Nilsson News

What a week!  We started it off by going to Addy's clogging competition in Pocatello and from there headed down to Utah.  Nick had his favorite gun getaway in Vegas so we decided to keep Lauren company (I hope we haven't permanently worn out her boys!).  Garrett, Addy, Emerson and Eliza went and met up with a few members of Garrett's family in Zion's.  They played with cousins, hiked Angel's Landing and enjoyed a little better weather.  While they were exploring the southern part of Utah, Mille, Henry and I stayed in American Fork and did a fun little bedroom makeover project.  Mom and Dad came down on Monday and that was an immense help.  Peter and Elise joined in on the fun on Tuesday.  We enjoyed the sunshine, went to a delightful storytime at the library, played at the park and were treated to some fantastic soft serve ice cream.  In between all of that, we painted, painted and painted some more!  Wesley and Chet were very good to share all their toys with their overly energetic cousins and Lauren fed us delicious food and was the perfect host.  The bedroom took on a total transformation and looks lovely!  I hope someone will share some pics!

When we got home, all of the sudden it seemed like the world turned upside down!  Another reason to move to Idaho is because disease and sickness doesn't seem to make it here.  As of yesterday, we only had one confirmed case of the virus in Boise.  Just sayin...  Anyway, I attempted the grocery store at 5:30 on Saturday morning when generally there isn't a soul to be seen.  The parking lot was packed.  It was insane!  No tortillas (except the whole wheat ones which is what we eat), no potatoes (wait, don't we live in the potato capitol of the world?), no butter, no flour, no bananas or oranges, no immune support anything, no chicken or beef.  I am so grateful to mom who taught us how to cook from scratch, can my garden produce, and to have a decent amount of food storage.  As I was standing in line for the next hour, I was intrigued to see what priorities made it into people's carts.  Packs of soda, frozen pizza, cases of ramen, piles of frozen instant dinners, gallons of Tampico and of course, toilet paper.  It is quite the time in which we live but we are eagerly looking forward to the springtime!
On Thursday, the kids and I got our supplies to do our own tree tapping!  We tapped into two of our Silver Maple trees and our big Box Elder tree (which is a relative to the maple).  As soon as we drilled the hole, the sap started dripping out.  In just two days time, our five gallon buckets are already half full!  Apparently you can leave the taps in for a good two weeks so that should give us a good amount of sap.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.  It has been a really fun project and the kids like going out and checking to see if the taps are still draining well and report on how much sap we have collected.

 It has been raining for the past couple of days which has allowed us to just about finish our kitchen!  We have a few touch up things left, but for now, I am calling it complete!  Are you ready for picture over load?  I love before and afters...

We love our new space!  It has been a long awaited and long drawn out project.  We kept the original cabinets and just filled in the engraved areas with wood filler on the drawers and then added some thin wood strips around the edges of the cupboard doors to give it a shaker style look.  We kept the orginal hinges and polished them up (they were disgusting!)  I may need to make it more of a priority to clean my hinges regularly so they don't end up collecting 60 years worth or grease and grime.  The shelves are made out of our old kitchen table that was falling apart.  We took it all apart and the slabs were just the right size for all our shelves.  Just a few more pictures...

Okay, I'll stop.  We are excited about being able to enjoy this much used space more fully.  We hope you are all able to stay healthy and well and maybe we will see you at some future time!