Fall in Provo Canyon

My husband and I had the opportunity to go to Provo, Utah to watch the BYU Homecoming game in October. One of our sons is a member of the BYU Cougar Marching Band and this was our first time watching him march in that band. It was awesome!

While we were in Utah, we went to Provo Canyon and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors. I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took while we were there.

I hope you enjoyed my photos of Provo Canyon, Utah. The fall colors really were spectacular!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

New Kitchen and Dining Room Flooring and Some Big News

In a previous post from May of this year, I shared the news that we were going to replace our kitchen and dining room flooring with CORETec Plus Luxury Vinyl Tile. It's waterproof which is awesome! We chose one that looks like Travertine. It's called Noce Travertine and it's beautiful.

Here are some pictures showing the flooring being replaced and what it looked like after it was installed.

I think it turned out great! I hope the new owners of our home enjoy it. Yep. I said new owners. That's the big news. In July of this year we decided to sell our house and buy a new one.

In the spring of this year we made lots of upgrades to our home. We replaced the carpets in the whole house, updated the fireplace, changed the tile flooring in the entry way, and changed the flooring in the kitchen and dining room. We also bought a new dishwasher. But these changes weren't because we were planning on selling our home.

In July we were looking at new homes with a family member and decided to buy a new construction home. It's in the process of being built now and should be completed at the end of January 2017. We sold our home in the photo above. Escrow is supposed to close next week.

It's been a busy, exciting, and yes even stressful time lately with all of these changes in our lives. Thankfully, the stress of selling our home is greatly diminished now since we sold it. And I expect it will diminish even more once escrow has closed next week.

I haven't been very active here on my blog lately. The process of selling our home and buying a new one has been so time and energy consuming. You may also remember that two of our children got married this year. I shared photos of those happy events in earlier posts. So ya, it's been a super busy year for us. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to blogging more regularly in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

The Morro Bay Sand Spit

Earlier this month my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a trip to the California's Central Coast. Our anniversary was actually last month, but we were very busy with our third-oldest son's wedding.

During our trip to the coast, we went to Morro Bay and kayaked in the Morro Bay Estuary. We paddled around a bit and then headed to the Morro Bay Sand Spit that separates the bay from the Pacific Ocean.

Kayaking Selfie

We parked the kayak on the sand and walked from the bay side of the dunes to the Pacific Ocean side.

This Google Map shows Morro Bay, the Estuary and the sand spit where we went. We rented our kayak from Kayak Horizons in Morro Bay. That red star on the map shows approximately where the shop is located. The blue arrow is pointing to the spot where we parked the kayak and the red arrow is the beach area of the sand spit where we ended up.

See that yellow double kayak on the left in the photo below? That's the one we rented from Kayak Horizons. We parked it there and then walked over the dunes to the Pacific Ocean side of the sand spit.

There's a roped-off path leading to the beach on the Pacific Ocean side of the sand spit.

That's my husband up ahead of me.

And there he is at the shoreline.

This stretch of beach is so pretty and quite secluded. We were the only people here at the time we visited. This isn't the first time we've been here. We've come here with our kids in the past.

My husband and I enjoyed walking along the beach, getting our feet wet, and picking up sea shells.

While we were enjoying the sights and sounds of the ocean, I recorded a short video using my cell phone. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

Home Improvements ~ Our Fireplace Remodel Is Finished

Hurray! Our fireplace remodel is done. This last Saturday, my husband painted the mantel. He made the mantel himself earlier this month. What a talented guy!

Here are a few pics of the process.

One of our friends let us borrow some of his tools. Thank you so much!

Here it is with the crown molding installed.

And here's what our fireplace mantel looks like now that it's been painted.

Here's a little bit of a side view so you can get a better view of the crown molding on the mantel.

Since our home improvement projects began a few months ago, we've had new carpet installed throughout our home, new tile installed in the entry hall, new flooring installed in the kitchen and dining room, and our fireplace has been remodeled. It's been a busy few months, but it's been so worth it.

I haven't shared photos of the new flooring in our kitchen and dining room here on my blog yet. I'll do that in a future post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

A Family Visit to Bridal Veil Falls

We had the wonderful opportunity to attend the wedding of our third-oldest son about a week ago in Utah. It was a beautiful wedding and we're so happy for our son and new daughter-in-law.

While we were there in Utah, we took the opportunity to visit Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon.

We have visited the Falls in the past. They are beautiful and there's a great paved trail that leads to and beyond the Falls called Provo River Parkway Trail.

