Travels

Many moons ago, I decided that I would love to one day have seen all 50 of our beautiful states. Our country is so big and there are so many different settings and landscapes that I see in pictures or on billboards, and I decided that it wasn't enough.  I wanted to get to see these places with my own two eyes. Thankfully, I married a man who loves to travel and who was raised with a childhood that included adventure and discovery. He's been all over the place - however, the majority of his travels include those abroad. He's done a lot of cool things on our soil as well, but most of it was done so long ago that he wanted/s to do them all again...this time with me :).  

On January 5, 2010 I wrote a blog about how many places in the United States I have visited. You can see that blog post here. At that time, I had visited 18 states, making my travels around the U.S. come to about 36% of what this country has to offer.  Here is a look of the map of my travels at that time:

With summer making its way to us (slowly but surely), Stephen and I are making travel plans and decisions. I decided to venture back to that website and see how different my map looked after 4 years with my adventure-seeking husband (the man loves a road trip - even if it means driving 12 hours to Texas for the weekend...I love him, but he's wearing me out!).  Now, normally I love blue over red, but I was happy to see more red pop up on my map this time around:

visited 26 states (52%)

Create your own visited map of The United States or Brazil travel guide for Android

One day, I'd love for the entire thing to be red to symbolize all the magnificent sites and evidence of God's creation that I was blessed to see in our huge country.

Now, don't get me wrong...while I think traveling is glorious and offers wonderful adventures, by no means do I think that it's super important and something to worship or live for.  However, it's a lot of fun and a great way to experience God's beauty and love for us - that He would create such a remarkable landscape for us to constantly be reminded of Him.  Can I get an Amen?

Classroom Pencil Sharpener

This post is for all of my teacher friends....

I know you can relate to my hate for pencils and pencil sharpening in my classroom.  I feel like whenever I turn around I've got a student that needs their pencil sharpened.  That's not even the worst of it - it usually takes them sooooooo long to sharpen their pencil because our $100 classroom pencil sharpener stopped working weeks ago and now it just eats pencils.  Nice.

Well, one day I was perusing Pinterest when I saw this:

This pencil sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies claimed to sharpen any pencil AND claimed to do it quietly.  Say whaaaaaa????  Surely this was an evil trap that someone had created to get all teachers to fall into?  Surely this wasn't real - I've never heard of a pencil sharpener that actually sharpened all pencils quietly!  I've heard of pencil sharpeners that sharpened expensive pencils (hello Ticonderoga Pencils! alas, I love you) but did it as loudly as possible while I shouted at the top of my lungs to continue teaching, but never one that was quiet AND sharpened ALL (what about Dixon???) pencils.  Be. Still. My. Heart.  

I did it - I got one and was so excited when it came!  One problem was that I got it at the end of the 2011-2012 school year and so it didn't debut in my classroom until this past year.  I waited all year to share this post with you because I wanted to see how it held up after being tortured used by my students for an entire school year.  After a year of using it, I've gotta tell you that I absolutely love it.  Now, it did take some abuse from my students....I won't share with you the look on my face when it dropped to the floor for the first time....

photo source

(whooooops - maybe I will...this was me...except I'm not a man)

....but despite that abuse, it held up quite nicely!  I am telling you what - this pencil sharpener sharpened like a dream!  Better yet, it sharpened EVERY pencil - from the Ticonderogas to the dollar store pencils, this sharpener works like I never knew I cared a pencil sharpener to work!  Even better than that (I know!? Can it get better?!) is that price tag - at only $24.99 a sharpener, how could you not want to have at least one for your classroom?!?!!!  I'm now contemplating purchasing the teacher special of 3 sharpeners, only I know that Stephen might struggle with me paying even more money for my classroom.  Below is the video from the website showing you how to sharpen a pencil using one of their sharpeners.  This video is incredibly accurate, right on down to the noise level you hear while the pencil is being sharpened.  While you watch it, I'm going to go figure out how to finagle a way to buy 3 new sharpeners for my classroom this year!

