When I first started my 'pinning' one of the crafts that took my breath away was this:

http://pinterest.com/pin/165859198749202491/

It was for sale on Etsy and of course I didn't want to pay for it, so I pinned it and not only did I pin it on my Crafts to Do board, but it was my board cover because I liked it immensely.  So....I have finally made it!  Yes, it's not quite as cute, but we have been looking for something to hang above our bed and well, why not these.  

I first went to Goodwill and found a book at half-off, but it had to be a special book with larger than usual font.  

I then cut out many petals and spirals......

For the spirals, I decided to use the picture pages leaving the picture on the backside while rolling them up. I still had the words for the flower centers, but it added a small amount of color to the centers.

 

 Nicely placed over our bed.  They  look cuter in real life.

Grace Kelly special.....

Last week I was watching a channel 8 special on Grace Kelly.  It was very interesting and quite nice to learn a little more about her early life, her reason to marry Prince Rainier 

and then the family life she had.

I am leaving a big space below so you will read this first before seeing the photos I am talking about.

Now I know I was supposed to just be a TV audience observer, and I was, but as they 'panned' the crowd at one of Grace Kelly's visits, it stopped on this woman.  Yes, the one in the center is the one the camera was focused on, 

 but, and I'm sorry....would you take a look at the woman on the right?!  Is she to die for?  Laughing as I'm typing.  Too funny.  

(I hope no one that reads this is related to her; Given the fact that this shot was in Monaco or Paris many, many years ago, I highly doubt you are related or even know her). 

I'm gonna name her.....Hortense.....sadly, she wouldn't be able to have a nickname really.

Um....Rhodes failure.....

Yeah, so Sunday I came home from church to find these.  What are they you ask?  My thoughts exactly, except I knew what they were SUPPOSED to be.  

Please watch the video below.......

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10200795189513782&saved

This is the way they looked while cooking.  Not too much better.  I thought they looked like an anemone, Doug was reminded of the stones from the movie 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'.  All in all, we were amused by them.  Carolyn thought we should have played the 'prop' game from Who's line is it Anyway? and seen how many things we could have come up with.

At the end of the night, all but 2 had been eaten.  Among all the jokes and laughing they were edible.
 And yes, I look forward to when Carolyn and her rolls return.

Mexico with Brian and Celynda!

2 weeks ago, Doug, Brian, Celynda and I got to travel down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a 'celebration' of sorts, for Brian's graduation of Medical school.  We got to spend 6 great days of fun, although I shouldn't make that 'blanket' statement for Brian and Celynda.  We went to Lover's/Divorce Beach and spent a few hours there.  The reason for the name is that at the end of the peninsula of the baja, there is a stretch of land that on one side is Sea of Cortez - calm  waters and the other side is the pounding Pacific Ocean.  They have signs that say NO SWIMMING due to the terrific undertow of the waters.  

This picture of Brian and Celynda took several tries to get it just right and before the water would crash up on the shore.  

In this picture you see the Lover's Beach side where it is calm.   There is snorkling there and a large rock to jump off.  Believe it or not, Brian went to jump.  He is in the blue t-shirt about ready to jump but sadly, I missed the actual jump.

 For dinner one night we went to a 'pirates' themed restaurant where we ran into Jack Sparrow!  He had some pretty great weapons.

Another day we drove to a waterfall area.  It's quite the drive back into this place and you now have to pay a few dollars to park there; (we'd been back before with Ben and Judy Cotter and it was a free hike to this place).  Anyway, as you can see there was only a small dribble of a water fall and quite disappointing.  AND to top it all off, there were small water snakes!  There were MANY snakes. But it didn't bother Doug at all.  He swam out to the 'diving' rock and went right in.  No fear at all.  

Brian on the other hand had doubts.  And as soon as he went in he swam as fast as he could to get past the weedy/reedy area where the snakes probably liked to hide.

 We ended up hiking back up the creek for a bit and found these great trees that have wrapped their roots around these rocks.

Another great find during the hike.....a bum rock! Brian thought his kids would love this and sadly the lighting did not highlight the crack adequately.  

Driving to Santiago, Mexico, near the waterfall, we passed through the Tropic of Cancer.  

This was our mode of transportation to our room and up to the lobby.  If you don't take a ride on this it is quite a hike up the hill to get to your car.

We also decided to go zip-lining and repelling.  No personal photos were allowed, but of course they would sell you a DVD that they had made during our day there.  

Walking around town one day there was a man 'selling' pictures of his iguana wearing a sombrero   Come on, how can you pass that up?  An iguana wearing a sombrero?  We had to do it.  Or Brian had to do it anyway.  

One one of the last mornings we went down to the beach to look in the rocks as the tide went out.  Brian and Celynda each had their own idea of what that meant.  I found a rock with a heart on it, and sorry, I could not get the picture to turn right side up.  Also the heart in the leaf, was as we were taking the waterfall hike.  

This was the morning they would be returning back to their kids.  Although they had a great time, they were ready to be with their kids!

Thanks B & C for being with us and putting up with my snoring.  We had a great time with you two.  Loves!

Today I am exhausted.  I cleaned my home.  Really good.  And no, I wasn't in a fight with Doug, although that is when we do our best cleaning.  But it was just time and needed to be done.  And that was the first 3 hours of the day.  We then went to set for Mesa Highs Prom at a Gilbert Country Club.  That was another 4 hours.  THEN, Doug had a concert - nearly 2 hours long.....   So to sum up.....   I AM TIRED!

