Sew Fun!

My wonderful family gave me a sewing machine for my graduation present, and I've been having a great time making a few things with it. I found out that I really like sewing, especially if I do it while watching some of my favorite movies. Anyway, I thought that I'd just post a few pictures of some of the things that I've made so far.

I made some curtains for our kitchen because the blinds were really gross and because we needed room for our herb garden. They're great because they give the plants enough room to grow and don't fall down every other day (like the blinds did).

This is what they look like at night.

This is what they look like during the day.

My ward has a "sewing club," where a lady in our ward teaches us all sorts of interesting things about sewing (she studied design in college, so she has a lot of helpful tips). I attend now that I have a sewing machine and can practice the things that we learn at home. For the months of November and December, we made advent calendars out of felt and canvas. This is how mine turned out:

The numbers are little pockets to store the advent characters in.

I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

A big thanks to Linnea Hall for designing the calendar, drawing the templates, teaching me how to make it, and helping me cut out the felt pieces.

I also made a tote at one of the sewing club meetings, but I unfortunately don't have a picture of that. Oh well. Next month we're learning how to make ties for little boys and for men, so watch for pictures of the ones I make for Zac.

We're Back!

Well, after a long time, we're back! We haven't actually been away, it's just been a long time since I've updated the blog. Since I get in trouble every Sunday from both sides of the family, I figured it was about time to dust off the ol' keyboard and get back on here. Apologies to everyone for the long absence.

February 2010

Zac and I have about a million different versions of Scrabble, so we have spent some time over the last few months playing the different versions. This particular game (pictured below) took us about two weeks to finish. Needless to say, we didn't play Scrabble again for a few months.

Zac finally got to enjoy his Christmas present this month when we went to the Jazz vs Kings game in Sacramento. Unfortunately, the Jazz lost (how could they?). We had a great time anyway, and we weren't the only Jazz fans there either. Go Jazz!

Later, I had a chance to enjoy my Christmas present when Zac did a class project on glow-in-the-dark roses. I used Photoshop to make some images for his presentation:

Wouldn't it be cool to get a dozen glow-in-the-dark flowers? You could enjoy your gift in the light as well as the dark.

April 2010

For Zac's spring break, we decided to make the long trek to Utah. We had a pretty great time there, and here are some pictures of the things we did:

We ate the top of our wedding cake a little early. The cake part still tasted pretty good, but the frosting didn't keep very well. 

We spent a day at the bowling alley with my sisters.

We're a little silly at times.

Ahhh! We were attacked by a dinosaur! Not really, this was just the entrance to the mini golf area. We were a little disappointed that we couldn't take pictures inside, especially because they had some pretty interesting statues. 

Zac and I hit a dust storm in Nevada. At least we didn't have to stare at the great expanse of nothingness that is Nevada ... instead, we just stared at nothingness.

Our car was attacked by tumbleweeds. They were trying to hitch a ride to California, and some of them actually made it the whole way.

I chopped off part of my hair.

To celebrate our first anniversary, Zac and I went to a PDQ Bach (Peter Schickele) concert. I know that some people have a whole blog post to commemorate their first anniversary, and I had intentions of doing that, but here's the best I could do:

Happy First Anniversary! It's been a great year!

"And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva"

May/June 2010

During the summer, my sisters came to visit me. Andrea came first, and we had a really great time together. I just felt bad that she had to sleep on our couch the whole time she was there. I put together a small slideshow of some of the things that we did for those who are interested. No, it does not include the many episodes of SpongeBob that she made me watch with her. (To watch the slideshow, don't click on the large green "play" button because that will take you to another web page. Instead, click near the bottom of the box and another "play" button will come up, or you can click through the pictures manually.)

Andrea recommended that I read the Hunger Games series, and I actually really enjoyed the first two. When it was my turn to choose the book for my book club, I had everyone read the first book. I wish I had a picture of all the amazing baked goods that everyone brought to the first group, but since I don't, I will just let you know that it all tasted very good. We piled all the food around the "cornucopia" that I made just for the book club (a cornucopia plays a big role in the book).

