the table

we found our reclaimed wood off craigslist in the east mountains of albuquerque. we had a limited quantity with all different lengths and thicknesses. grant laid out all the wood and without any instructions, designed our table 100% from scratch. including the idea of putting our rusted hardware on the outside of the table. i am still amazed at how he pulled it all together. there were so many little obstacles he dealt with because every board was so different. because the wood was probably milled near one hundred years ago, each piece bowed in different directions... some had knots that required sanding the underneath just to make it so that they all laid flat. so much work went into each board. each piece has so much character.
one big concern was making sure that the table was sturdy, especially since the wood cracked so easily because of being so old. grant pulled some tricks here and there and by the time we flipped the table over... we just laughed because it was SOOOO heavy and definitely DEFINITELY stable. :) he had to call a friend to help load it into the house from the garage, i could barely lift it from the ground.
we are buying a clear vinyl tablecloth to put over the table for meals. people always ask about getting slivers. we didn't want to sand the boards down because that would take away from all the reasons we bought this type of wood in the first place (color & texture). those flowers are from my birthday (aren't they so pretty? and ginormous?!) i'm so excited to have this table for the coming years. and i think the best part is that it was built by grant. makes it so meaningful. i love to just sit and look at it.

this post was linked up to multiple link parties but with all the errors that went on, they were erased.

 so now i don't remember which ones i chose!

this table has been featured here:

rusting the hardware

i think i've mentioned on here before that grant and i have always wanted to make a barnwood table. we've been obsessed with antiqued/weathered wood forever, it's that gray color mixed with the raw-ness of the wood that has us so attached. we've actually been done with the table for a few months now but we're just now getting around to posting it. anyway so when we went to buy all the hardware, we realized that we couldn't be adding shiny silver brackets and bolts to an old antique table.... i mean that would just be silly! so grant did all this research on rusting hardware and then rusted every little nut and bolt that we used. ya... kind of a process. and i'm not even talking about how hard it was for him to make the table. buying old wood is not like buying new wood. maybe he can explain later how hard it truly was. either way... we have a beautiful table now! :) here is a little video on how to antique hardware. the last part is the best "full reveal of the table... coming soon!" dun dun dun.

we've linked this up to a few parties...
funky junk interiors
chic on a shoestring
craft envy
tatertots and jello
a vision to remember
at the picket fence
flamingo toes
diy showoff

wesley

 This is Wes.

Wes' other blog is your mom.

You won't be disappointed.

Oh yeah, we raised an alligator together.

-Grant

why i love my husband #333

last year grant had the idea of making organic teething rings. we had so many friends having babies, we thought it was a perfect idea (however i'm wondering now if maybe he just wanted a good excuse to buy another tool). he found some wood at some random guy's woodshop and started right away. we had to figure something out because he was using all his tools in the kitchen. which i'm pretty sure is supposed to be the place where you make food. sawdust was not tasting good so he built his own woodbench and worked outside. after practicing some wood teething rings, he brought me his first little animal, the hippo made from walnut up top on the left. i fell in love! it was so beautiful. after cutting out the shape, he would spend lots of time sanding each down so that they were as smooth as can be. then he would apply an all natural beeswax and mineral mixture which seals everything in (which actually is a better option than plastic since no bacteria can get inside). it was hard for both of us to give them away. especially because we gave our favorites away (besides my walnut hippo up there). we gave them to some of our really good friends and know they will take care of them well :). aren't they cute? grant is so talented at everything. he is much more of a perfectionist than me. and sometimes when i think he is being way too picky (... halloween costumes), the end result is always worth his time. i really think he can do anything. whether it's to sell an alarm to anti alarm people, sight read piano music, teach someone how many bones are actually in the wrist, make a look alike anthropologie lamp or build me a bike, find the most amazing antiques or play one of the hardest sports and rock at it.... he is just amazing. 

they really love green chile here

i think it's clear that life is just much more entertaining than the blog world these days. i guess we all go through phases. i like it here. the weather is beautiful, the people at walmart are so nice and friendly, there is more to do than i thought and grant is doing wonderful. our past summers we spent days off exploring all the thrift stores and antique malls we could find. there were lots on the east coast but i am happy to say that there are lots here too. i wish we had all our stuff in one place so i could just admire all of our fun finds that will one day go in a home. my favorite thing is to actually have something in mind and then find it! it's so much fun.

