Quilt #2

Another post tonight? Why not.  Dustin is meeting with the missionaries (his newest calling is Ward Mission Leader), which leaves me time alone (wahoo!) to bloggity blog.
I mentioned in my last post about a sewing machine we recently purchased.  You see, I got one for Christmas from my parents and it is awesome!  But it was built for speed.  And with my new quilting hobby, speed is not always the best.  So when JoAnn's had a sale for $100 off the sewing machine I had been lusting after, we jumped on the deal.  It's a Singer Confident Quilter and it's been awesome!  The arm is longer giving more room for quilting, as well as an extension table.  It has like 98 different stitches too so I am loving working on it!  It will make the quilting part of quilting much easier.  Working with a lot of fabric is difficult!  I am so close to finishing my cupcake quilt, just gotta put the binding on and it's complete!  I hope to do that this week... or at least this month.  Hahaha. 
I also started working on an adorable Chevron zigzag print for baby girl Jack (Nathan and Adrienne's 2nd) coming in October!  It has been a lot of work so far, but it is going to be adorable!  I haven't decided yet whether I want to post pictures or if I should have it be a surprise for Adrienne.  I did send her fabric pictures though, so I guess I can post those so you can see the colors...  pink, green, and white with pink and green polka dots!  Okay, okay, I'll show you ONE Chevron square so you can see how cute these fabrics are together..... Enjoy!

Think baby girl Jack is gonna love it?

I'm not fat, it's just my awesomeness swelling up inside me

Where to begin?  Do I blog about our trips to Seattle and Utah?  Do I blog about our weight-loss journey?  Do I blog about how freakishly hot our apartment is and therefore we got a window AC unit but have not yet installed it?!? That post would be easy.  It would go something like this:

Our apartment is freakishly hot.  Portland doesn't believe in AC being standard.  So we bought a window AC unit.  But haven't installed it yet.  Don't fear, we bought the plexi glass for the rest of the window area.  But that was today.  Which is why it hasn't been installed yet.  The end.




Man, that was an easy post. 
I feel like part of the problem I'm having with deciding what to write is because A) it's been a while since I posted so there could be a lot I could post about and B) I'm the kind of person that has a hard time sharing my weakness until they're conquered.  For instance, our weight-loss journey.  Have I mentioned dieting on this blog once?!  Ever?? No.  I get afraid to share my faults before I know I've progressed on them because what if I had a post that was entitled, "I'm sorry that I got fat, I will slim down." and then DIDN'T change my lifestyle and DIDN'T lose any weight, and then I failed in front of everyone!?  No, that's not what I do.  I'm too chicken.  The internet is a pretty vulnerable place.  Anybody can read anything you say.  And you can't really take it back.  Even though my blog is private, all anybody needs to do is to copy and paste my words or pictures and then they have them for anyone to see.  (Now don't go gettin' any ideas here!)
So I keep it all to myself until I have good news to share.  Like this post:
Guess what guys, I have lost 22 pounds in the past 2 months!    Which in my book is a pretty big accomplishment.  I still have a long way to go, but we are off to a good start.  (Dustin has lost 30 pounds, what a show-off, eh?)  We decided to try to lose weight because quite frankly, I was sick of how fat my face has been.  Have you noticed my lack of pictures of ME on the blog?  I hate how I look in pictures.  Hate it.  And I want to remember myself in these fun times we're having which meant that I needed to take a step in the right direction and change how I looked.  So to kick us off, we ordered Nutrisystem.  They send you all your meals and then you supplement in fresh foods like produce, dairy, and breads.  We were able to get gift cards from Costco 50% off and then online they always have like 40% off so we were able to get a decent rate (it's pretty expensive and we're still grad students).  The food was... meh... okay.  Dustin liked it way more than I did.  We stuck with pretty much only Nutrisystem foods for about and month and then the past month we've supplemented in our own foods-keeping things low cal, reduced fat, counting calories, and working out at the gym.  I've felt a lot better and am happy to be down 22 pounds.  My face is not-so-fat anymore and I'm okay being in pictures now. But I guess you'll have to wait for another blog post to actually see.  ;)
We still have Nutrisystem food left, but I'm very happy that we're implementing in more normal food.  This has been more a lifestyle change for us than just a diet-- We are all about portion sizes, reading nutrition facts, and staying within a good calorie range.  We should be doing this for the rest of our lives!! Of course that doesn't mean that I'm never eating cookies again.  That would be a sad sad life. In fact, I had Dustin make cookies this afternoon.  And they were delicious.  But it does mean that we have to stop after 1 or 2 cookies, not 5.
I set up some motivational rewards for myself to keep me excited about losing weight.  10 pounds was a new jewelry set (which I didn't buy... instead I got an expensive sewing machine, but that's probably another post), 20 pounds was new shoes, 30 pounds will be a manicure/pedicure, 40 pounds a new outfit, 50 pounds a weekend trip to Seattle (or the beach? Somewhere fun!)  I've needed new shoes for a while and I really wanted to get some from Forever Young Shoes in Utah when we were visiting, so I was very happy to reach my 20 pound goal while in Utah!  8 more pounds and I can get a little pampering.  Good idea? I think so.
I don't think I have an end goal weight in mind at this point.  Anything I can lose makes me happy.  As long as we keep at it, we should be healthy and looking oh-so-good in no time.  Project Looking Good is well on it's way.

