Christmas

Yes, I've decided to post once again. I have to rely on my limited social interactions for blogposts, so they are few and far between, just like my social encounters. Christmas was very nice this year. Coo, Yoocoo, and their little ones came to visit, which makes Christmas much more exciting than just boring adults. NooCoo loves all thing princess and J-bud was happy with all things that moved--cars, tractors, trucks, trains, and planes. FarmerBoy and Coo helped the kids go sledding, and they got to sit and "drive" a tractor. Gran helped with crafts and Uncle S.Q. had Noocoo stumped with his magic. Everyone helped make a snowman, and we "girls" all slept in the same room with wall-to-wall beds. We all had lots of fun while they were here. I told Da that I'd post a few pictures for her enjoyment. Thanks to Coo for some of the photos.


Noocoo and her MegaMe, Roo
J-Bud and Gramps reading a story.
Give me a S-U-P-E-R-G-I-R-L, P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S
Opening Christmas crackers
Such a good tractor driver
"Vroom...Vroom.........
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeee"
I'm not so sure about this.
One cute family

On the Road

So, I've been having a lovely vacation up in the Northwestern United States. First, I stayed with my cousin Bee and her husband DaBee. I had a lovely time. We went to the Salmon Festival in Issaquah, where we saw the fish swim upstream and spawn. We also saw many little booths. On Monday, we went to the zoo with the kids that Bee babysits, where the search of garbage truck seemed to be more entertaining than the animals to the little ones. I, however, enjoyed the animals. After my nap, Bee and DaBee took me out to eat, and Bee and I followed that with clothes shopping (I needed new clothes because I am too fat for my old ones :). Tuesday was my last day up in the Seattle area. Bee and I went to Pike's Market, and then had lunch at the Space Needle, followed by a quick trip to the Sci-Fi and EMP museum. It has been lovely. I am now spending time with Coo, YooCoo and family. Enjoy the pics below. Just kidding. The pictures won't load, so pretend that you pictures of me at most of the places above.

Rain & Craftiness.

Well, I've decided to post once again. I like to wait long enough that you're not expecting me to ever post again! Life has continued on at the same humdrum pace as always. I get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, and repeat. We've had some very nice storms here this week, which created the Greathouse Lakes in our driveway, though they've disappeared now. I'll post a picture, anyway.


Hey, I live in a desert. That's as close to a lake as we get. We also moved cattle yesterday. Things went pretty smoothly. Only one cow and her calf didn't know where to go. I've been continuing on with my crafty streak, as has Roo. Mine is mostly quilts, though I did learn how to sew receiving blankets this last week and I have a special project for S.Q. planned. Yes, you should be worried. On the boring side, below are pics of my latest quilt blocks for sewing buddy, Lauren to see. I also found pictures of a quilt I finished last year. I'm including it as well, since this is as close to a journal as I get. One of these years I'll have to print out all of my posts and put them in a safe place never to be found again. Here comes on the quilting stuff. Please don't look too closely. Perfectionism is not a trait that I suffer from.

In other excitement, we had a ward activity on Wednesday on Emergency Preparedness. I was in charge of the kids activities. First, the firemen taught them about fire safety, showed them the truck and gave them hats. Then, with Roo's forced help, we talked about games you can play in an emergency and learned how to rip snowflakes out of paper. (One of FarmerBoy's church activities). (Roo pointed out that anything you can play in church, you can play in an emergency). Then we put together 72-minute kits. (Roo pointed out 72-minutes is about the length of Sacrament meeting). Either she thinks sacrament meeting is an emergency, or she likes to corrupt kids or both. We then played "Statue" in the dark with the glow bracelets. I was pretty pleased with the activity. No one seemed too bored and were excited for their "Free" stuff!

BTW, here is the quilt I finished last year:


Not the best photo, but you get the idea.

Ma is back in NC helping with the Velociraptor, since Loo had a bit of surgery and wasn't supposed to hold him. Not that she ever updates her blog or even puts up pictures. I would think having a baby would warrant a new blog post, hint, hint. Not that he's "new" anymore. Roo leaves for Portland tomorrow, where she picks up Coo's car and drives to Idaho. Ma gets back late Tuesday night. a drives out with Eliza B., leaving this Friday, stopping at Loo's on the way and getting in a whole bunch of states I don't have. Rude! Then S.Q. leaves before Memorial Day for his internship with the Evil Empire in Seattle. Everyone is on the move. O.k. not me, but much of the rest of the family.

Well, there's what's happening back at the ranch. Hope everything is going well for all of you. Sionara!

This weekend

So, here is my project for this weekend. It is a skirt made out of jelly roll strips. I think I'll make a quilt with the other strips. I wonder who it could be for??? :) I need the waist size for a certain little NooCoo, so that I can finish the skirt up and get it in the mail. I'll just have to wait until her family gets back home from vacation.

You'll notice the NCAA brackets in the background. I think Pa won, o.k. S.Q. won, but he's at college and won his ward's, so he doesn't count. My bracket pretty much tanked. Yes, I took the picture with the webcam because I was too lazy to find a camera.

I went to the grocery store for 10 cent hotdogs at about 4:15, but they'd already shut down the line because it was so long. I just bought hot dogs in the store and burned them for supper last night.

Quilting

So, for the past couple of years, I've taken up quilting. It is my Saturday activity, so I thought I'd share some of what I've accomplished. I have recently become long-distance sewing buddies with lissieloo, my sister Da's college roommate. We are doing a jelly roll sampler together found here at Moose on the Porch quilts. I was a little slow getting started, but I've finished the first two blocks. They are below.


Block #1

Block #2

I'm also doing a block of the month with our local quilt store, and am forcing Roo to do it along with me, using fabric at home. The first block below is mine, and the second is hers.


Mine

Roo's

I've also made four quilts (completed 3 7/8). I only have pictures of two. I have also made two baby quilts. The one for baby WooWoo was made from scraps of the farm quilt below. Oddly enough, the farm quilt is the first one started, and it is the one that still isn't finished. I still have to bind the quilt.

For NooCoo

The farm quilt

An up close of the farm quilt. I actually machine quilted this one. It was a pain, but I survived.

Cruise Slideshow 2010

Because MBCB said I should

Well, a certain MBCB has requested several times that I post about my recentish cruise, so here goes. I went with FarmerBoy to the Western Caribbean. I'll try to get a slideshow up with a few of the very few pictures that we took.

Day 1
Our flight left at about midnight from the Las Vegas airport. After our extended five hour drive (we needed books and goodies to survive), we got to the airport four hours early and I actually slept on the flight for a couple of hours.

Day 2
We got into Ft. Lauderdale, waited in the airport for a couple of hours before taking a shuttle to Miami on Superbowl Sunday. Traffic actually wasn't too bad. We got on the ship about 12:30 and promptly went to the buffet because eating is very important on a cruise. We took our tour of the ship and wasted some time before dinner and then went to bed early because I was exhausted from being up most of the night.

Day 3
At Sea. We spent the day going to trivia competitions, reading, sleeping, exploring, and various other things around the ship. This might be the day that FarmerBoy went ice skating on the ship and I went to the shopping seminar to learn about all of the great shopping deals that mostly applied to diamonds and really expensive watches.

Day 4
Costa Maya, Mexico. We were supposed to go parasailing here, but this was canceled because the weather had been bad the day before and all of the parasailing ships went to cozumel. We did, however go snorkeling. The snorkeling was diffiicult here because there were some waves, so we would swim and swim and not move much of anywhere. Next, I proceeded to get most of my silver jewelry and quite the sunburn on my back. I'd been to Cozumel before and knew that they didn't deal much. We also purchased a hammock chair, pagan mask for my parents' bathroom collection, and a cute little dress for Nookoo. I felt pretty good about my bargaining skills. I'm only willing to pay so much for earrings that I'll lose half of

Day 5
Lamanai Ruins, Belize. We took a bus for an hour and a half to a boat. We then took a boat ride up the river for about an hour to get to the ruins. Farmerboy saw a crocodile in the river and I saw sticks. He is a lot more observant than I was. On to the ruins. I thought they were fabulous and very cool. And we saw and heard howler monkeys, which was lots of fun. FarmerBoy climbed to the top of the building and took a picture of me sitting at the bottom as seen in the slideshow.

We got back about 20 minutes before the last tender to the ship and that was our day.

