Rugby Touch

 One of the first things Peter wanted to do when he got home from his mission was to buy a rugby ball. Rugby is the nation passion of New Zealand and other Polynesian countries. On P-days, his native companions taught Pete how to play Rugby Touch, the less brutal form of rugby. It's like what Touch Football is to regular Football. (BTW, if you want to see a brutal sport, look at a few professional rugby clips on youtube.)

Last Saturday, Peter- out of desperation to play his beloved game, dragged is middle-aged parents to the backyard for a lesson in Rugby Touch. First he played around a bit with the ball:

 Then he tried a few passes with his dad.

 Apparently, we were not meeting his rugby needs, so he called Ben and Shannon so that they could add a bit more excitement.

 After a bit of instruction,

 And a rescue of the ball from the pool cover,

 We were off!

Oops- another pool rescue:

 Sometimes it was pretty hair-raising!

It was a good first lesson for us. Thank goodness rugby is catching on and there are leagues and a team at Utah State. I don't think we quite lived up to South Seas standards.

Easter Sunday Saying

Easter Grass

I've always wanted to grow my own grass in a container for an Easter decoration. It's not hard at all! First you soak some wheat for 5-6 hours or overnight. (This is a great way to rotate that food storage!)

Line your container with a trimmed down garbage bag- fold the edges in. Fill your container with potting soil.

After the wheat has soaked, spread it over the soil in your container. Keep it moist by spraying it with water 3 times a day for the first 3-4 days. Also cover it with saran wrap and keep it in a sunny spot so that germination can happen. You can take the saran wrap off after about 4 days.

After 5 days it looks like this!

After 7 days I was giving my grass a haircut with scissors. This is what it looks like now, all decorated for Easter:

Easter Under Glass

I tried a few new Easter decorations in my kitchen this year- glass containers filled with Easter goodies.

The biggest jar didn't have the visual punch I was going for, mostly because it's a WalMart jar and the glass is a bit uneven and wavy. It'll do.

Layered M&Ms. Heaven help the child who tries to actually eat these. There's a shortened toilet paper tube capped with foil in the middle of the jar, so I did this with just one bag of M&Ms. I love this old Ball jar.

Paper shreds and plastic eggs.

This is the approved-for-eating bunny container. Go for it, kids!

I Am A Champion.

People in my family can be competitive. Alright, psychotically competitive. We like to win. One yearly competition we enjoy is picking the winning college basketball teams during March Madness. We don't bet, we just pick- and the winner gets bragging rights and a small prize. Many hours go into picking the right teams.

I have never had a great track record in the March Madness tournament. The first big day of picking usually falls when I'm at the Scottsdale horse show, which really complicates things. This year I decided to make it easier on myself. With the announcement of the teams who will be playing, there is also a "power ranking" of each team. This year I made all of my picks based on the power rankings.

My Final Four teams? The 4 top ranked teams in the power rankings.

My Champion? The #1 power ranked team.

 I took time to write down the power ranking of each team so that choosing teams would be easy.

Guess what! It worked, and I won the whole tournament! My boys were not impressed.

This is what I won:

Powder Room Makeover

If you've been to my house, you know that the little bathroom off of my kitchen has always been very ho-hum. Time to change all that! I started with some vinyl lettering and some plaques I found at Tai Pan:

Sorry about the lighting- it's a tiny room.

Then I made this wall hanging that has a hook. I can hang seasonal or holiday thingies on that hook. I'm big on changing things for holidays.

The base is an old cabinet door that I bought for $2.00 at a Habitat For Humanity Restore in Phoenix. I'd never heard about these stores. They are like the DI but they have furniture and building supplies- mostly from remodels. There's one in Salt Lake and 3 in Phoenix. Any who, I spray painted the door white, mod podged on some scrapbook paper, antiqued it with watered down craft paint, (which I promptly spilled all over my kitchen table and rug!), then Bruce help me screw on the hook. It probably cost $7.00 to make. Voila!

 This is definitely the cutest this bathroom has ever looked!

No Saints Here

I've been brave and actually hammered holes into my newly, (or at least it was new in October!), painted walls. These are prints I enlarged of some of the cool architecture that I love at Balboa Park in San Diego. I didn't use any saints or popes or naked ladies. And I could have. But, that might have been too much. Seashells, pillars and babies were the limit of my personal taste.

These hang just opposite my glass front door, so it was hard to get a picture of them without tons of glare, but I really like how they turned out.