Here is an update on the rocking chair that I’ve been building for Elisabeth.

After letting the glue dry for a few days it was time to get back to work. The back and the front were already done so I attached them with cross bars.

Next was adding the seat. The seat, along with the back panels and the arms, is made out of cedar. I added some angled braces to help support the weight so the seat wouldn’t break.

This is the chair, which looks more like a throne at this point, after adding the arm rests.

The easy part is now over. The final requirement is to make the chair rock. I used a 2×8 made of redwood and cut the rockers out. I traced the rockers from another rocking chair just to make sure I got them right. After cutting them out I hand to sand them down so they would provide a smooth rock.

Once the rockers were cut out all that was left was to attach them to the bottom of the chair. In order to get a good rock (not too far back and not too far forward) I had to cut a bit off the legs (more off the back).

The construction is now complete! The chair is pretty comfortable and rocks nicely. Elisabeth wants to make some cushions for it, which would look nice on the solid wood. I just need to sand it down and lacquer it.

Summary:

Weight: about 5 lbs.

Height: 50″

Cost: $65

Types of wood used: Redwood and cedar

Hours taken: Around 10

Power tools used: Miter saw, jig saw, scroll saw, biscuit jointer, belt sander, electric screwdriver

Broke: 2 drillbits, 1 jigsaw blade, 1 scroll saw blade

Non-power tools used: Tape measure, square, pencil, wood glue, clamps, pliers, muscles–although these probably belong under the list of power tools 😉

Times cut: 0–an all time low!

Trips to home depot: 1–another all time low!

Now that school is out for the summer I decided that I needed a project. With the upcoming arrival of Pup I thought that the best project would be to design and build a rocking chair for Elisabeth.

After scouring the internet for ideas, I came up with a design of my own.

Today Elisabeth and I went to Home Depot and bought some wood. This chair will be built out of redwood and cedar. We took it home and I started cutting.

In order to attach the panels on the back I got to play with a fun toy: a bicuit jointer.

The biscuit jointer cuts a little rounded slot into the end of the board.

The slot is filled with wood glue and a wooden biscuit is placed inside.

Before cutting the cross boards.

After cutting the cross boards.

The panels are attached via biscuits to the cross boards.

Attaching the front legs.

The front and back legs. I decided to stop there for the day and let all the wood glue dry.

I’ll post updates as I make progress on the chair.

 

This last week we traveled down to St. George. It was SO much fun!

We arrived Thursday evening (19 April). We got to our hotel, unpacked and then headed off to find some food! We had made a list of restaurants in the area that sounded good (thank you internet!) and we went to one of those called the “Tiki Island Broiler.” It was quite similar to the idea of Rumbi, and it was quite yummy!  Also, they had a GORGEOUS place outside to eat! It was the perfect temperature, there was a fountain trickling away, we could hear kids playing in the pool nearby, and there were palm trees! We felt like we were in paradise! (It’s amazing how good it feels to be away from school for a while!)

The next day we found another great restaurant by chance. We saw a sign for Belgian waffles and we HAD to go check it out. It turns out that “Bear Paw Coffee” is a happening spot in St. George. We drove past it quite a few times and there was ALWAYS a line outside of it.  We had perfect timing, however, and didn’t have to wait at all! It makes a big difference when you’re in a group of 2 instead of 8!

After Breakfast, we went to a cool place called the “Coyote Gulch Art Village” outside of St. George in a place called Kayanta. There are around 80 artists that collaborate to set up a bunch of galleries including painting, photography, crafts, jewelry, pottery, etc.  We saw some beautiful things!  Saturday (the day after we were there) they had a big chalk drawing competition. We took some pictures of our favorite ones.

On Saturday, we started out our day by checking out the center of town. We went to the Tabernacle (and heard some fabulous cello/piano music!), we found a cute little toy store, we checked out the “town square” type thing that had fountains for kids to play in, and we found this random statue of Brigham Young. We’re basically BFF by now.

The highlight of our vacation was the Kite Festival! This is apparently the second largest annual event in southern Utah. There were tons of people there! We were probably the only people over the age of 12 who were there without toting along somebody who was under the age of 12. 🙂 The school kids love to come especially because if they do a certain number of hours of reading for school they get to redeem their tracking paper for a free kite!

This just had to be documented!

Despite being “grown ups” we had lots of fun with our kites!

The wind wasn’t very strong and so if you wanted your kite to stay up you had to run it basically constantly. I am proud to say that Pup and I were able to keep the kite up for at least a couple minutes!

Josh and I both received pretty impressive farmer tan lines (okay, they were just burns)!

That evening, we decided to do something manly. We went to a place called DUBs  (Devey’s Urban Barbeque). It was pretty good eatin’. Although it didn’t quite match up to that BBQ we had in Texas.