Happy Sharpening!!!

My First Quilt

Hello Blogland!  I've sure missed you!  This week I am enjoying time off of school.  When our district put together our calendar this year, they added a week at the end of February for make-up snow day in case we needed them.  Thankfully, we've only had 1 snow day, so school was in session on Monday, and it's out the remainder of the week.  PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW!  This week couldn't have come at a better time!

I figured I could get caught up on a million and one projects I've done and have wanted to share with you!  The first one is a quilt I made this past summer...my very first quilt!  It definitely won't be my last!!!  A dear friend emailed me and asked me if I'd be willing to make a quilt for her little man.  I had always wanted to try my hand at quilting (especially because one of my besties is a master quilter), but never had a good reason to.  Thankfully this dear friend is also a very flexible person and was so easy to please!  I used a variation of different ideas, mainly following this idea of a quilt without a binding.  The main blog that I went to for sewing (and emotional) support was Diary of a Quilter - using her quilting tutorial.  Let me tell you, if you can sew a straight line, then you can make a quilt.  It's as simple as that!

First things first, the fabric had to be chosen.  She wanted something brightly colored that was gender neutral so it could be used for her little man and then again if some little ladies were in her future.  She settled for "Half Moon Modern" by Moda.  A charm pack (42 5" squares) was purchased:

Unlike the quilt without a binding tutorial, she did want a fabric border on the front of the quilt around the squares, and so we settled upon the grey small dots from the "Half Moon Modern" collection:

For the back, she chose the larger grey dots to compliment the front:

The other supplies needed was batting to go on the inside of the quilt, and coordinating thread - I just used a white thread.  For the batting, I purchased "warm and natural cotton batting - crib size" from Joanns.  After all the fabric was in and the batting was purchased, I was ready to get started.  

Please forgive my picture quality...I used my phone and I have none taken with a real camera...

The first step was to figure out the pattern/sequence of the charm squares.  With the help of my sister and mom, I finally decided upon this:

The key here was to make sure that none of the small dot grey was on the outside because I didn't want it to blend in with the border I was going to put around it. 

Once I settled upon the sequence, I made rows by placing the squares right sides together and sewing a 1/4" seam.  Once all my rows were made, I pieced them together one by one and connected them.  After all the squares had been pieced together, I used Diary of a Quilter's quick method for adding borders.  I pieced them together with the sewn together squares, and voila!  I had what was looking an awful lot like a quilt!

I was now ready to sew my batting to the back of this piece.  I cut my batting the size of this piece of fabric and then safety-pinned the pants off it!  After safety pinning it, I chose 3 vertical seams and "stitched in the ditch" (sewed along these seams) to attach this front piece to the batting.  Once the batting was in place, I cut the piece of my back fabric the same size as the front piece:

Now I was ready to get jiggy wit it (na na na na na na na).  I pinned the back piece of fabric to the front piece of fabric right sides facing each other.  I then proceeded to stitch all the way around the edges of the 2 pieces a little less than 1/4" in. I left a small opening so that I could turn the fabric pieces right side out, and then I stitched the opening close by stitching all the way around the edges of the right side turned pieces.  Once I was finished with that, it was time to "quilt" the pieces.  You can get all fancy with this step, but I stuck to the basics.  I decided to "stitch in the ditch" throughout the entire quilt.  Here's what the 'beaut looked like when I was done:

The front

The back

I don't think I've ever been as proud of a finished sewing product as I was of this project.  I was smiling from ear to ear and was all over the internet looking for my next charm pack to make my new quilt!  Unfortunately I haven't made another one since this one, but I definitely look forward to trying my hand at it again, something REALLY soon!  What about you?  Have you every quilted?  If not, what's holding you back???

Christmas Cards

www.wooddogcrate.com

It's Christmas card time!  I love everything about Christmas cards - from taking the pictures, to picking out our cards, to getting all our friend's cards in the mail and hanging them up in our house.  We're blessed because my sister is a photographer who is willing to capture us each year (EELaine Photography).  This year, I had even more fun with our Christmas card picture, because we had a new family member who joined us in front of the camera...

