Fire Academy Family Night

The boys from Class 25 of the MVC Fire Academy invited their families over for a little night of fire fun. We were able to eat dinner with the cadets and then watch them do evolutions (I learned that term that night -- it's basically whatever exercise they are practicing). It was a fun night with my parents and his parents, including a few martinis afterwards!! I thought I would share some pictures from the night -- if you follow NewlyWife, then you've seen them already.

With my man before dinner.

Matt was on flag duty. He folded the California flag.
The school is para-military, so everything is by the book!

Waiting for the evolutions with my Momma.

Uniform inspections by their instructors.

I believe Matt was first on the nozzle on this one.

That reflective 21 means it is my man!

Matt is behind me -- waiting for his next turn

Right after he came off of the drill grounds

Kisses!

Went out for drinks with my parents and Matt's parents afterwards.
It was lots of fun!

Showered with Love

The main reason that I traveled up north last month was for my dear friend's bridal shower. I will be in her wedding in June, and helped host this bridal shower with the other bridesmaids. So much fun!

A crapload of pictures from the shower.

Sarah and I have been friends since high school!

I know this is not a fasion blog, but I really loved my outfit that day! The dress was a hand me down from my sister in law and the shoes were a hand me down from my cousin (which I had just received the day before)! I LOVE new-to-me but free clothes!

Birthday in the Bay

I was lucky to celebrate my birthday for over a week this year! I went to the Bay Area for a shower and my parents spoiled me with some birthday gifts too! I also remembered to pack a few doilies that I was working on. Those are great projects for traveleing, because they take up so little room!

My mom gave me her old Kindle and it had the Hunger Games on it.
I possibly read all weekend and barely saw my fam... possibly...

Coffee for two!

What do you think I (my mom) bought?

A gift from my sweet friend Jess.

Wine tasting afternoon with Mom. So fun!

Caramel Birthday Cheesecake

And I can't forget... birthday dinner at Paradiso!

One last pic from the winery (we were at Concannon, if you were wondering).

 Pictures from the shower to come later...

Birthday 2012

Yo shorty... It's yo birthday.... Enough of that. I just can't help but sing it to myself on my birthday though (even though I'm not short). This year was pretty low key. But I knew that would be the case, with the Academy and all. Last year was epic with a surprise party though, and I did get to go visit my parents this year, so I really can't complain! Anywho, a few friends spoiled me with gifts, Matthew took me out for sushi, and I felt like a very lucky girl! My in-laws also had me over for a Greek dinner on the Saturday before -- so tasty!

Nail polish & flip flops -- Mel knows me so well!

New cd from Matt that I knew we both would love!

Not pictured - Downton Abbey Season One from Jen and fabric and an amazon gift card from my in laws. (Downton Season Two was just purchased with that)! Also purchased with birthday money -- three pairs of shoes (two pictured below) and other random dvds. Happy Day!

Pinteresting T-Shirts

A few weeks ago I saw the cutest shirt of my friend's Instagram feed. I asked her what she did and it sounded super simple. "Write on your shirt with glue. Let it dry. Dye it. Wash it out." I can totally do that! So I looked up the pin and then got going -- I was hoping for better results than my bleach t-shirt! The shirt below is actually tie-dyed, but I LOVED it! Matthew screen printed satan is a liar onto the shirt a long time ago. Sadly, I didn't rinse the shirts out well enough, so the dye kinda went back into the shirts in the washer. But you can just faintly make out the tie dye on this shirt (this picture was before I washed it)

They came out looking awesome! The dye definitely got weaker as I kept going, but I was still happy with the results. My favorite was a shirt that started out light pink. I wrote lyrics to Matthew and I's song on it and then  it ended up a deep pink with the dye. The words are hard to read (have you ever tried writing with glue?), but I know what it says. I can't believe I don't have a picture of it!

There. A before picture. Anywho, I ended up dying like five shirts and three onesies. I just realized that I only kept a couple of pictures.

The picture above is another one of my dyed shirts. It was originally gray (the color of the LOVE) and ity was dyed in the second batch - so it just turned a pale purple. I had used my bleach pen (below) and really liked the speckled look - so I added it to this shirt for a mixed-media pizzaz. That LOVE design was my original pattern for the bleach shirt.

I really wanted the bleach pen to work, so I gave it another whirl on this black shirt (which I bought at the Dollar Store). It failed. Again. I decided it must be old and thusly the bleach must be bad (does bleach go bad?) So I came up with a genious solution -- add straight bleach to the pen! It worked almost immediately! The only problem with the straight bleach was that it bled more than the gel. But I ended up liking the look. It also gave me the ability to flick it and make speckles. So happy with my shirts!

New Babies

I went to visit a few friend's newborns in the hospital a few weeks ago. It was so nice to hold the little ones in my arms. And, of course, I brought gifts. One had already received the baby gingham blanket that I worked on for weeks and the other received the pink & purple gingham blanket.



