I sewed, I sewed

I think if you ask anyone who is close to me or has spent a long time around me, they would agree that I am not the most patient person. In the past when I have done sewing projects I have wizzed through it, not wanting to follow the guidelines/rules, and just wanting to get it done. While this helps to speed the process it does not usually give excellent results. I decided to make an apron (pretty easy) and I decided to do it right. I followed a direction (cutting everything to correct sizes), ironed the seams and sewed them (even stopping to unpick is I messed up) and I learned to much. I am glad that I took the time to slow down and do a good job because I am now proud of my accomplishment.

I got the apron directions from this blog.  

Louisville Ward Play-In-A-Day 2012

Ben and I had the opportunity to help our ward plan, practice and perform in this years stake Play-in-a-say! A play in a day is when each ward gets a theme and must write their own script, plan a play, practice the play and then perform the play- all in one day. On Thursday night our ward was given the theme of 'The Lion King' with a standard of self reliance. Three of our youth got together and wrote the play. Then we all met Saturday morning; did reading and run through of the play, made costumes and sets (there were sister's in our ward who volunteered and did GREAT), one of the young women re-wrote the words to all the songs, they helped plan choreography and practiced, practiced, practiced. 

They had some stage time to block it out and get it all to play out smoothly and in the amount of time given (we only had 10-15 minutes and when we started it was taking us about 45 minutes to get through it all). They circled around the piano practicing songs and then practiced dance moves, over and over. As the show approached the girls excitedly applied gobs of stage make-up and did their hair. The boys practiced their strip scene (more on the purpose of that in a minute- but here is a funny video) and they had fun just being with each other. 

Here is the idea of our play: At the beginning of the play all the youth came out singing the chant part of the song 'The Circle of Life' from the movie, The Lion King. Then one of the older boys held up one of the deacons- like the all encompassing scene in the Lion King (when Simba is held above the crowd). It then flashed to many years later, set in a high school, when a young man (Timba, call me Tim) gets kicked out of the Speach and Debate club by the evil, Scar (dressed like Harry Potter- get it, scar).  So Tim decided to find a new club. First he goes to the Glee Club (where there are jocks, dancing and even a kid in a wheel chair and sweater vest) but decides it is not for him. Then he goes to knitting club where they sing Acunna Mattata, describing the woes of high school, but again, not for him. He then talks to his love/girlfriend (enter during 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight') and she cries about how awful speach and debate is, he comforts her by ripping off his shirt to dry her tears (reference to Twilight- young girls proclaim 'I am for Team Edward!).  He then is visited by Raffici (who didn't really fit into the scene at all- he was a man from the renaissance) and an old classmate (now in college) and get's the confidence to go back to speach and debate (hw pumps up during the Rocky song).  He then goes and challenges scar to a debate, in the end scar/Harry draws his wand to kill Tim BUT Tim had his trusty light saber (a required prop from the Stake) to reflect the evil spell and defeats scar. Everyone cheers, Nalla cries (all the young men give her their shirts) and they end singing the Circle of Life. It was full of a lot of humor, lion puns and funny moments- the kids were great.

Ben and I helped behind the stage getting people out at the right time, curtains, ect. It was so much fun to see the kids perform and to have them accomplish so much.  Then we got to sit back and watch the other wards in the stake do their performances. It was great to see the creativity and excitement of the youth of the stake.  We are happy that we participated and were able to get to know the youth better!

Fabric Spring Flowers

I decided to make an Spring/Easter decoration that I saw on Pinterest, who would have guessed.  It is a bouquet of fabric flowers and  looks very cute. I also got a sewing machine for Christmas and have yet to break it in, so I thought this would be a good project for that. I have not put the flowers in an arrangement yet, so they are just stuck in a vase, but I like the idea (on the original site) of putting them side by side in a square pot.

1. Cut strips of fabric and fold them in half, then iron to make a seam in the middle.

2. Then you sew a loose stitch on the crease (that you made with the iron-in the middle of the strip). Then you refold the strips.

3. You make a rounded pattern on all the strips and then sew around the pattern. (I didn't take pictures of this part)

4. After the edges are all sewn you pull the first stitch (that is now at the bottom) and it bunches the flowers.

5. Then you hot glue the flowers in a circle to sticks and WALLA.

 For more detailed instructions look at the blog on pinterest, she is great at explaining!

Bulbs to...FLOWERS!

Last fall I planted some bulbs and have been excited for them to come up. Colorado is a great, but confusing place, because it has the possibility of snowing until June but it can also be 80 degrees and sunny in March. We have had a couple of beautiful sunny days which have allowed Ben and I to watch our bulbs grow. They have grown from small sprouts to full beautiful flowers in just a week and there are more blooming every day.  I am so excited and it is getting me even more excited for the summer, when I can plant my pots and our garden (which we have already started planning, in detail).  Here  are some pictures of the progression of our flower growth.  