Epic Vacation

*Warning: A million pictures are in this post!  Because of that, I am giving a rough overview of the week and then a million pictures!*
For Memorial Day weekend, we went on an EPIC vacation with our good friends from the ward Nate and Yolanda Stanford with their 5 kids and Brittany.
We stayed down in Bandon, Oregon which is SOUTHERN Oregon coast.  Dustin and I drove with Brittany and completed our journey along the entire Oregon coast by driving from Lincoln  City down into California.  Our trip down we stopped at some lighthouses, a cool place called Devil's Churn, and the sea lion caves.  It was an all day drive starting at 8 AM but we made it to Bandon in time for dinner and swimming at the pool.
Sunday we woke up bright and early to visit the West Coast Game Park walk through Safari which is a long title for "coolest zoo ever."  You get to pet the baby animals!  We got to pet a black panther, black bear, lion, and fox.  There were goats and peacocks and deer and llamas just walking around and pooping everywhere.  Hahaha, yep, it's true, the word of the trip was "poop" based on all the poop we found everywhere.  Guess that's what happens when you mix free roaming animals and children's vocabulary!
After the coolest zoo ever, Brittany, Dustin and I headed down the rest of the Oregon coast into California to visit the Jedediah Smith State Park which is a park with REDWOODS.  They were so awesome!  So awe-inspiring.  I felt like I was walking through a super high-def movie as it was so surreal. You really felt so small while hiking among the giant trees!  Sunday night was spent with a fancier dinner and more swimming!
Monday morning we hit the beach in Bandon and it was awesome!  Tide pools, mussels, and star fish galore!  I ventured out into the water about knee high, but most of our time was exploring the tide pools.  The kids had so much fun pulling the poor star fish off the rocks.  Dustin and I carefully relocated them back on so hopefully they are okay!  The afternoon we explored a little Old Town Bandon starting with the Cranberry Sweets shop- where they have free samples of just about all of their candies!  We felt pretty sick after our samplings, especially since Dustin and I haven't been eating a lot of sugar lately.  Then it was the drive back home, which was much shorter driving straight back and not along the coast.
It was a great weekend and a fun getaway! 
 Now pictures!

 Yaquina Bay lighthouse

 View from Yaquina Bay lighthouse

 Dustin at Devil's Churn.  We climbed all over these rocks and it was cool to see the waves splash up against the rocks.

 From the top of Devil's Churn after hiking back up

 Sea Lion Caves

 Can you see the Sea Lions?  They are BIG.

 Another lighthouse.  Don't remember which one...

Dustin driving the boat!

Petting the baby black panther

Baby Black panther

A goat was fond of Brittany's jacket and kept trying to nibble it.

Amery with a little baby goat.  She loved it!

Petting the baby black bear with Daxton and Brigham

Dustin and one of the many peacocks!  Which were sometimes scary cuz they would kinda charge you.

Amery and Brigham petting the camel

Petting the baby fox

Albino ferret

The Stanford kids.  Brigham's (in the middle) face is my favorite.  So Brigham

Brittany and Dustin petting the baby lion

Dustin and the llama

Dustin inside a Redwood.  This was a little one.  Hahaha

The base of a fallen Redwood.  Look how big it is!

Stretching out as far as we can

Very tall. Pictures can't even portray the beauty of these trees

Just to get a little perspective- Brittany is that tiny dot at the bottom of the tree in the middle.  Can you find her?

Brittany and the beach.  So excited!

We found a little sand crab.

Tide pools

Star Fish!

Dustin found a little cave

It was kinda bright... don't mind me squinting like crazy.

The beach!

So happy!

Amery and the star fish

Little crab

Lincoln's haul.  He's holding three star fish here.. that we hopefully put back on okay...

The sun started to come out!

Yolanda, Brianne, and Brittany.  Great friends!

Such a pretty view!

Old Town Bandon- The Flying Pig.  Thought it was funny and cute. :)

Me and Brigham- my adopted son.  He is one crazy kid!

Good vacation!

My new obsession

So the crafting that I've MOST been excited about (and by excited I mean newly obsessed with) is quilting. My friend Brittany talked me into taking an 8 week quilting class with her on Tuesday nights.  I was surprised and overwhelmed at the expenses and work that would need to go into this new hobby at the first class, but have now become quite enthralled with quilting.  I love picking out fabrics and finding quilt patterns that I like and seeing it come together!  My first quilt has been what I have named the cupcake quilt.
You see, once upon a time when I was doing some shopping for a friend's baby shower, I came across this outfit:

Isn't it so freaking adorable?! And so totally me.  I am a cupcake kinda gal.  So I bought it for myself with the hopes that someday we will have our own lil cupcake. 

So when quilting class started and I needed to think of a theme for my baby quilt to make (I wasn't gonna start out on a big quilt so baby quilt made sense to me), cupcake theme was an obvious choice to me!
So I picked out some fabric....

 And started cutting....

 And started sewing.... (this is called chain sewing... you just sew one piece after the other so it makes a long chain of pieces that you snip apart)

 And sewing....

 And mapping out....

 And sewing some more...

 Until I reached this point this morning!

Um, isn't this the cutest freaking thing you've ever seen!?!  I am very happy with how it's turning out.  I still have a border to put around the whole thing, then I need to do the backing, batting, and binding to finish it off.
My lil cupcake is gonna be one lucky lady!