If you're looking for a good book to read, I would definitely recommend the series, only don't be scared by the plot summary, because the book does seem a little dismal.

July 2010

July was a rough month for our bikes. My bike was stolen, and Zac's bike literally fell apart while he was riding it. Because we use our bikes to get a lot of places, we had to find replacements. We were happy, however, because someone bought Zac's bike off of us for $10 to use for parts. 

My new bike

Zac's old bike; he was sad that he had to get rid of it.

The reason why Zac was sad to give up his bike - Zac was happy to ride a bio-tech bike to school, where he would then study bio-tech.

During the summer, I started volunteering for different studies at UC Davis. I am happy to inform you that I am now a trained cantaloupe taster. The study was testing different ways of ripening cantaloupe so companies could know how to better deliver fruit to stores (there were also similar studies with pears and other fruit). So, if you ever need someone to taste and describe your cantaloupe, I will be happy to do it for you. 

I also get paid to take showers, as I am a natural context expert body wash panelist. A body wash company gave some money to UC Davis to run a panel to test different products and rate them. I was fortunate enough to get a spot on that panel, and as a result, I have free body wash, some of which is pretty interesting, such as the Japanese version of Dove (which totally dries out my skin). I also have about 40 poufs that I have no idea what to do with. Anyway, those are just a few things that I did to fill up my days during the summer. Oh, and they also sent us some funny body wash-based jokes

August 2010

Well, the summer flew by way too fast, and it was finally time for Aimee and Amber to come visit me. Unfortunately, Zac couldn't spend as much time with us because he had to work, but we still had a lot of fun. I made another slideshow of pictures to show a few of the things that we ended up doing. 

Before Aimee and Amber could become sick of us, we drove them home to Utah to see my family and to celebrate my graduation! Yes, folks, I am finally a college graduate! Woohoo! We did some major celebrating while I was there. Here is yet another slideshow for your viewing pleasure:

If you were wondering why Zac looked a little tired in all the pictures, it was because he was sliced open the day after we arrived in Utah. Fortunately, the doctors removed his appendix before it did too much harm, and he was doing everything normally a few weeks later. He was a great sport about being dragged all around Utah, and he hardly ever complained. He's such a tough guy.

September 2010

Well, the Hunger Games was a big hit with my book club, so we read and discussed all three of the books. However, I was disappointed with the final installment, so I was more excited for the food than I was for the actual discussion of the third book. Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed. There are some very clever people in my book group, and we had some great refreshments. Here are the pictures (you may not understand some of the references if you haven't read the book, but you can still appreciate the great food):

Yum!

Since I was done with school, I had a little bit of extra time on my hands. One day, I decided that I wanted to grow an indoor herb garden, so I studied up on it, and a few weeks later, came up with this:

Parsley, cilantro, aloe, oregano, and basil

We've had some plants poking up through the soil, but we haven't been able to eat any of them yet. We'll see if they survive our three week absence in December ...

October 2010

One fine day in October, Zac and I found out that a small town just five minutes away from us housed the largest corn maze in the world (at least according to the Guinness World Records). So, we decided to go and check it out. 

On the top of one of the three bridges we had to cross.

I know it doesn't look very big in the pictures, but believe me, it was. Imagine 45 acres of pure corn, and it might seem a little bit bigger. It took us a decent amount of time to find our way out of the maze, and that was even after cheating a little when it got dark and started raining. We even had a map of the maze with us, and it still took us a long time. To see areal pictures and learn more, click here.

We also continued our tradition of decorating our trunk for the trunk-or-treat activity, and everyone was pleased to see our "clean" car there:

We decided to add something every year, and this year we added the "pouf skirt," courtesy of my body wash study. We also attended a ward FHE, where we made beautifully carved pumpkins (well, we'll let you decide about their aesthetic beauty).

Well, that's all for right now. Thanks for enduring the many pictures that I have failed to share with you for so long.