Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Sunny Side Up and Dogs. :)

I found this Sunny Side Up fabric when I was at Fabric Depot last summer. I bought a yard of it and figured I'd make a quilt someday. When I got home, I realized I hadn't bought enough of this egg cuteness. So, I ordered more and finally got it out and made this quilt. I call it "sunny side up". :) The "egg" blocks are Greek Cross or Churn Dash blocks. I like making them since they're pretty easy. I quilted the egg blocks in a random little scrambled stitching. I quilted little suns on the big blocks.


































I had some fabric left over and I didn't want it to go to waste, so I decided to dig out my BH&G Quilts and More to find Monica's (yeah, I'm name-dropping. She's a famous magazine contributor) pattern for a super easy pockety bag. Here is my version of her wonderful bag. I'll be using it and making everyone jealous. :) I might have to get more of this darling fabric and make a few more. Hey, Monica, I LOVE this pattern. I made my bag bigger just to use up all the egg fabric. :)










My friend Lacey asked if I would make a quilt to raffle off for the Boxer Dog club. I said yes. I've known about it for a long time, but she just reminded me the other day that she needed it on the 1st of Jan. I work better under pressure. I started this Thursday, finished it Friday, sent it Saturday and it arrived at her house yesterday (Monday). :) Whew! Now I have to find something else to work on. I have a few ideas. Keep watching! :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

I'm still alive

I haven't posted in a while. I can't believe Christmas is tomorrow. I have to go out today (in the snow) and get my Christmas dinner stuff~ nothing like the last minute. :)

Winter has hit us in a big way. Here is our backyard full of fluffy, beautiful snow. I love the snow. Still not tired of it. I know we've only been here for 3 winters (and this is our last), but I don't think I'd ever get really sick of snow in the winter. Travis gets mad because it's here for so long, but he's had fun with the snowblower lately. I am usually the one to shovel the driveway because I like to do it. I get done with ours, then hit the neighbor's driveway, then I do trails in the backyards (mine and the neighbors) for the squirrels and Ami. Ami lives next door and goes to visit Lou (behind me) often. They're both older ladies and I don't want Ami to fall in the snow. We might never find her in some places....It's so deep! :)

Here are the girlies dressing our little Christmas tree. I love the little trees nobody else wants. This tree happens to be quite tall, but it's kind of crooked and it doesn't have many branches. It's pretty soft, tho. The needles don't poke you and make you bleed. The girls dug down and got all their own ornaments and went to town decorating. It looks beautiful. :) The only problem with it is that it doesn't have a scent. Last year we had a very fragrant tree, but we like this one anyway. We had to tie the angel to the top since I didn't want to cut any off. Good old fishing line! :)









If you remember from last year, I love taking pictures of snowflakes. I catch the little beauties on black paper and then you can see the details of each one. Some are broken, but most are pretty little decorations. Here are a couple of pics of some that I took recently with my new camera. Travis got me a new camera for my birthday and I figured this was a good thing to play with. Little, tiny decorations from the sky! :)





I'll leave you all with this video of the little hamster, Sugar Ham, we're babysitting. She's a little Robo Hamster and she's hilarious to watch. If you watch the entire video, you will probably be laughing out loud by the end. Non-stop entertainment~ :) By the way, this is real time, not fast motion. Her legs actually DO go that fast.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

TSO ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night we went to see Trans Siberian Orchestra . All I can really say is THEY TOTALLY ROCKED! The lights, the music, the hair! tee hee We went with a couple of other families. We did dinner and a show. It was very fun. In honor of the band, I'm posting a Youtube video of this guy's house who did a light show to TSO's Wizards in Winter. It's very cool. Watch, listen and enjoy! :)

Christmas House

Monday, December 08, 2008

checkin' in

Hi all. Just a quickie note to let you all know, we're under a Winter Storm Warning effective until Wed. a.m.!! They're predicting 9-12 inches here. I'm TOTALLY EXCITED!!! The girls are hoping for a snow day, but the SB schools don't call snow days for just any snow storm. It has to be SUPER COLD before they cancel school. I'm predicting there will be a late start, tho. Since they have to clear the roads for the buses and parents/kids to drive in. I hope my squirrels are tucked in warm and cozy...it's gonna be a long, cold night.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

SNOW!

