An uncle and his nephews

Aren't they all handsome?

My nephew and me

We helped out with the new nephew for a few days, and I got lots of snuggle time with Isaac. He's very precious!

Meet our new nephew

This is Isaac. He is very sweet and hungry. Hee hee. He got a check-up on Wednesday and got a shot which he complained a little about, but besides that he's a pretty happy guy.

Fleece jacket finished

I bought fleece for a jacket for myself almost a year ago. The last time I was at my Mom's we sewed together, and I started putting the jacket together. I assumed I needed the large size, but it ended up fitting big on John instead. Although I do wear it when I'm really cold; I can put it overy any of my sweaters. It's nice and toasty.

Here's a very handsome model of the jacket.

Remember to vote!

I've been reading through the voters' pamphlets. Lots of measures to read, and lots of people to choose from. I want to remind everyone to vote because it's important!

New movie shelves

This past weekend John installed some shelves for our DVDs and VHS tapes. They look so nice! And he took some neat pictures to show the process. Way to go, John!

Quilt progress

It took me two days to cut out all the triangles.



Late last night I started making the squares.



I figured out it takes about an hour to make one set of squares, one of each color. At that rate it will take 28+ hours just to make the squares. That doesn't include putting the strips together, etc. The plan is to push hard through this first part. It's going to be so fun to see it all come together.

Night pictures of Vegas

Here are some "bright with lights" pictures that turned out pretty decent. This first picture is of the Bellagio and its "lake" in front of it.



Here's "Paris." I don't know much about the history, and we didn't go inside or up, but it's pretty cool looking. :)



This is the fountain/pool/volcano at the Mirage. The volcano wasn't that impressive during its show, but all the waterfalls and the foliage were absolutely beautiful.



And finally, here's our hotel at night. Almost like Disneyland on the outside.

Our second nephew!

Yesterday, Wendell and Ann's second son was born, Isaac Arnold. As soon as I get pictures and their permission, I'll post them. He was 8.5 pounds and 21" long. He has a little bit of fluid on his lungs, but he got to go home yesterday and will see the doctor again today. Mom is doing great too.

Dave Chihuly exhibit

John's conference was at the Bellagio. They had a Dave Chihuly exhibit in the lobby.



The glass pieces were in a recessed part of the ceiling. I leaned back in the benches underneath the exhibit so I could look up and soak in the beauty. Very cool.

New York New York

Across the street from Excalibur is the New York New York Hotel. It has a city line of New York City, and a roller coaster travelling along the edge.



I convinced John to go on the roller coaster with me, and we both had a blast. It has two big drops, a loop, a sideways twist, and a corkscrew. Pretty fun.



It even has the Statue of Liberty.

Rainforest Cafe at MGM Grand

This is a cool cafe/gift shop at the MGM Grand (kitty corner to Excalibur). They have several of these fish columns, and the ceiling is covered in greenery and stuffed animals and birds to give the rainforest feel. It even thunders with light flashes.



Here you can see someone cleaning the "coral." The pictures turned out a little fuzzy.



They also had an animatronic crocodile in a field of mist that growled and opened its jaws. Pretty neat.

Cool pool

There was a nice pool at the hotel. This is the view from our window.


At the end of the pool was a very nice waterfall. John's standing on a bridge over it.


And I'm on the other side.

Las Vegas

We just came back from a trip to Las Vegas! John attended a conference for work, and I got to tag along for fun. It was both our first time there.

Over the next several days I'll share some pictures. Today's picture is of us standing in front of a sign for our hotel. It's on The Strip at the south end. John's conference was at the Bellagio, one mile walk away.

New flowers

Before

After



Over the weekend we bought some pansies and planted them in the front walk. The petunias were too overgrown.

Another project finished

Here's another project I finished recently. I created and stitched the Hardanger design for my cousin and her new husband. It's really hard keeping all these secret projects hidden!

The quilt is done!

I finished my parents' quilt last week, and my Dad hung it on the wall. I'm so excited to have finished it. :)

Macy wanted to help quilt

While I've been working on my parents' quilt, Macy has been eager to help. Anytime I set it down she tries to crawl under it. Here I set it up for her perfect haven.