so recently i have come across something that has CHANGED MY LIFE. its called blue bell icecream. it is the yummiest ice cream i have ever had. made in texas and apparently exclusive to certain states. definitely not in utah yet or i would have known. anyway they have it here and since we've been here we've gone through 4 half gallons (2 gallons) so far. my family is coming to visit next week so i will definitely be loading up the freezer with more. pistachio almond is sooooo yummy. they even have cookie dough bars. cookie dough on a stick! and yes you get a chunk of cookie dough in every bite... (my dad will be so happy). don't know how i ever lived without it.

grant and i learn more about each other every day. i love that i get to spend my life's journey with him. i still feel so lucky every day. our communication gets better and better. for example the other day i spent hours in the fabric store (also hobby lobby "creative center"- love that place) and was really and i mean REALLY excited to show grant that night, what my next projects would be. so when i picked him up later, i had already thought ahead about how i could make our conversation go just the way i wanted. i said to him "so i have some stuff i got at the fabric store that i'm really excited to show you, can you just pretend to be my girlfriend and get really excited? it would mean a lot to me". let me also just add that learning to even just communicate that.... i mean let's just say i have come a long way. i never knew that i needed to tell him how i wanted him to respond, (how does he not know to jump up and down and act like fabric is the most exciting thing in the whole world??!? i mean hello?!?!) so anyway by the time we ate and got ready for bed, i could tell he was tired. i pulled out my stuff and i had all of his attention. this is when things went downhill. of course since he was looking at me and listening... i started taking advantage of that and talking WAY TOO MUCH. going into details about how finding a pattern is hard and you really have to have an imagination because the patterns are no where near modern and how they choose the ugliest colors and how maybe i could use these old glass buttons i had for this and how hancock's sales are so weird and random but at least they have them and........ well i noticed he was getting a little distracted. so i told him that i had waited all day to tell him this stuff and it didn't really seem like he was that into it. he then expressed that he was exhausted, had already been listening forever (hahah that part is so funny to me) and he just wanted to hang out, play on his phone and relax. then i just felt stupid because who wouldn't want to just lay down and relax after knocking doors for 10 hours. i felt so bad and so we came up with a conclusion, when i have something to tell him that is a little more on the girly side and i really want him to be excited about, i will only take about five minutes and just get right to the point. if i need more than that then i should probably just call a girl. i was very grateful to just appreciate our differences instead of getting offended or something, (still trying to understand why mixing patterned fabrics doesn't give him a surge of energy...??), we smiled and then kissed. maybe more, i don't know. but the point is i just love him.  i can't wait for one day where our differences will never ever be frustrating, when they will instead just makes us laugh. i think we are on our way there.

my wife won't let me capitalize titles of posts

Shiny Sperry shoes are spectacular no doubt, but I have decided to virtually document an event that took place a few weeks ago in the heart of the holiday season...

WARNING: The following material is for mature audiences, viewer discretion is advised... (Britt's gets grossed out at the videos)

A few close friends and I decided to celebrate the spirit of Christmas... but how? Fact: Everyone knows that there is no more a festive drink than Egg Nog. We thought about it for what seemed like at least 17 seconds then came up with the conclusion that the more Egg Nog we consume, the more we love Christmas. From there we took steps to procure a giant punch bowl, 5 holiday mugs, our favorite festive get-ups, and a bum-load of Nog. We thought the more people that saw us celebrating Christmas the better, so we decided that the quad area on BYU campus would be perfect. It went something like this: everyone dip a mug in the Nog, drink it down, then repeat until you throw up. The idea was that we wanted to see who loved Christmas the most (drink the most Nog). Oh, and to make it even more interesting we each threw in $5 and the last person standing took the pot. Turns out Wes only loves Christmas a little and go ahead and call Rob Kris Kringle cuz he really loves it!

invictus

we saw invictus friday night and just loved it. i think all my favorite movies are sports movies. i appreciated this one even more though because of all the years of watching grant play rugby. he played in high school and then BYU for five years. i've grown to love the sport and since grant ran out of eligibility he has missed it like crazy. i will never forget when his coach, said to me in our wedding line (to tease me), "in all my years of coaching, nobody has ever hit as hard as grant barnes".

we also always appreciate a good clean film. it's not that i only like the warm fuzzy kind but it's a great feeling when your mood can change from ordinary to inspired after watching a movie. that's when a movie is really worth your time. the history in this was great, i loved learning more about nelson mandela. what a brilliant and honorable man. if you haven't already, go see it!

p.s. speaking of movies.... can't wait for this.