Baby Everett (man, do I look wiped out)!

Jen & baby Olivia



Olivia & I.

Aren't they just adorable! So tiny! I'm so grateful that my friend's let me hold their little ones!

Burgers, Cats & Smog

Random title? Random post! I wanted to share these pictures from a few weeks ago...

Matt studying with (Freaks and) Skweaks [her new name] in his lap.

She soon became a bookrest. Good thing it was a little book!

The drive to our friend's new house in the mountains
(this is like 10 minutes from our house).

A completely homemade dinner (burger patties, buns & fries) with special sauce.

Can you see the layer of smog (look left). Nasty.

Getting in the truck to find this note from my man made my day so much better!

More pictures from other randomness (including some newborns and birthday fun) to come later!

Doilies

I finished up a few projects last week that I wanted to share with you. First off the hooks is this cute little doily. It's one of the first patterns that I found, when looking for doily patterns. I was not sure if I would like the final product, but I was really happy with it after blocking.

September 3: Pineapple Doily

I also finished a baby blanket for a co-worker. Her shower is next month, but I doubt she will see this! I used a doily pattern and two strands of worsted yarn. I LOVE how it came out!

August 15: Summer Splendor Doily

As always, click the link for my original post with the pattern and more information. What have you finished lately?

Broken Ankle

I broke my ankle way back in 2007. Hard to believe that it has been five years now -- good thing I gave up using "but I broke my ankle" as an excuse last week. ha. I never told the story or shared the pictures, so I might as well go for it now. There are a couple gross pictures, but no blood. Mostly lots of swelling and nasty long leg hair. Fair warning.

It was a late aftrnoon in February and I was running... through Matt's house to the bathroom. [It gets more pathetic, sadly.] I jumped over a pile of laundry to reach the bathroom, unbeknownst to me, there was a magazine rack underneath it and I tripped. ALL of my weight went onto the outside of my left foot, including the gravity propelling me from my jump. I broke the inside part off -- you know the knobby part on the inside that holds your foot onto your leg. Yeah. Gone. Well, sideways, I guess. I am not sure if I looked at it, but if I did, I blacked it out. Matt drove me to the ER and I waited to see a doc -- shaking in pain. They sent me home with a splint so I could get it operated on outpatient.

The next day my Mom flew in (her baby was going under!) and stayed with me for the surgery (my Dad happened to be in town for work). I had to be admitted back to the ER, because my insurance wouldn't do outpatient because it wasn't an emergency, and had the surgery there. SAME DOCTOR as would have operated outpatient -- but about $12,000 more money. Stupid. The doctor was awesome though, seriously fabulous. He found out that I was a college student without parents nearby and he gave my parents his personal pager, so they could reach him at any time with questions (they didn't use it). He also said my injury was the worst he's seen -- and he does the sports injuries for the University. Fabulous. I now have two permanent screws in my ankle. They do not beep in metal detectors and I cannot feel them. The only thing still lingering is sometimes my ankle gets achey in the cold (like at an ice rink)

Anyways, I went back to my dorm (which wasn't handicap accessible, ironically) and was on crutches for about four weeks (two in a soft cast and two in a hard, I think). Then I was in a walking boot for two or three months. At least I could shower then. With the casts I was sponge bathing and no-rinse shampooing. Lame. So grateful for my Mom who got all of that for me. What would we do without our Moms? I was on vicodin for a week and darvoset for another (or maybe less, I am not sure. I tried to stay off the pain meds). Matt was gone the first weekend (Mexico housebuilding trip -- I still wanted to go) and took my truck to get the oil changed -- so I would not drive it. He even told the dealership that they were in no circumstance to release the car to me. haha He already knew how stubborn I was.

I had to miss the second half of my last ever cheer season, although I did go and sit in the stands to join in on some chants. There was one perk though -- I had great (handicap) parking for the last semester of college. Score! I was also able to wear heels again by graduation in May. Awesome. Now you can enjoy these lovely pictures...

Splint. First night. Notice my childhood blankie (I finally let it go when we moved into our house) and hospital ice packs.

Soft cast (between doctor and ER, I think), and my new bed (I ended up sleeping on that couch until graduation -- I wanted to keep that ankle elevated so the swelling would go away completely. No cankles for me!)

Soft cast. It was so comfy. I think I had this for a couple weeks. Then they took it and the stitches off and gave me a hard cast. Sidenote: I miss those pants, they were so comfy. What happened to them?

 

See the gauze stuck to the yellow stuff that they put on pre-surgery? Gross!

Side by side. So fat and nasty.

Close up. You can see how bruised it still was. Maybe this was a week after surgery? The four stitches are covered by tape. I believe he pulled on that long string and all of the stiches came out. So weird.

Stitches removed. It must have been 1 week soft cast 2 or 3 weeks hard pink cast.

My x-rays. Pretty awesome, huh?

We were both on crutches. Lucky us!

 This may have been more for my own need to have this written down somewhere. But now I do. Bam.