Isn't he just so handsome?!  He looks so regal in this picture...Princeton, that is :)

He's looking a little unsure of this whole thing in this picture.  Needless to say, this wasn't the choice for the 2012 Christmas card!

     

If you didn't already know it, these pictures should verify how well loved this dog is!

Here we are trying to get Princeton to howl....his thoughts? "Really, guys???  You sound ridiculous!"

"Let me show you how it's done..."

After sifting through all the great pictures that my sister took, we finally decided on this one:

I felt like this was the best one of all three of us :)

And here's a sneak peek at our 2012 Christmas card from tinyprints:

What about you?  Do you send Christmas cards every year?  Do you love tinyprints as much as I do?  (Here are our Christmas Card pictures from 2011 Christmas)

A Weekend in Chicago

www.dogtrainingcollars.com

Do you remember when I told you about how Princeton was protesting the month of October?  If not, you can read about it here.  Well, November came in with a big bang and a trip to Chicago.  Princeton was not a happy camper...

The good news is that he had a good time visiting with Grandmama and Super Pops (my mom and dad) and when we returned, he hadn't destroyed anything else out of anger.  It was a win-win situation!

Stephen and I had been looking forward to our trip for the longest time, and were thankful for a reason to get away.  We had friends who were tying the knot in Chicago, and we couldn't wait to get there!

As soon as we drove into the city, we headed to one of our most favorite restaurants, Joy Yee.  Joy Yees is a pan Asian restaurant located in Chinatown (I wrote about it here when my sister and her husband visited).  For the past couple of months every time Stephen and I go out to eat, Stephen has shared his craving for Joy Yees.  Thankfully we were able to satisfy this craving on this trip.  It was a night of a double win, as our good friend, Shea, joined us on our Joy Yee extravaganza!  Unfortunately, we have no pictures to document this :-/

Joy Yee, we love you!

Stephen proudly showing us what he's going to order :)

Our meal: Coconut Curry Chicken and Chicken & Shrimp Pad Thai

Stephen double fisting our Bubble Tea choices.  Mine was on the left: a Mango Freeze.  Stephen's is on the right: a Berry Freeze.

On Saturday we enjoyed time with our good friends, Matt and Amy before heading off to Carnivale (a great Brazilian restaurant in downtown Chicago) to enjoy a wonderful wedding!

It's such a fun and beautiful atmosphere, with DELICIOUS food!

They served our table family style with food that was out of this world!  

 Stephen and I are blessed to have such good friends.  Here are our good friends, Debbie and Stephen - both were in our small groups in Chicago. 

The Bride and Groom

After the wedding, Stephen and I headed to our dear friends, Mike and Amanda's apartment (Princeton's previous owners) to hang out with them and our other dear friends, Matt and Amy.  We enjoyed a great night of food (more food?!) and Balderdash.  You can never go wrong with Balderdash and this crowd!  We laughed until we cried!

On Sunday, we were privileged to worship at The Moody Church before we spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends and loving our home away from home even more. 

We even got a chance to drive past our old apartment...

 We love Chicago and miss it daily.  The people make the place, and God definitely blessed us with an amazing Chicago Family that we'll have for the rest of our lives. 

Have you ever been to this great city?  If so, what's your favorite thing to do there?

Vacay 2012

Back in June Stephen and I ventured out west for a little bit of business and a little bit of pleasure.  Stephen had a convention for work in Denver, CO and ever since he found out about it he insisted that we tie our vacation in with it.  I'm not gonna lie: I wasn't thrilled with the idea.  You see, while I would LOVE to go out west and visit states I've never been to, I don't want that to interfere with a good trip to a tropical location (I do realize how snotty this sounds - judge away).  I'm one of those people (are there any others out there like me?) who would LOVE to live in dreamland where every year a trip is taken to a new location in this great nation of ours AND to an exotic location (I told you - snotty).  So, you can imagine how I felt when Stephen came home talking about this "great" idea how I wasn't initially on the band wagon.  Nonetheless the trip was booked and the time came to take it.  Needless to say, we had a fantastic time and I look forward to our next trip to visit uncharted states and see more of this beautiful country we call "home".  So, if you're interested, I'll share with you a little info/pics of our memorable trip and hope to not bore you :).

