FAB-ric

Darn Craft Warehouse! Every time I go there, I get some super idea... and end up spending too much money and sticking myself with some huge project. And this time, I even tried to talk myself out of my grand plan. No such luck.

Is this not the most gorgeous collection of fabric ever? I'm so in love. I'm going to make a duvet cover, cuz I'm wicked crazy like that. Loving the huge floral print, and the stripes all around... shams to match, a nice pair of coordinating curtains... Me and my sewing machine are going to become very good friends (or quite possibly, enemies).

Seriously. Check out the other fabrics by this designer. There are oodles of beautiful prints that I am coveting right now.

Stay tuned for a finished product!

Simple Pleasures

I love it when something simple just makes my whole day better. I went to the Craft Warehouse Christmas open house tonight with Leslie and Cindy, and finally decided to get the Making Memories paper trimmer I've been eyeing for a full year now. I used a 40% off coupon on it, which totally justified my purchase. Right? It's a spendy little trimmer, but let me tell you what... LOVE IT. Simply the best trimmer I have ever used.

Cuts straight lines with no effort, even down to a 1/16th of an inch. Self sharpening rotary blade that never needs to be replaced. Comes with a magnetic ruler that can be used as a paper block (super useful when cutting several pieces of the same size) or a scoring guide. Folds in half for small cuts and packing to crops. I've been through several trimmers since I started scrapping, I never found anything that was this easy to use and produced such perfect results. It's a little bulky, but I'll take that over wavy lines and crooked cuts.

And this small joy just made everything else in my world a little brighter.

Dear Santa...

It's that time again, and people are asking you: what do you want for Christmas? Well, here's hoping Santa puts me on the nice list this year!

Rachel Ray cookbooks: 2,4,6,8 and Just in time!

Mike Birbiglia Secret Public Journal Live cd

I will add more... can't really think of anything else i want or need :)

Betty Home Maker Strikes Again!

I've been on a cooking/baking spree for nearly a week now, and it all started because of Leslie. Dear Leslie, she brought me a zucchini from her boyfriends dad's garden. But not just any zucchini. A HUGE zucchini. Seriously. 12 loaves of zucchini bread later, I decided to toss the rest of the zucchini out. All 6.5 inches worth. Probably enough for another 2 loaves. But I was done with the shredding of zucchini. For a long long time.

But really, was that enough baking for me? Heck no! Let's make some cookies too! Worlds easiest recipe:
1 small can 100% pumpkin, 1 box spice cake mix. Mix it up good, add a bag of chocolate or butterscotch chips, and bake small scoops at 375 for about 10 minutes. Delish!

Then I thought, hey, this would be good with chocolate, too! So I made some with a chocolate cake mix and they were so, so good! Then I thought, these would be excellent muffins... so I made them into muffins too, half chocolate, half spice. YUM!

Today, I had a hankering for some good, warm chili. So I went to the store and got all my ingredients, plus what I needed to make the Chili's Salsa recipe that I love.

Dinner: Lots of chips and salsa, 1 bowl chili with cheese and sour cream on top. Mmmmmmmm..... Desert: Chocolate pumpkin cookies.

I love fall.

Expo-sure

Had a booth with (the fabulous) Cassie last weekend at the S.O. Scrapbook Expo. Not as lucrative as we had hoped for, but we got some great exposure. The make-n-take was a hit and quite a few brand-new crafters got their feet wet using our super supplies.

Here's hoping we get lots of new business from this adventure!

What a busy week! Olivia had cheer camp this week at GPHS. She's such a cute little cheerleader! The theme this year was Grants Pass High School Musical, and they did their dance to one of the songs from the movie.

They cheered at the GP vs. S. Eugene game on Friday night. It was sooooooo cold!

Saturday morning we went to Tristan's soccer game. I think this was his best game yet- he got really aggressive and played hard! It's so great to see him improve and get excited about his performance.

Then we had Tristan's birthday party at 4. It was at the bowling alley, and was a crazy 2-hour madhouse with an AWESOME game of bowling, then pizza and ice cream cake. I can't believe he's 9 years old. Seems like just yesterday he'd only eat mac and cheese and wanted to watch Toy Story, all the time.

Happy Birthday, Tristan!

Are you crafty? Oh, heck, even if your not, this video is pretty darn funny!

http://www.livevideo.com/video/537FF9DA20B44560845DEE157D1F9DD6/man-made-card.aspx

Men and their power tools...

I'll take mulligans for $200, Alex

So Dad, Olivia and I went golfing at Dutcher Creek yesterday. NOT our best day, but the weather was nice (not hot, nice breeze) and we had a good time. Next time, we need to head to the range and get some practice in. But I broke in my new golf shoes, Dad got to hit with his new Cobra Driver, and Olivia played all 9 holes and got to drive the golf cart. Too bad I didn't bring my camera! But here's a pic from her Junior Golf tournament.

On the way to the golf course, Dad and I were talking to Olivia about school (she's in first grade) and we were having her spell words for us. She spelled Mom, and Dad, and then I asked her to spell brother. She giggled, and said very slowly.... B............. A.............. D! HAHA!! I don't know if she spelled it that way on purpose, but it was so funny!

After golfing, Mike and I went to La Buritta for dinner, and then went and saw The Kingdom. Very, very good movie. Graphic and disturbing, but really well done and a big eye opener. Go see it. And be prepared for the gory details.

Soccer

Soccer time is here again, and this is Tristan's 4th season. He's moved up to the U10 team now, for boys 8-10. He's on the younger end of the age range right now, and I swear a few of the boys out there yesterday were at least a foot taller! The field is bigger for these boys too. Lots of running. I had Aidan and Olivia with me at the game, and Aidan kept saying "Up and down, up and down" as the boys ran back and forth. Too cute!