Here's a picture of the Provo River along the trail.

The scenery along the trail was really pretty.

While we were walking along the trail, we saw a few people that had stopped and were looking at something. It was this baby rattlesnake! Whoa!

Yes, we stayed away from that little guy for sure. Scary!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

Home Improvements ~ Surprise Flooring

Guess what. Our home improvement projects aren't done yet. We have another unexpected project ahead of us.

Two days before our carpet installation, my husband discovered that water was leaking from our refrigerator. Yup. And, the leak ruined our kitchen floor. We have laminate in the kitchen and dining room. The seams buckled and as we stepped on the floor we could feel and hear the water underneath.

Thankfully, our homeowners insurance is paying for most, if not all, of the cost to replace our floor. We are not going with laminate again. And we don't want tile. So, we are going with a newer type of floor. It's waterproof, which is awesome! It's a luxury vinyl plank floor. It isn't glued down. It's floated. We chose to go with COREtech Plus. To learn more about this product, click HERE.

At first, we thought we needed a new refrigerator in addition to a new floor. But, it turned out that it was a leak in a water hose. A quick and simple fix. Whew!

Then came the time to choose new flooring again. Should we go with a floor that looks like wood, slate, stone, travertine, or marble? We chose the Noce Travertine. Here's the link to it on the COREtech website - Noce Travertine. In the photo below, it's the sample that's second from the right on the top row.

We received bids from two flooring companies. Now we just need to decide which bid to go with and schedule the installation.

After this is done, our house will have all new flooring except for the bathrooms. And the bathrooms don't need new flooring because they had beautiful tile installed several years ago.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved

Home Improvements ~ New Carpet

A week ago today our new carpet was installed. There was a lot of preparation that had to take place before installation. The installers moved the furniture but we had to empty the bookcases and the curio cabinet. We also had to clear out all of the closet floors and move any electronics ourselves such as TV's and computers.

It took a few days to get everything prepared. It pretty much was like moving. We packed boxes full of books and other items.

Oh, hey! There's the box with my family history binders (front box in photo)! I've been looking for that and haven't found it yet. Now I know what kind of box to look for. I'm sure glad I took this photo.

These aren't even all of the boxes we used. We ended up with stacks of boxes, furniture, and other items in our garage and on our back patio. We also had to remove all of the bedding from the beds as part of the preparation too.

We finally finished preparations and on Thursday morning the installers arrived with the new carpet. My husband took the day off of work while the carpet was being installed. We basically spent the day in our kitchen and dining room that was filled with furniture and other items that had been moved in there.

I was glad to see that our computer desk was one of the items that was placed in the dining area, so I set up my laptop there.

The installers moved the furniture and removed all of the old carpet and padding. They used blue tape with corresponding numbers on the walls and pieces of furniture so they would know where to put the furniture after installation.

They also sealed any cracks in the concrete slab and cleaned and swept the concrete in preparation for the new carpet.

They even vacuumed the new carpet after it was installed using their own vacuum!

So, here it is. The new carpet has now been installed. We chose Shaw's English Saddle. You can see it online by clicking HERE.

Our home improvement projects aren't quite complete yet. My husband is going to make a mantel for our fireplace. Yay!

We also have another project to take care of. This was an unexpected project. Our refrigerator started leaking water and by the time it was noticed, our laminate floor in the kitchen was ruined. Sigh....

We thought our refrigerator was going to need to be replaced, but thankfully it was just a water hose that was leaking and was a quick fix. Our home insurance policy is covering most, if not all, of the cost to replace our kitchen and dining room floor. Whew! What a blessing! My husband and I just need to decide on new flooring for that area of our home.

We'd like to get all of these projects completed before our son's wedding in June. Yup, we have a wedding coming up. Actually, two weddings. Our youngest son got engaged recently and his wedding is coming up later this year. Happy times for our family. We truly are blessed.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved

The Sounds of Rushing Water

Last month my husband and I took a trip to Yosemite National Park. I shared a photo of Bridalveil Fall in my previous post.

It was a gorgeous day. The weather was perfect - not too hot and not too cold.

While we were there, I took photos and even some short videos too. I uploaded the videos to my YouTube Channel. I'd like to share three of those videos with you today.

This first one is Bridalveil Fall.

These two are Bridalveil Creek.

 

There's just something so wonderful about listening to the sounds of rushing water. I hope you enjoyed the videos.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved