Glass Blowing

Way back in February, Bryce sent me a link for a grupon deal for glass blowing for two. I thought it would be really fun, so I sent it to our friends Cris and Jason as well so we could go together. Wellll, we all forgot about it until two weeks before the deal expired... in June. Apparently almost 4 months is still too short to find time haha So, hastily Cris and I scheduled it for the last Saturday it was available because was the only time we could all go because of work and everything else... or so we thought. Turns out, Cris and Jason had to be at a family thing and they were not able to go with us! Procrastination is definitely not our friend!
We walked around for a while as we waited for our turn and looked at all the things they had hanging up on their walls that they made there

They do a lot of the stained glass windows in temples all over. There was a picture of some stained glass from the Twin Falls Temple in their shop! 

When we were looking at the flowers people did before us I noticed "Jurgensmeier" written on one and apparently Bryce and Mckenna did their flowers right before us! 

Anyway, deal was to make glass flowers. We got to choose our colors and they helped us pull the glass and roll it to make it just right. The colors were just tiny pieces of colored broken glass. They heated up the glass then dipped it in the colors and heated it up again.

Here's a video of Josh rolling the glass after its been heated so that it could fall a little from gravity and then it was ready to be fired again. 

This video is the guy dipping it into colored glass to get the color Josh wanted and then heating it up again to melt it in. 

And this video is the actual pulling of the glass to make it into a flower! 

So I guess we didn't actually blow glass, it was more like glass pulling. But it was so fun! The room we were in was like a sauna, obviously, because the ovens were so so hot. The one they use in the video they said that they never turn it off. It goes year round and when they clean it out, it takes a week to get it back to the right temperature. When they opened the oven, it shot out a blast of really hot air and even the 5'x5' fan blowing at you from behind didn't help with the sweltering heat.  

waiting anxiously to get started! The fan was right behind me and was blowing my hair around like crazy! 

We couldn't take our flowers home right away because they were still really hot and they needed to be placed in an oven for 24 hours or else they would cool too fast and shatter. Now we have them home and they look awesome! 

gone fishin'

Before our friends Colby and Aubrie moved to California, we went fishing one Saturday. Josh and Colby went early early that morning but just weren't content with their one catch of the day so they picked up their wives and we headed out to Currant Creek for the rest of the day. We pulled off the road and Josh caught a fish on his first cast! I thought if its that easy, we'll be catching fish all day!

However, that wasn't the case. I guess you could say that we mostly went casting, exploring, and walking around the creek instead of fishing. We'd cast a few times and if the fish weren't biting, we'd just head on to the next spot.

One time, the only way to get to another spot was to climb over a beaver dam! We tried to go around but the tree branches were too thick, so we just climbed on over!

We ended the night with some hot dogs and smores over a fire then packed up and headed home. Even though we didn't catch any fish, it was a beautiful day hanging out with friends and being outside. And I got to have some delicious smores, can't beat that!

Parties and Parades

One of my best friends Joelle is due to have a baby in less than two weeks! She is such a cute pregnant lady with a perfect little basketball baby belly.

She had a baby shower on July 3rd and it was so fun to see her. I've known that she's going to have a baby for a while now, but it just didn't seem real until I saw her this past week. She is going to be the best mom and I'm really excited to see Baby Driscoll when she gets here!

It was so great seeing some of my friends while we were there too. Ashley came from Oklahoma and it was so fun to see her after months and months, and it was fun to see Sadie and get a sneak peak of her wedding dress! She's going to be a gorgeous bride in less than a month!

The next day we went to the fabulous Rupert Parade after a flag raising ceremony at the church. My mom made cool red, white, and blue leis for all the little kids to wear at the parade. I still can't believe she made all of them, they looked amazing and I was a little jealous!

After the parade Mom and I made this.. 

 while these two did this...

 and Dad did this.

Kev's birthday was on the 8th so we put in some candles and sang to him on the 4th. 

 We also got to see the Beach Boys sing at the Stadium of Fire! They were great and I knew all of their songs which was really fun!