On Sunday, we went to visit the St. George Temple. It was beautiful! The grounds are covered in flowers! So, of course, we had to document it! Josh took these ones!

And this is the whole family in front of the temple! I will never get over how white that building is! It is just stunning!

We had such a great vacation! And now we’re back to school and work full time!

 

 

We’re sorry that we are just now posting some photographic evidence of our soon-to-be child, but we hope that this will not be the last you see before she is born. 🙂

These are some pictures of Elisabeth at 24 weeks. (Please excuse the goofy expressions.)

Now for some basic info.

Weight at 22 Weeks (last doctor’s visit): 136 lbs.

Morning Sickness: Pretty much gone. I had it a little bit until around the middle of January, but it was never too bad. I only threw up about 6 times in the whole first trimester, and all of those were in two or three of the worst days.

Baby movement: She is a real kicker sometimes! I think she gets mad at me when I lay on my stomach (I can understand that) and she will sometimes move a lot when I’m laying there. Josh felt her move for the first time on Sunday 26 February. He has since felt her several times.

Ultrasound information: When we got our 20 week ultrasound (at about 21 weeks) we found out the gender, and we also found out how her development is coming. The ultrasound tech said that, based on her head size, our little baby is exactly on track with my due date. All the developments that should have been noticable at 20 weeks were there and she said that everything looks great! (I love it when they use the word great!)

Maternity Attire Information: This is my first day wearing anything at all maternity. And it is actually only a really loose fitting regular shirt that Christina so generously allowed me to borrow. (Bless you Christina!) I am still wearing my regular pants and have not even graduated from needing the belt yet. (We’re almost there, I’m sure of it!) I guess that is the beauty about having hips that are at least one pants size bigger than your waist!

I can’t think of anything else to mention, but please feel free to pose any other questions you may have!

Yesterday we built gingerbread houses with the Monson’s. I was feeling a bit ambitious so I decided that the best thing to build would be Saint Peter’s Basilica. This was my inspiration:

Here are some pictures documenting the process:

Two preliminary walls. A good start.

The main dome.

The unmounted dome and walls.

The dome now mounted.

Dome and walls all done. Now I need to start on the roof

I finished with the cardboard structure. We are now ready to decorate!

Started covering the facade with grahams.

Finished graham-ing… ready to cover with candy!

Working on the facade.

Me with the finished giant.

A view of the finished thing from the front.

Up close of the finished dome.

Side view of the finished thing.

Elisabeth decided that she wanted to build a piano. It turned out great. A few pics:

The finished piano.

Look how awesome the back of hers is.

Up close of the piano.

So since our last post, school decided to pick up quite heavily, and thus we have been remiss in writing about our super exciting life. I’ll just give you some highlights

1. We won the French Club costume contest at Halloween! The reason we won (my guess) is because Josh had this AWESOME mask!
   

   Wouldn't you vote for him?!

   

   When you see a sign that says anything that sounds like "Jimmer" you just have to record it This was just outside Fort Leonard Wood (where Nathan trained).

2. Josh’s family participates in the Nightmare Express train ride every year. He and his dad and brother Aaron make the light-show and it is really great! This year, the train had over 11,000 visitors! (We’re pretty famous like that!)
3. Apparently the month of November was rather uneventful month because neither of us could think of anything that we did between Halloween and Thanksgiving. School was all, I guess.
4. After a wonderful Thanksgiving of turkey and happiness with family, we took off for about 4 days to Missouri for Army boot-camp graduation. Josh’s cousin Nathan graduated and is now in Arizona for Officer Intelligence Training!
5. And finally, as of this morning, we have both finished all our classes for the semester, and only finals are left until we are FREE! (for awhile)
   

   We stopped at a cheese outlet on the way back to the Branson airport, and we HAD to get a picture with the giant cheese!

   

   This is the men with the manly looking army tractor thing. Nathan is the one in the uniform! Uncle Tyler is in red, Josh is left of Tyler, and Justin is left of Josh.

This one’s for all you who like to diagnose car problem. See if you can get this one:

Last Saturday Elisabeth and I were heading to the temple and were driving up the hill on the south side of the Provo temple. Right as we were approaching our parking spot our car just, well, turned off. We had just enough momentum to coast to our parking spot. That was quite fortuitous. It wouldn’t start after that. When we turned the key the engine turned over but wouldn’t start.

This happened once before. After waiting an hour or so it started again. We went to the temple an hoped that it would start afterwards. Well, it didn’t. Michael was nice enough to come and take us home.

We stopped by the next day and tried to start it again. It was the same as before: turned over but didn’t start. We got it towed to a mechanic and the problem fixed.

Any guesses? (If you already know then don’t say 🙂

For our first blog post, we are including a lovely sample of pictures of our lovely families from our lovely wedding! We love you!

Love, Josh and Elisabeth Monson