Yahoo for Jury Duty

Some of you have been hearing about my jury duty saga. I was called to serve last summer, the first week of my new job...UGH....so I put in for a postponement. They gave me a date, then Jeremy called with news of his eye surgery appt. and asked me to come....of course it was the same date as Jury duty....new postponement. So the new date came and guess what, it was right when we would be floating around in the Caribbean on a big boat. So after faxes and letters...no response...I figured I'm going so we'll see what happens. No one was there to arrest me when I got off the boat for Contempt of court so I was relieved! :-) Chris actually called the jury duty number from his trip to check out the status of my number so he sent me an email saying I was excused! Yeah. So I guess I"m off the hook this time and after all the time and frustration of having the time moved I'm glad now to not have been able to change it. End of saga! I will get photo's up one of these days of our trip. We are home and loved every minute of it!

Happy Birthday Aiden!

Happy Birthday to one of my best little Buddies! Here is Aiden, today he is 7 years old, can you believe it! He's having a rocket launching birthday party in another week so we are excited to celebrate you Aiden! I hope being 7 is just the best!

Sew and Go

Here's a little tease for our Sew and Go, it's on Feb 1st, tuesday, 11:00-3:00. This is a tiny portion of it so you can just use your imagination! ha! We had 32 sign up for the class ( project unknown) after the last class....guess they must have had fun! So now everyone can wonder....what are we making???????

Going to Mississippi

Ken and I started our fun trip on friday and flew to Mississippi. We went by way of Chicago (strange way to get to Mississippi!) It was 3 degrees there and you could see your breath in the jet way, I was glad I wasn't staying in Chicago! There was snow clear across the US! Jeremy picked us up at the Birmingham airport and surprise!!! There was Aileron along for an outing! We got to go do a few errands and one of them was the baby store...Jeremy got to order the baby crib and pick up a few other things!

It was great to get to Columbus and see Jamie and all the great things they've done to the house since we were here last Feb. with the load of cabinets. Noah's room is all ready, painted, new wood floor, closet all decked out!

Here's the new chair in his room, looks pretty comfy!

Jeremy gave us a lesson in aircraft building, we got to actually try all the "dimples", "klicos" and today Ken and Jeremy did some riveting all along the tail section. I'm sure I have the official spellings and names all wrong but it was finally fun to understand the process!

Jamie and I had fun while they were busy in the shop. The guys were also building a pool table lamp out of that T-6 canopy for the squadron. We got to go get a pedicure to be ready for the cruise and then we went shopping for Noah's going home and hospital outfits! I'm sure there will be a blog soon about those, they are coming back to Az so that some more goodies can be made to match!

That picture was Riley...And here is everyone's buddy Aileron...

And here's Rio.

So tonight we had a great time and went to Little Porkey's for some Great southern Cooking! Denise said be sure and try out all the ethnic food along the way so I jumped right in and got Catfish! It was FRIED, then there were these corn things that were FRIED and then a hushpuppie that was FRIED, everything was FRIED! So that was true Ethnic cooking for Mississippi!

Jeremy and Jamie have made some great friends here, Anna and Robby, I can see they have so much fun together and it was great meeting them. They met us for dinner and then came back to the house to to play the new Monopoly card game, so we learned that and I heard it's coming with us. So tomorrow is the big day, we leave at 7 AM to head to New Orleans, we have 2 national parks to get to and get stamps while in New Orleans, then it's time to get on the BIG BOAT! And away we go come sunday afternoon. Off to the Western Caribbean for lots of fun in the sun. I'll be back soon, but first a bit of R&R! Bon Voyage!

Polka Dots and Pinwheels Class Finished

We finished up at our Intermediate Quilt class at Scrapbooks today, It was so fun to see the quilt tops finished and done! Alot of careful stitches went into them. Here is Julie, she's hoping for enough fabric scraps to make another one. Here is Marti, hers was so bright and fun! She's using some of her scraps to put on the back down the center.
And Jenny added an inner border to hers, it's so soft and pretty! She's got circles cut out yet to add in the centers of the blocks out of the brighter pink once it's quilted. We were missing Amanda today, she had class so I hope she gets her done too, it's for her son so I think she'll finish it up real soon. I'll teach this same class again starting the second week of Feb.

