Middle-Class Muggles

     I am a sucker for hot water. Which Hannah thinks is weird because I am almost always too warm. She constantly tells me that she is freezing when we are home and I'm just hanging out in a pair of shorts. But give me a hot shower, a hot tub, or best yet, a hot spring? Crank that temperature right up.      Of course with us moving to Utah, I searched to see if there were any hot springs close by. There are few things more satisfying in life then hiking in to somewhere remote, and being able to soak in deliciously warm water while enjoying nature. I found a few places with information on Fifth Water Hotsprings, located outside of Spanish Fork, Utah up Diamond Fork Canyon. The pictures found on Google seemed promising so we found a day that worked where we could get back late so I could have some prime lighting for pictures and we were off.      On a side note, if you want to head here, don't trust Google navigation on your phone. I tried...

     About a month ago, Hannah and I moved down to Ogden so I could start working before graduate school starts this fall. With orientation at my new job, unpacking, a couple building projects, and a trip up for my sister's baby showers, we have stayed pretty busy and haven't done too much hiking. Our first weekend here we were able to make it up to Logan and do some hiking with Dave and Kylee. We used to do all sorts of stuff with those two from camping, to motorcycle rides, to going on our first cruise with them. The last two years, Dave has been busy with graduate school in Utah while we were still living in Idaho. It was good to see them for longer than just dinner and great to be back outdoors with them! For their last weekend in Utah, and our first one, we hit up the Crimson Trail which is just outside of Logan, Utah.      After some decent elevation gain, the trail follows what is called the Great Wall. You can see how just off to the side of ...

So I've been on a kick where I like making furniture for Hannah and I. We are saving up for graduate school so we don't have lots of extra money for furniture but we want to have some nice stuff. So I build it! Our most recent project was a headboard for our bed. Here is a picture of our room after I made some nightstands for it. We had just gotten new bedding and the lamps and I made the night stands with some plans on Ana White's site . Where we are renting, we can't really paint the walls or anything so a headboard it was! This plan I found on Shanty-2-Chic's site . They had taken a plan from Ana White's site and chunkified (not a real word, I know.) it up. I liked the chunkier look and this is how it turned out. We really like the look and the fact that we can take it with us when we move. Hopefully this will be the set up down the road in the guest bedroom but for now it is all ours!

  So if you remember, about a month ago, Hannah and I made our first DIY piece of furniture and made ourselves a couple of nightstands. You can read about that adventure  here . They turned out so well that this time I decided we would make ourselves a coffee table. We've needed one/wanted one since we got married three years ago and now with my new found love of furniture making, I decided I would just make one.    I found this picture on Pinterest.    I loved the look of the table, the stained top, the painted sides, the solid look of the table. I found the plans for it and turns out they were Ana White plans. I should have known. The biggest problem with this gorgeous table was that it was too big for our living room. Hannah and I are renting an apartment right now and while we could fit the full size table in our living room, I didn't want one that big as I tend to do lots of activities in the living room. (Work out, play with the...

   One of the worst parts about working as a nurse and rotating between nights and days is that I have lots of time when I am trying to switch back to a day schedule when I have nothing to do and lots of time to kill. A few weeks ago, while switching sleep cycles, I found some plans for a really easy bedside table made entirely out of 2x4's. Hannah and I have wanted some bedside tables since we got married but haven't had the money to shell out a bunch for something decent. I personally am not a fan of particle board furniture but that is the only thing we could afford to buy while saving up for graduate school. The 2x4 night stands seemed like the solution for me.   As I looked more into the tables, I found that the plans came from a lady named Ana White . She has an entire website with plans for DIY furniture and the plans are all free. The furniture is absolutely beautiful. While looking through her site I found more night stand plans and eventually saw this photo...

   My wife loves me. She really does. However when it gets to be after 10:00 P.M. and we have been snowshoeing in the dark carrying over-night packs and we get to the end of the trail and the warming tent isn't there like it is supposed to be, I think she had second thoughts. Or maybe her thoughts were all about divorcing me by that point, I'm not quite sure.    It all started out in December. I had been thinking of fun things that Hannah and I could do in the winter with our dog, Rocky. For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to meet Rocky, here he is.    Back in September, Hannah and I rescued Rocky from the local animal shelter. He is a pitbull/rhodesian ridgeback mix who was just over two years old at the time of rescue. We don't know anything about his history but we got lucky and he is the most mellow dog I have ever met. He usually spends his days just like this    I'll be sure to put more up about him later but I'...