My next project

I get to make another quilt! I'm so excited!

I love these bright rainbow colors. The balloon print is for the backing, and the block print (on the right) is for the borders. I'll take progess pictures as I go along. I'll starting washing the fabrics as soon as I get my parents' quilt done, which might be today. Yeah!

One project finished

I'm so proud to announce this cross-stitch project is finished. I started it in 1999 and finished the stitching of it last year. I got it framed when we got our house so we could hang it as our first picture. Even though it's for Christmas, I've worked so hard on it that we're keeping it out this year until then, and then we'll put it away.




Here's a close up.



I really enjoyed working on this Santa because of the bright joyful and cozy Christmas colors. My only regret is starting it on Aida. I'm doing all my future projects on linen.

I LOVE school supplies!

Every fall I long to buy fresh new school supplies, especially in bright colors. This year John's work had a donate school supplies thing, so I got to go shopping! I had an absolute blast! I found these cool folders, and I love the colors.

Lots of roses

Today I picked roses from OUR rose bushes. There were lots to chose from. They even smell pretty nice.

Quilt

Here are the promised pictures.

The third picture shows the detail of one of the Hardanger squares. It is stitched with ivory thread and has a light beige behind it.

I have the middle part of the quilt quilted. All I have left to do is finish quilting, tie the threads on the back, and do the binding (which I'm scared to do - I don't quite understand the instructions I've read about it yet). Tomorrow I'm going with my Mom to her chemo treatment that lasts all day, so I'm taking the quilt to hand tie the threads on the back. It will help to get all those hidden as it looks like a mess right now!

I plan to have it all finished by the end of the month.

Finally! I get to share with you...

A year and a half ago I started a quilt with 5 Hardanger squares for my parents' 30th anniversary that was this week. I couldn't post any progress pictures because it was a secret! But tonight I presented an almost finished quilt to them, so I can now post about it. Yeah!

However, it will have to wait one more day because I'm very tired. Time for bed!

Lots of veggies

Today I picked 14 pounds of vegetables, 11 of which were tomatoes! I couldn't believe it! The other vegetables are cucumber, zucchini, some of our first corn, onions, and anaheim peppers. We're making a huge batch of salsa tomorrow. Weee!

Our fish

Here's a picture of our fish in our pond out front. We have two black goldfish, two red/orange goldfish, and three koi. I'd like to name them, but I'm having trouble picking names. I thought it'd be cool to name the four goldfish with G names, and the three koi with K names. From the personalities, the two darker koi are male, and the yellow one is female, at least that's what I think. The goldfish could be either sex; they don't have much personality to determine it; maybe they're really high-tech plastic android fish?

Can anyone give me some ideas for names?

Thirty years

Today is my parents' 30th year anniversary. Hooray for them!

My Brother-In-Law

Meet Tim, John's younger brother. This picture is a little older, but I wanted to post it because it was taken from the bridge over the river that's really close to our house. This was after we made the offer on the house, but before we got the keys. Tim came to town for a short visit and to see the house. Then we took a walk to the river.

This was also before his trip to Brasil where he met a special friend of the female persuasion. Take a look at his blog for some pictures of Edneia (pronounced Esh-ney-a; sorry, Tim, if I didn't get that quite right) and Brasil. He was very excited to talk about her, and we're very excited to hear about her. He also talked about looking at house prices down there. Sounds like I need to get my passport ready for a Brasil trip!

Less than two weeks left of school

This summer I'm taking an online accounting class at the community college. It's almost over! Yeah! John said he's looking forward to the class being finished because than I can start unpacking boxes. While I have gone through a few boxes, it is true I haven't made much progress because I've tried to focus on school. And it's paid off because so far I'm getting an A. Yeah!

Macy loves her sun spots!

Isn't she cute?

See how our corn has grown!

You can see how much our corn grew in first few weeks we were in our new house. It was so nice to have a garden started! We've already enjoyed several zucchini, cucumbers, and John made a yummy salsa from the cilantro, onions, tomatoes, and anaheim and jalapeno peppers, all from our garden!

Cuddling picture

Okay, okay, here are some pictures.

First, meet John and Macy. Macy is very picky about her cuddle time. When she decides to cuddle, you just can't say no.