take a little bit of creativity to find a good work-life balance when this is the case. I usually try to do small things to help even things out. Those small things can be anything from going to lunch with Tara and Rhett one day, or spending time with family on a Saturday. It’s the little things that count.

I suppose this is the appeal to us starting a blog and looking for other passive income ideas. Not having to physically be in an office everyday would allow us to have our ideal days more often.

Is your ideal day close to your typical day? Comment below what your ideal day would look like. Thanks for reading and be sure to subscribe to our blog and follow along on Facebook if you’d like to hear more!

After Tara and I were married, I had the privilege of taking part in this show and have done the show 4 years in a row. It’s one of our favorite family traditions and is something we look forward to every year.

The setup

A lot of people don’t realize how much work it takes to set up a firework show. We usually will get to the park where we shoot off a couple days before the 4th and start our set up. Every year that I’ve been there it’s been over 100 degrees outside. We do our best to split up the work so that we don’t have to spend too much time out in the sun.

The 4th

During the 4th we drop the shells into the mortar tubes and make sure that the fuses are in a good spot to light. The 4th is usually a little bit more spread out as far as work, so we have some time to relax.

Lighting off the fireworks

This is the best part by far. Lighting fireworks this big is always a rush. Tara likes to joke that lighting these fireworks ruins any other fireworks. There’s just nothing that can compare to actually being the one to light it.

–

The Cleanup

After we have lit all the fireworks and the firefighters have done their walk-through, we have to clean everything we just blew up. The cleanup is probably the hardest part, because you start to come down from the adrenaline rush of blowing stuff up. Putting the firework racks back in the truck is a lot of work and we usually don’t finish until after midnight. We typically take an entire day just to recover before driving back home.

This is by far one of our favorite traditions! We plan to keep doing this firework show for as long as we can. Do you guys have any cool traditions on the 4th?