...I don't know why my wife didn't post this!

Here's a video that we took while at Gatorland...

I love emus.

mini grants

When I have little boys, I want them to look just like this...

To be perfectly reverent like this...

And I will for sure be dressing them like this...

Are You Allowed To Do That?

Grant Here:
I'm not so sure that Brittany is allowed to tag me on our own blog (I'm not sure if that's in the Blog rules anywhere) but I'll give it a whirl...

3 JOYS

1) My Wife.

2) Wildlife.

3) Fixing up and riding bicycles (You should see my chopper).

3 CURRENT GOALS

1) Visit all 50 states.

2) Ride an ostrich.

3) Get in a shark cage in South Africa.

3) Ride a bull.

3) Finish the summer strong.

3) Read scriptures daily.

3) Graduate from BYU ("A lot of people go to school for 7 years." "Yeah, ...they're called doctors.")

3) Get back in shape.

3 CURRENT OBSESSIONS

1) The Olympics.

2) Harry Freakin' Potter.

3) Home security systems (I'm so obsessed, I pretty much talk about them all day long).

3 FEARS

1) Nothing.

2) Sometimes clowns.

3 RANDOM FACTS

1) I am a seamstress. I have made many a Halloween costume in my day (Cupid, Dorothy, Peter Pan & Tinkerbell, Catholic Priest, Etc.).

2) I enjoy memorizing/writing poetry.

3) I am not gay.

Grant's Tribute to the Olympic Games:

Aftermath

BRITTANY'S WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES; PARENTAL DISCRETION IS ADVISED. (She thinks the pictures are gross)

Grant here...

Britt told me that I should wear sunscreen when we went to Virginia Beach. Even though I didn't want to, I thought that she was right. My two choices were SPF 3000 Ultra-Super-Mega-Sun-Blocker or SPF 4 tanning stuff. My dilemma; my pasty body hadn't seen the sun all summer so I knew I'd get burnt if I didn't use a high SPF, BUT since I wanted to put some color on my canvas I didn't want to come away from the beach sunblocked.

So, I went with the SPF 4.

Here are the results the night of the beach...

After 3 days of Britt thinking I was a wuss and overreacting,

 my entire back was covered with blisters.

Current Phase -

Phase 1 - extreme burning

Phase 3 - non-stop itching

Phase 2 - a combination of the two; something I call BITCHING

Next time I'll listen to my wife.

BYU RUGBY

Sadly, this last semester was Grant's last season for eligibility. I thought that when it came to an end I would be so relieved; Grant's body could finally just relax and heal. He played 4 years in high school and 5 years at BYU. I swear his body is equivalent to and 80 year old sometimes. I don’t even know how many injuries he’s had. 

For those of you who aren't aware, rugby is a very crazy dangerous game. It is basically a mix of soccer and football... but absolutely NO pads. A lot is required of a collegiate athlete. A LOT of hard, hard, HARD work and hours of practicing. Rugby took a lot of Grant’s time. With trying to graduate soon, he could barely handle his crazy chemistry schedule, let alone rugby. He always had to do something or be somewhere and he could never just sit for 5 minutes. But really when it all came to an end, I think we all felt sad inside.

It was a really confusing game for me to learn, but as the season went on... I loved to go to the games. I loved the sport. I loved the team. I was always so impressed by the players and their devotion to BYU, their coaches and even their teammates. On the road I had the opportunity to see more of their traveling schedule and every day started with a very spiritual devotional. I’m so grateful Grant had a chance to be apart of this program. BYU Rugby is known for not only their talent, those players are intelligent, honorable and respectful. 

And its because of all that, they can really DOMINATE on the field. The team played a rough final game against the infamous Cal Berkeley. They took second place in the Rugby Collegiate National Championship for the third year in a row. 

Grant has a huge passion for rugby, at times I really felt like the sport was created for him! He was so devoted, never missing a practice or game. He really gave it everything he could. I know that even though he is saying goodbye to 9 years of rugby playing...you can still count on us being at every game next year! Go BYU!

P.S. We both want to say thank you to all our friends and family for supporting Grant so much and being at so many of his games. Thank YOU and we LOVE you!!