Well, the weatherman was right. We woke up to this yesterday a.m. :) I am happy, but the rest of the family is not too thrilled. Winter is here until April. I can handle it. :) The squirrels are getting so fuzzy and fat. Tonight is HOUSE night. Wahoo. Hope you all are having a splendid day!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Winter is here. :)

It's winter here! Here is our 10 day forecast..... As you can see, it's not shorts weather anymore..darn it! The squirrels are getting fat and fluffy and storing their food in the yard. Wahoo! Winter...bring on the snow!!!! :)

10-Day Forecast


High /
Low (°F)
Precip. %
Tonight
Nov 19
Partly Cloudy / Wind 27° 10 %
Thu
Nov 20
Mostly Cloudy / Wind 29°/20° 10 %
Fri
Nov 21
Partly Cloudy 26°/21° 10 %
Sat
Nov 22
Partly Cloudy 30°/30° 10 %
Sun
Nov 23
Few Snow Showers 35°/32° 30 %
Mon
Nov 24
Snow Shower 32°/28° 40 %
Tue
Nov 25
Few Snow Showers 31°/28° 30 %
Wed
Nov 26
Few Snow Showers 30°/29° 30 %
Thu
Nov 27
AM Clouds / PM Sun 34°/31° 10 %
Fri
Nov 28
Partly Cloudy 32°/30° 10 %

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Baby is 15

Yesterday was Halloween, but in our house it was something way more special. It was Baby's 15th birthday!! 15 years ago we went out just to "look at" vans to replace our little Ford Festiva. We had one precious little girl and another baby was on the way. We needed something bigger. I REALLY, REALLY wanted a Dodge Caravan. I had driven them, loved the way they drove, the way they looked and the room inside. Travis was reading the newspaper and saw that a Ford dealer in Portland had a few Aerostars on sale. I told him that I would "look and drive", but I wanted a Caravan. We drove down and took a test drive and went in to buy our new Baby. I LOVED the size, the color, how high up I felt when I was in her.......I WANTED THIS VAN! We drove away in our new van, leaving our little faithful Festiva for someone else to cherish.

Today Baby has 198,500 miles on her. She's been to CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, MN, WI, IL, SD, and ND. She's helped moved friend's households. She's carted kids to soccer games, horse lessons, violin lessons, school, shopping. She is our faithful, old girl and I still love her. I will drive her til her wheels literally fall off. I know, I'm strange, but you all pretty much knew that already. :) tee hee

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ah, baby quilts

Here are the two quilts I have just finished and sent off.

This one is for Travis' stepsister's baby boy, Shiloh. He was born in April, and his procrastinating auntie took a while to finish and send him his snuggly quilt. The good thing is that he lives in Texas and now it's getting cooler so he'll need his quilt. The fabric is by Debbie Mumm and has little bunnies, lions, alligators, elephants, ponies and frogs. Don't know if she was going tropical jungle farm animals or what, but it's adorable. :)




This quilt is for my little sister's new baby girl, Chloe. She was just born in October (a couple of weeks ago). This is also Debbie Mumm fabric that has bugs and frogs on it. I LOVE the colors and how they look together. The block is a split nine patch, which is a block that I love doing and it can look so different depending on the color combo you use.






Here is a close-up of where I quilted "Chloe". It's kind of hard to see, but it also shows a close up of the adorable fabric. Both quilts are backed with flannel, the bestest fabric ever invented, in my opinion. :) I hope both of the babies enjoy snuggling in their auntie "hugs" for a long time. The stinky part is they both live far away, so I won't get to give them hugs with my arms. Soon, tho, hopefully.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Today is raining, but it's ok :)

I figured I'd highlight some things that have happened over the past couple of days and something that has happened over the past several months.

