2009 Top Ten: #8: Home Ec. 101

This is just a little post about my "free time" in 2009. If I wasn't teaching art, preparing a Sunbeam lesson, or making jewelry, I was trying to do something you would find in Home Ec. class.

I learned how to can/bottle fruit, I did peaches, pears, and freezer jam.

These pears made my hands and nails brown for days.

Mark surprised me with a sewing maching for my birthday. He knew I wanted one and how much it cost. One day he called me from work and said, "Look in the pockets of my pants that are on the floor. (of course) There's some pieces of paper I want you have in there." I said okay and looked in the pockets. There was just enough money in bills for the sewing machine! I'm so lucky to have such a great husband!

So far I've made a baby dress, quilt top, baby blankets, a stuffed animal for baby, pillows are in the works, and I've hemmed about a dozen pairs of pants. Mark and I will always need our pants hemmed, and now I can even do a blind hem! So great!

This is the sewing machine, it's considered a "quilter"so it has an extension table and some neato decorative stitches.

Mark uses it sometimes too.

Thanks Marky, I love you!

Of course I also spent my free time making baked goods, treats, and fun cakes. Here's a few.

Pie shells for Pumpkin Pie! mmmmCheckerboard cake

Cake stencils from Ikea make decorating the cake tops so quick and easy!

I also found one of the best recipes for wheat bread thanks to my landlord. Mark prefers it to the store bought kind.

I hope I get an A in Home Ec.!

2009 Top Ten #9: Jake's Graduation in Arizona

Congratulations Jake!

Notice how the cactus is like the palm tree in Rick's photo

Mark's brother, Jake, graduated from medical school from a school in Arizona (sorry don't remember what school exactly), so what do the Thompson's do? We all get into vans and road trip again! This was the second road trip within a month. This time the Sly's didn't come and Rick was still wrapping things up in San Jose.

This time we stopped in St. George for a few nights and swam in the pool at the Walsh condo. Then we headed on to Arizona where there was MORE swimming! We were happy that Jake graduated from a school where it was warm and sunny.

How do you make a kiddie pool into a lazy river? All the adults run around the kiddie pool as fast as you can for about a minute. Then grab your floaties and let the water carry you around. Make sure no one else is at the pool besides your crazy family!

My brother Mike also lives in Arizona, so Mark and I took the van and drove over to the University of Phoenix where he works. We got to see his cubicle and infamous motorcycle in which he got valley fever from driving and later crashed on - I wonder if he would have purchased it if he had known those things would happen. We also went out to eat and walked around an outdoor mall. It was fun to see Mikey!

It's a good thing I like or should I say love my in-laws, or this would have been awkward.

The next day we went to the graduation ceremony and ate at KFC. We were so hungry - well at least I was! KFC never tasted so good.

"We did it." ~Camille

Thank you General for satisfying my hunger!

We then headed off to a Scout ceremony for Jake, I'm still not quite sure what it was, and I forgot the name of the badge...but it was important to Jake so we all went.

After a good night's sleep we caravanned through some famous sites and the Grand Canyon. I've never actually been to the Grand Canyon, I've just seen pictures and my dad's paintings. It was HUGE and FREEZING cold! Also amazing.

Addie

I'm soooo strong!

Eliza kept going further and further into the freezing river water, she eventually tripped and went all the way under. That girl is crazy! She also will not wear anything but dresses!

Grand Canyon: cold, windy, but beautiful!

This looks exactly like my dad's painting in our basement! Good job dad!

Then we headed home. Another great trip, but Mark and I both agreed that we needed a break from the road for a while. So we flew to 2009 Top Ten #2: Hawaii! But that won't be posted for a while...

2009 Top Ten: #10 Rick's Graduation in San Jose

Congratulations Rick!

He wanted a photo with palm trees,

I made it look like his hair.

Mark's brother, Rick, graduated from San Jose State University with a Masters in Human Factors - that's not the actual name, but it's about creating products that are more user friendly for us dummy humans. Mark's mom is all about family, so she planned a weekend road trip for everyone to go out to the graduation. I thought this was crazy at first, and it was, but it was so much fun at the same time!

We had Craig, Carol, Leslie, Addie, Mark and I in Carol's mini-van, the Sly's: James, Holly, Shaylee, Ammon, Callie, Hyrum, Emma, and Alayna in their suburban, and Carrie and Marcie flew out - they're the sane ones. So we drove to Reno on Friday and stayed the night then went on to San Jose on Saturday. We actually got there a few hours before graduation started. This is what we did:

Wating for the ceremony to start and of course Mark's mom had her famous video camera with the spotlight.

Proud Parents! The Slys were a bit tired after the LONG drive

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A flower along the way

We went to China Town and San Francisco the next day, Sunday. There just happened to be a parade, or maybe they do this every day? Also, it was FREEZING cold this day and no one brought warm clothes, we all thought California would be warm in May.

Of course we needed to eat some "authentic" Chinese food while in China Town. I played with the color accent mode of my camera while we waited.


They have a four story Ross in San Francisco! This was one of the best moments of the trip :)
Then it was off to Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't take this photo of Lombard Street, mine didn't turn out from inside the van.

Rick's final project! We all like to joke that we own part of his masters - Marcie owns the most becuase she edited all his papers, I own some becuase I helped him with the illustrations on his poster.

We figured out that my camera could take up to ten photos on the self timer and you can change how many seconds are in between each photo. Great new game! The only rule is that you have to make a different pose for each photo!

And then we drove straight through from San Jose back to Salt Lake on Monday.

I Think I'm Ready

I think I'm finally ready to start blogging! If you read the last post you know that it only took me five months to find the time to figure all this out. I'm really not that computer illiterate, I just haven't had TIME to sit down and play with it all. The sad part is that I really wanted to post some fun things that happened in 2009 but we're already in the third month of 2010! So I'm going to do a Top Ten of 2009. That will make me feel better about neglecting this blog for so long. I'm sorry blog.

Yes! No "misspellings" found! What a great feature.