Okay, boohoo, I can hear you all crying a tiny tear for my.  Thanks.

Yesterdayt Doug surprised me with two things.  First of all, he found a SIZZLER restaurant that opened here in the east valley!  WooHoo!  One of my favorites!!  So he treated me to lunch.  AND the best surprise was this......

An Apple IPad!

I had been complaining about taking on our vacation my large laptop - it is a 17" screen and it is slightly heavy and bulky.  I love it for my personal computer at home, but it is not very fun to travel with. I need a bag just for it!  Anyways - once again - WooHoo!!!  While we were at Sizzler he claimed his phone was low on charge and wanted to use my car charger while we were there eating lunch.  He placed the IPad on my drivers seat and then came back in to finish eating.  When we left the restaurant he watched me get in and nearly crack my head on the door jamb of my car!  He is a sweetie!

So I took his old  case/keyboard protecting thingy and because it was pretty grimy (think of Doug's fingers after work) I covered it.

Cute fabric, some flexible glue and there it is!  Cute, huh?

And one last thing to share.  I just want to give a shout-out to one of our new acquired items.  Actually, I gave each of my girls/daughter-in-laws one of these steamers from QVC at Christmas time.  I just used ours for the first time on Shannon's prom dress (see previous blog).  I Love This!  And I would recommend it to you all! ( This is NOT a paid endorsement, darn it) 

Who thinks Allan is a stud?

Many days ago......Yep, I've been busy.  There have been quite a few activities that I've been involved with these past few week and one of those is Mesa High's Prom.  Doug, being the great 'set-builder' that he is...remember the windmill from the play 'Oklahoma'?  

Well, we were asked to help design a few Prom decorations.  Something that could be 10 feet tall and sturdy enough to hold material that they will drape from these swirly, curly things and also add Christmas lights - like a waterfall effect.

Well, here they are.  All 18 of them.  

Luckily, by Saturday they will be gone.  

Also, our ward did a fundraiser yesterday.  The kids were asked to get sponsors to pay any amount for how many laps they ran at our local Jr. High school.  We, meaning Doug, pledged $5.00 a LAP for Shannon.  Not $5 per mile, no per lap......  We, again meaning Doug, felt pretty confidant that she wouldn't get too many laps accomplished, however, she did great and reached an amazing 12 laps!  They had an hour to do it, so I shouldn't be surprised, that is like walking 3 miles in an hour.  Good job Shan.....   Now, last Sunday, we found out the Young Men of our ward were invited to use this as one of their fundraisers as well.  Allan didn't get as many pledges as Shannon because he didn't have a month to ask around (brothers & sisters that would normally come to dinner on Sunday) and so we (once again, Doug) volunteered the same amount we offered Shannon.  I think Doug must not have remembered that Allan was setting long distant running records at Brimhall Junior High when he was attending there!!!  I won't give the exact number of laps that Allan ran, but I will say it was over 29 and he did the most out of all the WHOLE mutual group.  That put a whole lot of money in our ward budget.  

Along with just pledging funds for the laps, we were asked to do a booth or two for the carnival that they had set going while the kids were running.  People paid $1.00 for 10 tickets (I think, I never got to leave my booth because it was busy).  But each booth you paid a ticket to would let you do that activity.  I was in charge of the balloon/dart game.  It was a joke at the beginning because there was a slight wind and my balloons would get blown off my board and pop in the grass!!  (Good thing I blew up about 300 balloons).  Luckily, the wind died down and all went well.  Oh, Doug made this amazing stand for me to use for my game.  The other booth we did was the sponge toss game.  Doug designed/cut/built this.....and then I painted it.  I'm sorry I can't get the picture to turn the right way.  Anyway, this added to our out of pockets costs to help.  Although, these will always be in the 'family game' arsenal that we are stockpiling.

sometimes I just can't get it to turn the right way, sorry!

  

Our bishopbric each took a turn standing behind here and the kids LOVED it.  We had brought our hair-cutting cape so they didn't get too soaked, but of course they did and the kids had a great time watching them get smacked and drenched!  All in all it was a great success.  We had a good showing.  I'm not sure what they all earned in the fundraising department but I think it will be an amount that will be welcome.  

Also, one last thing.  Shannon was asked to the Prom and so we came up with this.  It is a shirt from her closet that she never wore because it fit funny.  So we took out the elastic waist and pinned it to a sheet (the peach under material) that I got from Goodwill for a dollar .  Then we bought the tulle and a zipper for around $17 at JoAnn's and lastly, the belt we found at Sas (a store we love ).  

https://plus.google.com/110917207599293469384/photos?hl=en

Sas is a material store mostly sales the fabric by the yard, but it does sell some of its fabric by the pound.  Most of the material is fancy, not the average cotton kind, but it has lace, appliques and trim that was ever produced in the world - okay, slight exaggeration   It is one of those stores you have to dig through to find what you want, but if you have the patience to do it, usually it works out.  Anyway, we are very please with how it came out.  This was truly my first experience with out a pattern to help me every step of the way.  I actually had to use my mind to think 3 or 4 steps before so I could know what needed to be sewn before the next step.....!  

This belt I love, love, love.  It brought the shirt and the skirt material nicely together.