Honey Do's- Shed Roof

Now that it has gotten warmer I have started lists of "To Do's" for our yard 'beautification." One of the first things to get done was to re-due the roof on our shed. The shed is falling to pieces; we have our luggage, camping gear and totes with holiday stuff in there and have resorted to covering it all in a tarp so it doesn't get wet. Last weekend Ben and our neighbor, Nate, got up on the shed and re-roofed it.  It looked like a lot of work but Ben said it 'wasn't too bad.'  I am so glad that he did this and he is glad that he got at least one thing checked off of my list. 

(I don't have a picture of the finished project because they took the ladder and I am not tall enough- but it looks great!)

Yes this IS the roof. Where are the shingles you may ask? My thoughts exactly.

Date Nights

Some of our friends with kids have been aching to get out of the house and have some good ole' friend fun.  So Ben and I have been reaping the benefits and have had some pretty fun weekends. Two weekends ago we went, with the Thevenin's, to a comedy/improve show in Westminster. It is called the Madcap Theater and is a family friendly environment (aka nothing rude, crude or impolite).  It was like the tv show, "Who's Line is it Anyway."  They would ask the audience questions (name a tool used at work, name a type of film, name a love film, ect) and they would do skits using these ideas. None of these things were scripted and it was so funny to watch these actors improve.  

Some of my favorite things that they did were: They had a 'spelling bee' when the audience would give a made up word and they would have to spell it and use it in a sentence BUT what made it funny is that there were two people in the 'spelling bee' and each of them could only say one letter or word, so they had no idea how they would spell it or what the definition would be.  It was really funny.  There was also one when they had to do a skit about an object they knew nothing about (so they didn't know how to use it in the skit) and then they had to repeat the same skit in three different movie genre's, the ones they had to do were horror, telenovela (spanish soap opera) and a mafia genre (I don't remember what it was called).  The funniest one was the telenovela because they were trying to speak in spanish accents while throwing Spanish words into the mix but they started running out of words so they were like, guacamole, chip, salsa- it was hilarious. 

Last weekend we went to Dave and Buster's with the Thevenin's and the Larsen's. Dave and Buster's is like a glorified adult Chuck-E-Cheese. There is food, pool, arcade games and TV's playing around the clock sports. It was fun playing games with each other, our favorites were the basketball game and the ski ball.  We also rented a pool table and got to play a couple games. The guys were really into measuring and hitting, which was obviously a benefit because they were all amazing but I was just not patient enough for that (which was obvious because I was by far the worst).  It was a fun night and so great to spend time with friends. (We even got enough tickets to get a laughy taffy- oh yeah). 

Ben looks focused and I look a little insane- but I must note that I beat him.

Ski Joring in Leadville

The first weekend of March (March 3) is a weekend of crazy history and celebrations in Colorado. Last year we went to the Frozen Dead GuyDays in Nederland, a celebration of an illegal aliens quest for cryogenics gone wrong. This year we decided to do something less morbid and went to Leadville for ski joring. 

' Ski Joring is a competition where a horse and rider pull a skier at a fast pace through a course that has gates, jumps and rings. The skier is timed through the course, and penalties are assessed by missing gates or jumps, and by missing or dropping any of the rings.'

The Leadville Ski Joring  event has been going on in Leadville since 1949, and is one of the premier events of its kind in the country. We were all eager and excited to see what all the fuss was about.

We left early in the morning to head up to Leadville (which I thought was only about an hour and a half away and ended up being three hours away).  We drove with Mom and Dad and our neighbors, Kristin and Nate, came along. It was snowy all the way up, making the traffic slow, and starting the fear of the weather in Leadville. Leadville was nice and sunny (nice being relative because it was still only about 13 degrees).  Mat and Andi had gotten us a perfect location along the ski joring route where we could see both jumps and two of the ring sets. 

I thought it was going to be a fun and interesting event but it was WAY cooler than I expected. Who would have known that watching a man getting ripped across snow covered terrain by a speeding horse would be so enjoyable? It was fun to cheer for the skiers and even to cheer for the horses and riders (who we saw on multiple runs, not just one like with the skiers).  We started hoping for a crash because, honestly who doesn't like a good crash (Funnies Home Video's has proven this point) but then there was a HUGE crash right in front of us. A man got yanked to hard and fell right on his back, you could hear the entire crowd moan as he hit, it looked like he got the wind knocked out of him and i am sure he was more hurt than he let on.  After that I was sad that I had wished for the crash.  There were other mishaps  but most of them involved the horses  like rogue horses who buck and won't run, horses who run the wrong direction and riders that fall off. There was one man who, while wiping the horse to go faster, wiped his hand was bleeding pretty bad.  Although these things were cool, it was so great watching someone complete the run, land the jumps, get the rings and ride behind a beautiful speeding horse. 

Afterwards we went to Mat and Andi's house for some delicious chili and games. As always it is so much fun to be at their house and play with them.  Overall it was a great day. I would definitely go back and I am now a fan of this obscure and strange sport.

Here you can see the both the rider/horse and the skier.

The skier starts moving faster than the horse so when going off jumps there is slack in the line. The skiers must tighten and release the slack while going to minimize the wip lash effect.

The horses really were amazingly beautiful while running full out.

 For more/better video's check out Dad's blog. He had his flip so there are a lot more (even the one of the crash).