Over the last several months (since March, actually) I have been exercising regularly at the Y, started running with Travis and have been trying to eat less (and healthier). I have lost about 18 pounds and have gone from jeans size 10 to 4.






It's great and I'm very happy, but the problem was I had no jeans to wear and we were heading to the Powder Puff Football game at night and it's getting cold. I went shopping a couple of days ago and bought a pair of jeans. They fit ok, but when I got them home and sat down in them, I felt a little air coming in from behind. I was irritated since they were the only pair that fit out of several pairs I tried on at Wal-Mart, Younkers and Target (we're limited to shopping here). Well, I had to take Anisa to Wal-Mart later yesterday (the day of the game) and thought, "hm, I wonder if I could fit into large girl's jeans". Well, I tried on a pair of 16s and they fit! :) I just thought that was so funny. The best part of all was that they were on clearance for $7.00! I love a good bargain.








A couple of weeks ago, they opened the new bridge downtown. It was to replace the old but historic steel bridge. Of course, they had a parade for it (only in a small town!). The girls marched in the band. Anisa didn't play her flute, she held the American flag. She said it was really heavy and awkward with the wind blowing it. Sara played cymbals. The percussion section doesn't have to wear hats, they go gansta with bandanas. :) I love their uniforms. They look so nice.

You're probably wondering what the Powder Puff Football game was all about. Senior girls vs. Junior girls at the high school played each other. It was really fun, but really cold. Of course, the seniors won. :)










This weekend is Homecoming. We'll go to the football game tomorrow night and the girls will go to the dance on Saturday. Traditionally, the kids toilet paper the school. Here are the results of their work. The have to clean it up next week. hahahaa

Thursday, September 25, 2008

GAH!

Honestly, this really isn't a part of life I would like to be in. I wish my kids were still babies. They smelled so sweet, they slept a lot, they didn't talk back....ahh, those were the days.


I just sent off for information on COLLEGES! For those of you who have known my family for a while, you've watched both of the girls grow up into beautiful young ladies. Sara is just now starting high school. Anisa is graduating from high school in a little over 8 months. GAHH!!!


So, our search has started for colleges. She'd like to pursue a Culinary Arts degree. That's kind of limiting to which schools she can go to. Add to that fact, we're moving to the wrong Washington, and that presents a whole new set of problems. Should she live with us and go to school out east? Do we send her back to the Right Washington which is practically the other side of the world from where her mommy will be??!! I wish I didn't have to deal with them growing up and sending them out into the big, bad world. I just can't believe my baby girl is going to be 18 and in college. For those of you who know me and my control issues, you know how difficult it will be for me to let my little girl go. I need prayers!! :)

Ok, I just needed to share my issues with all of you....I feel better now. :)

**Pictures taken by my dear friend, Mary Jo. :)

Saturday, September 06, 2008

life

So, last weekend Travis and I ran a 5K. That converts over to 3.1 miles. Of course, we didn't win, but we had a good time and got exercise. :) The race took place in Fish Creek, up north. I LOVE that little town. It's pretty touristy, but there are cute shops to look in. Luckily, the weather was pretty good, too. It was in the morning and cooler, not so humid. I don't know how many people ran/walked in the race. I know on one of the pictures, someone placed 150, so at least 150 people. Travis placed 14 in his age group and 61 overall. I placed 7 in my age group and 64 overall. We were just happy to finish! :) We're looking into more runs to enter. It's a fun thing to do together.




Another exciting thing (depending on who you ask) is school started! YIPPPEEE! The girls are not that excited, but they don't mind their classes and are both happy to see their friends. Also, they are both doing dance team and band (Anisa continues to play her flute and Sara's playing the bass drum). We'll be going to lots of activities this year between them playing in parades and sporting events and dance competitions.