My camera wasn't in a good mood yesterday, and I only got one good picture. Out of about 30. I think I need to get a good lens to use for sports, 'cause all my pictures came out blurry. All that running :)

Good game Tristan! Can't remember the score, but our boys delivered a shutout!

Scrap-Tastic!

Leslie came over to scrap last night. I didn't have the right paper to do most of my pictures with, but I got this layout of our tour of AT&T Park done.

Heaven on Earth

Saturday, Septmeber 8th was a lovely day. I took my very first trip to an IKEA store! We're in Portland for Mike's Reserves weekend, and I spent over 3 hours in the most beautiful place on Earth while he was working.

If you have bever been to an IKEA, you don't know what you're missing. It's a HUGE store, with TONS of housewares, at very good prices. I went back again Sunday for few hours and it was just as fun the second time around.


Here are my shopping treasures:

New lamp for my nightstand

Organizer for my scrap area

I'm going to fill these with buttons and ribbons for my scrap area

This is to display some cards and other small projects in my scrap area

Magnetic bar, I hung 2 of these up in my scrap area for display

I picked up a few other small odds and ends, and a little present for Leslie, and only spent around $40! What a STEAL! I can't wait to go back!

Home Sweet Home

Well, we're back! We got home around 5pm today, after another late start. We had a rough morning. We stayed at Travis AFB again, and discovered they were going to have a planned power outage this morning, for about 5 hours. So, power went out at 7am at the hotel, meaning no lights, air conditioner, or bedside clock. So we slept late. Then when Mike was carrying out our stuff (no power= no elevator) he discovered the car battery was dead. We forgot to unplug our little mini fridge in the trunk overnight (oops). So, after trying to push start it himself, we ended up having to get one of the hotel clerks to jumpstart the car. Eesh!

Yesterday was our anniversary (5 years, can you believe it?), and we spent a few hours in Santa Cruz at the boardwalk. We played some games in the arcade, walked around the boardwalk, and had lunch. We only rode one ride, the Skyglider, and then we had to head back upstate.

We were hoping to have dinner at Chilis in Vacaville, but after an hour of searching and driving in circles, we gave up and went to the Outback Steakhouse.

So now we are home, unpacking, doing laundry, all that fun stuff. Glad to be home, but sad our vacation is over- we really had a good time!

Alcatraz

After an unplanned late start, we just barely made it to our boat in time to tour Alcatraz this morning. Seriously, we ran from our trolley to the dock, and they stopped boarding about 2 minutes after we got there.

The boat ride was packed, and the island was pretty busy too. We took the cellhouse audio tour, I think it was about an hour long, walking through the cell blocks, the library, the administration area, and the dinning hall. Most of the cells were empty or falling apart, but several were dressed to look as they would when the prisoners were there.

The tour was really neat, got to see a lot of the cellhouse, and it was narrated by former guards and inmates. There was actually a former inmate at the gift shop, autographing his newly released book!

After Alcatraz, we spent some more time at Pier 39 window shopping and people watching.

It's been a busy week, so I am looking forward to a nice day in Santa Cruz tomorrow, celebrating our anniversary!

Play Ball!

Wednesday we spent pretty much the whole day at or near AT&T Park. After taking the BART train into town, we arrived at the ballpark about 11 am. We had tickets for the stadium tour at 12:30, so we spent some time browsing the "Dugout" store. The tour lasted about an hour and 45 minutes, and we got to see pretty much all of the stadium, including the visitors dugout and indoor batting area, the press box, and one of the suites. Here's some pics from the tour.

After the tour we went back and made some purchases at the store (I had to get my Giants gear) and then had lunch at a little diner down the street. Then we walked around the outside of the stadium and checked out the marina and statues.

We entered the park about 5:15 and headed up to our seats. We were in right field, front row. Batting practice was going on so Mike got out his glove and stood at the rail with a bunch of other fans, hoping for a ball. He didn't get one, he was competing with cute little girls :)

The game started at 7:15 and seemed to go pretty quick. Our section seemed to get pretty rowdy, and at least 2 fans got tossed! Unfortunately, the Giants lost, but we had a great time.

Oh, SURE!! We can walk there!!!...HA!

I think Mike made it his personal goal to walk me into the ground today. I looked up distances online and we walked at least 3.5 miles- from Pier 39 to Ghirardelli Square, then to Fort Mason, then back to Pier 39. Most of it uphill. Plus walking around the shops at Pier 39, and all the other stops. My feet are killing me! But, we had a lot of fun and saw all sorts of neat things! BTW- in the picture at right, we started our journey on the far right side of the map.

So, here's what we did today:

Took a shuttle from the hotel to the airport, and then took the BART into downtown SF. We took a trolley over to Pier 39. Then we decided, we should WALK to the Exploratorium. Sure, it doesn't look that far on the map! WRONG! We only made it halfway there! We walked around Ghirardelli Square, the headed up to Fort Mason and saw the roof of the Exploratorium, about 10 more blocks away. We decided to head back and look at the aquarium instead. Along the way, we toured the docked submarine "Pampanito" and the ship "SS Jeremiah O'Brien." The submarine was very cramped, as expected. Here are some pictures from our adventures:

One of the ships we saw along the way

Returning from our "hike"
Mike in the submarine

I'm quite certain Mike will hate me for posting this one, but.... at the aquarium

The train back to the hotel... poor Mike got sunburned on his freshly shaven head!

Tomorrow we are going to tour Giants Stadium and then we have tickets to the game against the Cubs.