His Special Day

I baked a cake for John's birthday this morning, and Amanda decorated with the candies and candles. John is a simple-kinda-of-guy, so we are keeping his birthday simple. We'll go out to his favorite restaurant then home for cake and ice cream. 8-)

Carolina Crossroads - Step 5

Yep, I finished with these puppies last night. Step 5 of Carolina Crossroads Mystery Quilt is completed... all of 100 hourglass blocks. I started out making these blocks using two squares method, but then ran out of larger pieces about 2/3 of the way through with my black and white and had to resort to using the smaller pieces. I do not have the Companion Angle ruler as in Bonnie's instruction but do have an Omnigrid ruler to use. I'm glad I got a chance to make these units using the strip method because I've never done it that way.

Ready for Step 6... can't wait to put the blocks together.

Carolina Crossroads Mystery

I'm feeling much better today. My head cleared; no more headache and dizziness.... almost back to my normal self.

It has been a wet weekend here in Southern California. Normally, the kids and I like to take the dogs out for a walk and play in the rain, but we stayed in yesterday... no playing in the rain this time around. :( John went to see the Supercross (indoor dirtbike race). Hannah has been working on her science project which is due tomorrow (three of the steps anyway), and I got lots of sewing time in. ;-))

A couple of weeks before Christmas, while I was catching up with blogs reading, I discovered that Bonnie at Quiltville is doing a mystery quilt, Carolina Crossroads. How did I missed that before? She was already on Step 3 then. I've never done a mystery quilt before, so I couldn't resist joining in on the fun... and the best part is that it's a scrappy quilt. I think Bonnie is the Queen of Scrappiness... check out her website for yourself.

This mystery quilt is what I've been working on all week. You see, Bonnie is at Step 5 this week, and the next step will be putting the blocks together come next Thursday or Friday. I am almost caught up. 8-)) Step 1 to step 4 completed... step 5 is half way done.

As you can see, my colors are blue and orange per the artist-in-the-family's (aka Amanda) suggestion. I started collecting some black and white FQs recently, my latest love, and thought that it would be fun to use them for the background. It will be a happy quilt. Now that I'm on Step 5 and it dawns on me, I hope that I didn't messed things up by using dark for the background. Bonnie's instructions stated to use light for the background... I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will turn out OK.

From left to right: Step 1- Railfence(100), Step 2 - 9-patch with accent color(100), Step 3 - MORE 9-patches(80), Step 4 - triangle 9-patches(40).





These little blocks are tiny... so tiny that they fit in the palm of my hand... and I have little hands. They will finished at 3" in the quilt.

Our First Cruise

AURGHGHGHG... it bounds to happen sooner or later, John gave me his head cold that he has been nursing all week. So I've been taking extra vitamin C, eating alot of citrus, and lots and lots of soup to combat this cold. Hopefully, the kids won't get it before they head back to school.

Finally, I have uploaded pictures and learned how to use the new scanner. Why does it take me so long to learn how to use anything that has a cord and computer chip in it?! Oh yeah, I'm technology challenge! lol I tried to scan some photos last night and couldn't get the @%#$! scanner to cooperate with me for like 30 minutes. So John came to the rescue and in a minute, he figured it out what to do (it's his first time using it). Apparently, it wasn't the machine, it was the USER!! *LOL*

Sorry about the rambling.... here are some photos of our cruise...

This is the ship that we were on, the "Monarch of the Seas"..... No, we did not take this picture.

You're probably wondering why we decided to go on a cruise between Christmas and New Year and WITHOUT the kids. Well, it happened that our good friend, Valerie, turned 40 and her birthday is on Christmas Day. She never had a real birthday party, so Armand, her DH, gave her a birthday party that she'll never forget. And it was a blast! What a way to celebrate your 40th and first real birthday party!

It was a three night cruise down to Mexico. We arrived in Ensenada on Saturday morning, and the whole birthday party moved onto land to do some shopping and continued with the celebration. We rented some golf carts for the 12 people..

Do we look like we are the tourists?! *LOL*

Birthday Girl is on the right..

Here we are before we hit Ensenada. That is all I can show for Mexico because you know what they said... What happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico! *LOL*

On Sunday, we were back to the seas with the ship just floating there. That's when the seasickness sorted of hit me or is that from Mexico? *LOL*

Cute towel monkey that our room attendant made for us.

Group photo.... on our last night.

2008

We're back from our cruise excursion. This was our first cruise ever and John and I had a BLAST! I didn't take a whole lot of pictures but do have a few to post... once I find the cord to the camera.

We arrived home before noon yesterday and supposed to head back out later in the evening to go to a New Year's Eve party, but John somehow came down with the flu or something like that. He felt miserably and slept all afternoon and right into the evening, so we ended up having a quiet New Year's Eve at home... watched TV and watched the dropping of the ball in New York on its 100th anniversary.

I can't believe it is 2008! Where did the time go? What is your New Year's Resolution? I usually don't make resolutions because I'd never followed through. However, since Christmas flew by and I was so unorganized, my resolution is to make Christmas year round for 2008. That just means I will work on projects and gifts that I had in mind for quite awhile now for Christmas throughout the year instead of waiting until November to work of them.

Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year to all!