Besides those things, life has just been getting back to normal after summer craziness. The weather is turning Fall-like, into the 40s at night and into the low 70s during the day. I LOVE it! Hope all is well with all our friends and family!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

4,000 miles (6437.376 km) later....

Well, we took our East Coast trip and WHEW, what a trip! We drove over 4,000 miles, through 17 states and one Canadian Province in 18 days. I took over 500 pictures, and won't be posting them all, but here are some highlights.

We rented a Toyota Corolla and it really turned out to be a good gas mileage car. We averaged over 33 mpg on the trip. Our vehicles get a little over 20ish mpg, so it saved us in gas money, and we put 4,000 miles on it. Better a rental car than our own! :)

We left on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 bright and early so we could get to Indianapolis, IN. We stopped at Trader Joe's in Milwaukee to get Mochi ice cream for the girls. Mochi is a Japanese rice dough and they take little balls of ice cream and wrap them in mochi. The girls LOVE it.

We got to Lebanon, Indiana and spent the night. The next day we headed to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to check out the museum. Travis liked seeing the Formula One cars. I think he would have rather driven one, but..... We took the bus tour, which normally takes you for a drive around the track. Unfortunately for us, that day there were people who had paid (probably a small fortune) to drive around it in small race cars. Oh well, it was fun to see around the track.

From there, we headed into Ohio. We were heading to Columbus to see my Great Auntie Mary, Jesse and second cousin Linda. Mary is my Mom's Mom's sister, Linda is my mom's cousin. We hoped to see my other cousins, but it didn't work out this time. Hopefully we can make more solid plans during our move to D.C. so we can spend more time visiting. We couldn't see them until later in the day, so we headed to the Longaberger Basket Headquarters building. It's a HUGE basket. I don't collect the baskets, but it was fun to see the building and find out that the place we really needed to go was called Homestead and it's the place where you can shop, eat, stay. I am hoping Renee and I get to go there on a girl field trip! :)

We finally hooked up with Mary, Jesse and Linda and went to Cracker Barrel. It was my first time there, and won't be the last. Yummy food and fun company. :) After our dinner and good-byes, we headed toward West Virginia. We stayed in St. Clairsville, Ohio that night and got up early and headed into West Virginia then into Pennsylvania. Our goal in Pennsylvania was Hershey Chocolate World. We took the chocolate ride for the free chocolate, looked at the gift shop and explored the town. Everything revolves around chocolate. Even the street lights are like Hershey Kisses.






We ended up staying in Hanover, PA which is where George and Helen live. George was the Chaplain Travis knew in Virginia when he first got in the Coast Guard. In fact, George baptised Travis. We visited with them for a little while that night and it was very fun to hear about their adventures in retirement and their son who is a Brigadier General in the USMC.

We got up the next morning and headed to Gettysburg. We explored some of the battlefield, then headed to the beautiful brand new museum. Travis could have spent DAYS there. We plan to make another trip there when we live closer. We finished up at Gettysburg and drove through Maryland, then into Virginia to RENEE'S and CHAD'S!!!! :)

We spent 8 days at their house. During that time, we went to Larry's retirement (finally) ceremony. I say finally, because Larry, like Brett Favre, was going to retire several times before. I actually SAW WITH MY OWN EYES the Retirement Certificate. It was a great party, as usual, at Larry's. He brewed some his special beers, and had TONS of food. It was fun to see other Portland friends, too. Heck, we already have several people we know from Portland that live there. We also spent an afternoon going to lunch at Dogfish Head Alehouse with Larry, Jan, their son Cameron and his fiancee Courtney. After our burgers and beer we headed into D.C. to check out some sites since traffic back to Chad and Renee's was going to be horrible.

