Completed State

I actually finished something! Carly and I spent for-ev-er on these bad boys but the end result is so worth it. 

Here's a close up. I like all the little imperfections in the boards and I'm so happy with how the string art hearts turned out that I have another string craft in the works. 

Hanging them was ....challenging. They're about 30 feet up on a wall over the stairwell to my basement.  Obviously, it's a bad idea for me to get up that high on a ladder at this point in my pregnancy. My center of gravity is already unbalanced!  We tried our 17 ft ladder and it wasn't nearly tall enough, but Laura the Great let us use her 22 ft ladder and with some creative reaching and precarious placement along the bannister ledge, it was juuuust tall enough. Gives us a new respect for those American Ninja Warriors, scaling walls and such that are much much higher. Yikes!  Anyway, we moved the ladder in several configurations and got each of them up. Where there is a will, there is a way! There is NO WAY I could've finished with out the help of friends, so I'm thankful for them risking their necks, instead of me attempting it. I realized I'm finally at the point in my pregnancy where my independence is getting limited and it can be frustrating to have to ask for help with things I'm used to handling myself. "Will you carry/lift this for me?" That sort of stuff. So thankful for friends! Also, 3 cheers for monkey wire hooks. (Thanks for the tip, Kasey! I'm a fan!)

I just love walking by them in my living room. Aaron and I have had fun reflecting on our time spent in each place, the people we met, jobs we had, ward dynamics, and the places we lived: the basement apartment in Provo, Utah, the studio over a garage in Morgan Hill, California (that cost an outrageous $1200/month for rent, you guys.) with a cape cod ceiling, so Aaron hit his head on the wall every morning when he got out of bed, the town home in Boise, Idaho, right by BSU and the temple and up the street from Wells Fargo so Aaron could walk to work, the dorm Aaron shared with a roommate (Greg?) in Charleston, South Carolina while in training to become a Border Patrol agent (longest 5 months of our marriage), and a charming 90 year old home in Green Bay, Wisconsin that we remodeled by night when baby Reese slept. We are coming up on 9 years in Arkansas. We moved around like 10 times before the move here and we (I) never expected it to be permanent, but these days, anyone spending 9 years in the same place is like a lifetime!

I loved this project for the memories it stirred and the time reflecting on where our marriage has taken us and how we have grown in each place.