Itinerary: 

Saturday, June 9 leave for Denver, CO and enjoy a nice breakfast layover in Dallas, TX visiting our great friend, Jenn :)

June 9-12 Denver, CO

On Monday night Stephen and I had the privilege of meeting a dear friend from high school, Katie, and her husband, Josh for Ice Cream.  We enjoyed GREAT ice cream with GREAT company and an amazing view of downtown Denver!

Katie, being Katie.

The 4 of us

Tuesday, June 12 Conference is ova'!  Rent a car and drive an hour to Breckinridge, CO for the night

We ate dinner at this fun little restaurant in downtown Breckinridge called, "The Mother Loaded Tavern".  It was super yummy!

The view from our hotel room right before we left.  Seriously, Breckinridge was breathtaking.  I want to go back there SO badly!

Wednesday, June 13 hit the road, Jack! Off to Rapid City, SD!

On the way to Rapid City we drove on U.S. 71 and traveled through Ardmore, SD.  Turns out Ardmore is a ghost town...SO interesting!  Click here to read more about it!

We arrive and head straight to see Crazy Horse....Crazy Horse is seriously crazy!  They began carving Crazy Horse out of a mountain in the Black Hills in 1947 and they are no where near done with him!  

 A model of what Crazy Horse will look like when he's completed.  He'll be so large that the ENTIRE carving of Mt. Rushmore would be able to fit in his HEAD alone...NUTS!

 This is how far they are today.  You can see that his face has been carved, the area under his arm has been carved and they've marked the side of the mountain where his horse will be carved as well. 

I told Stephen to try and pick his nose....fail.

After many attempts we have a closer attempt at picking Crazy Horse's nose :)

This is a model carving of Crazy Horse.  The real Crazy Horse is 30x this size.  That's humongous!

Still Wednesday, June 13 off to Mount Rushmore!

 Mount Rushmore as we were walking in.  Quite possibly one of the most patriotic places in our country.

 Someone stopped us and told us how they wanted to carve our faces out of a mountain.  Yup.

So cool.

Thursday, June 14 Bear Country time!

Bear Country is a wildlife park that you drive through and you see the animals up close and personal.  The only thing standing between you and them is your car.  It was super cool!

Still Thursday, June 14 hop in the car and drive 2 hours to the Badlands National Park

On your way to the Badlands you drive in and out of the park.  Although this sign makes you think we just left, we actually hadn't gotten there yet.  Those tricksters!

 The Badlands are seriously bad and I mean that in a good way (ya dig?).  It was unreal to see how different this part of our country was.  God is definitely apparent in the Badlands.  Beauty is all around you!

Stephen and I were going to go on a hike and then I saw this sign.  As you may recall, this was only a few short weeks after I found a snake in my backyard.  I just couldn't do it.  So we improvised and climbed the structures instead.

I realize this is upside down.  But, when you get it developed, that doesn't matter and I was too lazy to rotate it :)

 Oh, Silly Stephen!

Me and Jason Aldean were tight that day! 

On Friday morning we woke up and drove back to Denver to catch a flight home.  We had a fantastic trip out west.  I so enjoyed driving through states I had never seen before and getting to spend some quality time with Stephen.  While do live together and we are married, we (unfortunately) don't get to spend a ton of quality, intentional time together.  This trip was fun because we got to experience beautiful sites together as well as invest in some good quality conversations.

I look forward to our next national trip.  I'm all for suggestions!  I would love to hear where your favorite place to visit in America is.  This will help spark ideas for our next trip!