Sew and Go January #2 class

We had a great time at Sew and Go today, my co-teacher Barb is still in the hospital so I called Louise another teacher and friend and she was my helper today, whew! We had 47 take the class! Lots of fun hearts went out that door!
It's so nice to see new people coming and all the repeat ones, we have a few winter visitors taking advantage of it too.
We had 2 raffle prizes this time, here's one lucky gal, you can see the huge Hershey kiss with 2 fat quarters tied to it!
Everyone seemed to be having fun and I sure appreciate Louise coming in to help. Barb and I have a great project planned for next time, I worked on saturday making the prototype and getting the cutting sheet ready( I'll be cutting kits tomorrow at work), we already have 37 signed up to come again for the first one in feb. Actually the 2nd project in Feb. is going to be just as cool too, they are all things I love to get to make and all the students don't have a clue what they are coming to do, they just sign up and know they'll have a fun gift or project done to take home!!!! And guess who showed up at 3:30 when class ended......Ken came to vacuum for me! ( I had to be out of the class room right away as another class was coming in and it takes me a while to break the class down alone with putting the inventory we sell on the side back in the store and cleaning up all the irons and equipment and then it takes an hour to vacuum so whew was that nice to have help with that! We were out of there in an hour! Thanks to my vacuum guy!

Boys.....1,2,3,4,5 !!!

So I had a great little boy day. I actually got to see all my little boys today! It doesn't get any better does it! Jeremy called and little boy #5 had an ultrasound done today and Jeremy loaded the video so we could see it! How neat was that, my first glimpses of Baby Noah! Course he put this great music with it so then Grammy here had to cry clear thur the whole thing as I watched him! Absolutely amazing, watching his little heart beat and then seeing his arms moving around. So that was Little boy #1.

And here is Little boy #2. Bode came over this morning and spent the whole morning with me. We had such fun, we did some eating....
Some real hard playing after his nap...
Also some great time in the swing outside, he was an angel! He went home around 1:00 and at the door was.....
Little boys #3, #4, and #5 !!!!! They came for the afternoon and we had a blast! We picked lots of fruit for them to take home, then did some tree climbing....
There was a bit of bike riding...
We went to the park around the corner and did some swinging, then we decided to go down the street to feed the goats, I think Ethan (little boy #3 disguised as a super hero... that is his Uncle Jeremy's super hero cape so you know it's really Super, he lived in it too just like Ethan lives in his)yep, I think he had some of the carrot too!
What a fun day of boys it was. I'm heading to bed, I hear I have 40 students in my class tomorrow, that may make today seem like a breeze!!!

Sew and Go project

Here is our next Sew and Go project at Scrapbooks. It's on Tuesday from 11:00-3:00. This cute little heart mat will fit right onto the wire frame we've been putting things on or you can hang it, set it or make it into a pillow. Lots of fun! You'll be ready for Valentines day!

Thursday Club

I met my Thursday club friends for dinner this week at Olive Garden to celebrate Judy's birthday. She has a Christmas eve birthday so we tend to wait until after the holidays to celebrate and catch up from the last month! Sometimes it's amazing we can find an evening that works for 6 different people together! And nope we didn't meet Thursday, it was Wednesday which seems to mess all of our spouses up!(thursday club on wed.?) But when you've met these friends for years (30+) on Thursday, it just has stuck! In fact we had such a good laugh as Judy's girls all have decided they are going to start a Thursday club! We all laughed and wondered if they'd have a "can"? As young mom's we all struggled with Christmas money so we had a "can" that we all put $5 a week into as our "dues" and over the year that would help pay for Christmas. We'd get our money back at our Christmas party and have it for shopping. Sometimes people had to borrow out of the can in dire emergencies but it's fun to know we could do that. ( a bit of history, HA!) So Mindy has the next birthday (and she'll finally be as old as me) so we'll see everyone in April again and have fun catching up on our lives, or we might make up an occasion before then to meet for dinner and enjoy each other again.

Fun Evening with Amy and Family

Ken and I were invited to Taco night last night! It was so good and fun to share that with them! We got there early enough to get to spend a bit of time outside. We hadn't seen their new Christmas toys so it was fun for the boys to show us those and then we got to see Garrett get to ride his bike with no training wheels! Yea for being 4!
Aiden showed us his new scooter that makes sparks! Kind of makes your skin crawl as it scrapes but it's exciting when you are 6!
It was so fun to see Ethan's new room, it got an "extreme overhaul" this week, the paint, curtains, shelves and new flooring were wonderful, I'm so happy for you Ethan to have a wonderful room now. We had our rice krispie treats I'd brought and then by 7 Ken and I exited so they could jump in the bath tub and get on with their bedtime routine. Thanks again for the fun evening !