We went to the capital building, the Supreme Court building, then headed over to the Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Korean War Memorial. It was cool to walk around and see all the historical stuff. I am excited about living there and being able to really check out everything. :)

While we were at Chad and Renee's we spent lots of time visiting, swimming, seeing stuff, we had Ikea Swedish Meatballs, a quick trip to Fredericksburg, and a family trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg (on our way home, we were in the middle of a DOWNPOUR like I've never seen before. We actually had to pull over off the freeway because it was raining so hard, you couldn't see the road. There were lots of people pulled over so we didn't feel like total wimps). We also spent some time checking out areas to live. We still don't know, but at least we've seen all the areas and will know when we are checking out houses on line.

After our teary good-byes we headed to Trader Joes for more Mochi ice cream, then out of Virginia through Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. We spent most of the day in the car since we got stuck in D.C. traffic, Baltimore traffic, and New York traffic. We finally stopped in East Haven, Connecticut. THAT was a night we were VERY HAPPY to be out of the car! The next day we went to Mystic Pizza and the Coast Guard Academy.

We drove through Connecticut into Rhode Island then into Massachusetts. We went to Braintree, the birthplace of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Travis read the book about John Adams and is really interested in his life. We couldn't find the home, so we left and headed into Quincy, MA, where the Adams' house is located. We actually went to the museum and found it closed and had almost given up. We got lost and found the Thomas Crane Public Library and talked to this super sweet librarian and she told us about the Adam's Home. We drove quickly up to the house and scored a private tour of the library on the grounds by Chris Davis (he ROCKS!). They closed down so we drove on. We drove through Boston in a HUGE lightning and rain storm.


















We reached New Hampshire. We stayed in Concord since we were heading to my Great Aunt Eleanor's house in Lakeport (near Laconia). She's a sweet, little feisty thing! She's my Dad's Mom's sister. We visited at her house that night, then headed back in the morning to pick her up to head out to Center Harbor. My Great, Great Grampa's house is now a knitting shop connected to the Keepsake Quilt store. The ladies in the knit store let us go upstairs (off limits to customers cuz of their offices). We saw the room where my Grandma and her two brothers were born, and Aunt E showed us where the kitchen used to be, the cool old shelves where the kids used to climb to get the candy, the hallway they used to ride their bikes . It was fun. And the trip to the quilt shop was fun too! :) After that, we saw the school they went to then to lunch. We are planning to head up for another trip when we live out there. :) While we were there, it was raining and we wanted to go up to Mt. Washington (the tallest peak on the East coast). We didn't go because of the weather.

Again in the car, we headed into Vermont. OH MY GOODNESS!!! Gorgeousness! We all loved the part of the state we drove through. Lush, green, Washingtonish. Back into New York on our way to Niagara Falls. We drove through Schenectady, NY. For those of you who know about MySpace, when you register, you have to put in your zip code. LOTS and LOTS of people put 12345 which is the zip code for Schenectady. Just a fun place to stop and snap a picture. We stayed in Syracuse, then headed to the falls the first thing the next morning.

If you haven't gotten to go the Niagara Falls, you NEED to go! It's so beautiful. We spent several hours walking around the American side, then walked over the Rainbow Bridge into Canada (get your passports, or you'll get hassled when you try to come back into the USA, even with US Military IDs). Anyway, like everyone says, you really have to go to the Canadian side to see the WHOLE picture of the falls. We spent time there until they lit them up at night. It was so cool.

We found a place to stay in Findley Lake, New York and got up and went to Cleveland, OH to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was REALLY COOL. Too bad we couldn't take pictures, because we saw all kinds of memorabilia from so many of our favorite musical talents.

Our trip was almost done. We spent the night in Elkhart, Indiana. We drove through the Notre Dame campus (beautiful campus and bookstore). Then we stopped in the Chicago area for lunch at Chevy's and then 4 hours later, we drove into Sturgeon Bay. We had such a fabulous time. Travis is now planning to buy 2 BMW motorcycles and tour the country on those! Crazy guy. There are so many cool places to see that we missed because of weather or just wanting to get to the next big thing. I'd love to be able to stop and see more stuff. Maybe when he retires. :)