Tie-dying with the Guys

The last time that I attempted to tie-dye a shirt it was a disaster. The only colors left were pink and brown and there wasn't really much of them left either so the shirt ended up mostly white. I have been wanting to successfully tie-dye a shirt for a while now and finally found some willing comrades with which to do it: Taylor and Tyson! (We invited Amanda too but she didn't come.)

We went to Wally World to get our supplies. You would think that girls take more time and are picker about clothes shopping but I beg to differ. We were in the men's t-shirt section forever trying to find shirts that were long enough but not too wide for both Taylor and Tyson. Ha! Who knew that men's clothes are so complicated?!

Once we made our purchases we drove back to the "Brown House" to start creating our master pieces. We had each tie-dyed a shirt once previously so we had an equal amount of experience. I went for the safe/typical tie-dye shirt pattern but both of the boys were being more creative. I got done quickly and was very entertained watching their creativity flow. :) 

 

We finally all finished:

 

Tyson's and my gloves had holes in them so we ended up with very colorful hands. I had concluded that I would just have to go to work the next day with a green hand but Tyson was not pleased with his colorful fingers. He came up with the idea to use rubbing alcohol to get it off. It worked so I joined him in color-removing. We eventually found out that bleach works even better but you have to wash your hands pretty quickly afterward or else it starts to burn.

We finished cleaning and then parted ways for the night. We left the shirts with Taylor (who doesn't have to pay for laundry) to wash and dry the next day. Thank you Taylor! For the sake of the blog I forced them to get together the next day and model our finished products:

I thought that they were all pieces of art but both of the boys refused to leave the house wearing their lovely new shirt. What a shame! 

I am so glad that I have some friends from home going to school with me up here. Seeing a familiar face is so refreshing sometimes! Thanks Taylor and Tyson for helping me accomplish my goal of producing a good tie-dyed shirt and having fun with me in the process!

Who Knew?

On June 9th I ran my very first half marathon! My sister Wendi signed up to run in a while ago but ended up going on a cruise instead. I week or two before the race I decided, what the heck, I will run her race. I hadn't trained for it at all but if it was already paid for I might as well burn some calories, right? I have tried twice in the past to train and run half marathons but both times I got sick the week of the race and couldn't run. I had never run more that eight miles straight before in my life and that had even been two years ago. I was expecting to walk a good chunk of my race. Well I started off running and never stopped! I ran it in 2 hours and 15 minutes which is about 30 minutes faster than I had been hoping! Because I crossed the finish line at an unexpected time there was no one to cheer me on or take a picture so this picture taken before the race is the only one I have. I am sure that the only reason why I could run the whole way was because it was nearly all down hill. Thank goodness! I didn't do much the rest of the day because I was tired and my knees were killing me so I just relaxed. What a good day! Thanks Wendi for letting run your race!