Thai Food

Well tonight was my first experience with Thai food and it was Great! One of the first on my" trip around the world" food extravaganza that I'd definitely go eat again. The flavors were very strong and while each dish was good a little goes along way so that small portions of the items we shared was plenty. Thai Basil was the restaurant, rather quiet in there, but it was a monday night and a big football game to compete with! I guess there is another one in Tempe.We started with this appetizer...those are fried sweet potatoes. Now how could you go wrong with that since it was Fried! the dipping sauce was great. Those are peanuts floating in there, in fact....
there were peanuts in everything. ( wonder if they grow peanuts in Thailand?) We had a soup that was good with a coconut milk broth, had chicken and mushrooms in it, also lemon grass and parsley. Then we had 2 other dishes, one was Pad Thai, it was a great noodle dish with I think red curry, then another dish I can't remember the name that we put over rice, it had carrots and potoatoes and chicken and eggs and tofu. Very interesting. So here are the 2 crazies that are taking me on this "quest"! Thanks Denise and Sarah, it was fun, I'm hearing Scandinavian is next.

Friends

I forgot to post this cute picture of friends Linda and Judy and Denise. They got to come over last week for a bit of sewing and a little holiday brunch. We had a great time and enjoyed being together. Aren't friends the best. I'm so lucky!

One more Christmas celebration

Our family always seems to win the prize for delayed Christmas celebrations. So we did it again this year. Due to illness over the holidays we cancelled our Christmas Day dinner prime rib celebration with Ken's folks and had it this weekend. It worked much better to have everyone here than cook that for the 3 people that were well enough to come! So these photo's are of Gene with Baby Bode and Chris. Delores wasn't feeling well enough to come so we missed her.
Bode got his first ride in the big boy swing on the patio. It was lovely out so we had some appetizers out there while the meat cooked on the grill. Garrett and Aiden had fun giving their cousin a ride in the swing they all loved.
then we got to skype with Jeremy and Jamie too. Their Christmas box was hanging out somewhere other than here for a month while it traveled the slow boat from Mississippi, so we had fun opening their gifts with them. Here they are talking to Bode.
They sent the boys these cute gliders so they were having a blast with them. Here is Ethan.
After dinner we had coffee with our pies that Gene brought and we had stuff to make ice cream sundaes too.
The boys had fun making their own!
It was fun to have a late celebration to enjoy each other again.

Bags for gifts

I ran on to the picture I took of this cute bag I made in December. We drew names at work for a little secret santa present and I got Julie, our great Manager! Of course, first time to do this.....and of course pressure is on since I"m totally surrounded by these wonderfully creative people that are amazing! The glitch is that we can only spend $20. I was told she loves pedicures and as a young mom deserves the hour away relaxing. So I opted for the Gift card for the pedicure. But.....then everyone told me "they cheat"! OK, so the wrapping doesn't count......so I made Julie this bag ( she had fallen in love with this bag we had taught at our sew and go but didn't get to come) so I made her a big size one for hauling around "mom things", and...I made her sweet baby girl daughter Brooklyn a mini to match. I put a book in Brooklyn's since I figured that didn't count since it wasn't for Julie! So all in all she enjoyed her gift, told me she'd gotten the pedicure and loved the relaxing hour and I"ve seen her hauling the bag so whew, made it thru my first party at SE! The party was so nice, we had wonderful home made food made by Marti the owner, they did a raffle for us, which was so fun, they handed us all a ticket....we are the ones always handing out raffle tickets in class but never to get be on the "good" end! How fun was that, I got a cricut cartridge! Then we had our secret santa gifts and all had a great time! What a great group of people to be surrounded by!

Polka dots and Pinwheels Class

I taught the Polka Dots and Pinwheels Intermediate class today at Scrapbooks Etc. We had a great time. We were in the small classroom and with just the 4 students it went great. Even the small classroom there has all the things you need with great sturdy tables, the cords hanging down where you can get right to them. Lots of people stopped in to see what we were up to.Here's Marti with her completed block.
And Jenny had hers done in a jiffy!
Yeah for Julie getting 2 blocks done.
And Yeah for you Amanda, you did it! She got hers done too. They had to learn the 2 parts to make this block and have to make 10 of them by next week. We'll move on to the alternate square which will be a breeze next week, then get it all together in the 3rd class. Great students and alot of fun today, can't wait for next Thursday!