Day 6
Cozumel, Mexico. Again, we went snorkeling. The snorkeling here was amazing. Beautifully clear water and calm as can be. We stopped at three different locations and saw starfish and a turtle and tons of fish and coral and all sorts of cool stuff. The tour operators gave us the most delicious melon to snack on. We spent several hours snorkeling here and the tour guide was great, pointing lots of things out to us. We continued on with my shopping, getting the pearls for $1.50 an inch (I knew that shopping seminar on day 1 had to be worth something), as well as numerous lucidore (sp?) masks, and some T-shirts.

Day 7
Grand Cayman, Virgin Islands. We actually got to sleep in this morning, since our excursion wasn't until 1:30 or so. We went to Stingray city and held and kissed stingrays. No, we did not get stung and die. We then did a little bit of snorkeling there, which was pretty lame after Cozumel. I finished out my shopping with seashell necklaces and then we headed back to the ship. Grand Cayman is not my favorite place. Mostly it has high-end jewelry stores, which I'm not going to buy things from.

Day 8
At Sea. More random activites, art auctions, eating, and packing to go.

Day 9
Disembark at about 10:00 and spend many more hours waiting in the airport until our flight at 8:30 p.m. I did not sleep on the crowded plane this time. No leg room, and annoying people who thought that they should stand and talk all the way through the flight! Get into Las Vegas, spend the night and lose my .mp3 player somewhere along the way. Boo! I just bought it from S.Q. last summer. It may yet show up somewhere.

Day 10
Drive back from Vegas. Car quits at St. George exit. Mechanics can't figure out why. Car stops at New Harmony. We add more gas (the tank was not empty) and made it home safely.

Randomness
FarmerBoy and I found an old couple from Florida to team up with for our many trivia games. We did pretty well together, winning all kinds of useless stuff as pictured in the slide show.

As mentioned above, I burned my back pretty badly the first day that we were out, even though I used sunscreen. I just failed to reapply it. I spent the next days snorkeling coming out of restrooms and asking little old ladies if they would please line my swimming suit straps up with the white lines on my back. They were very accommodating.

I did spend some time in the Diamonds International stores collecting my free bracelet and charms, which I refer to as my DI bracelet.

You could eat 24 hours a day on the ship because they had a sandwich shop and pizzeria open 24 hours a day. The teenage boys loved the pizza place. We always went to the buffet for breakfast, and varied lunch between the pizzeria and buffet. Dinner was the dining room or buffet. A couple of the nights we went to dinner it took us 2 hours to eat, when we could be done in 30 minutes at the buffet.

FarmerBoy and I did not try the wave rider, but we did watch other people wipe out on it. Whenever it was going, you could watch on the T.V. in your room. We also did not do the rock climbing wall, because I am a wuss.

The Las Vegas and Ft. Lauderdale airports have very few entertainment options for those spending many hours there. Well, Vegas has slot machines, but I don't gamble. I find Chicago and Denver to be much better for those reasons.

Well, there is a long and boring post for you. Let me know if you have any questions I can answer about the cruise world.

P.S. The photos of FarmerBoy in the slideshow are for NooKoo's enjoyment because she loves her Uncle FarmerBoy. The rest of you close your eyes!

P.P.S. We bought the pictures of us with the stingrays. We didn't take them.

New Post because Roo said I should.

So, Roo said that I should write a new blog post. January, as always, has been a very big month at work. I have accomplished the following there:
1. 65 W-2s prepared and sent
2. 30 1099s prepared and sent
3. 6 943s prepared and sent
4. 1 940 prepared and sent
5. 6 State withholding forms sent.
6. 3 Annual meetings attended and minutes taken (1 to go on Tuesday)
7. 7 Board meetings attended and minutes taken (1 to go on Tuesday)
8. Hundreds Voting cards made for said meetings, and we actually used some this year!
9. 6 Nasty accounting reviews
10. 24 Hours of Comp Time, and 1 sick day.

Needless to say, my month pretty much consisted of work, work, work! Farmer Boy and I are going on a Western Caribbean Cruise. We leave Saturday at midnight. Hurrah! We will be doing much snorkeling. I have been purchasing much sun gear--spf clothing and hat, sunblock; water-proof sunblock; biodegradable, water-proof sun-block. I also had to purchase a new swimming suit, and the most unflattering board shorts that you have ever seen in your life. Good thing no one but FarmerBoy will see me.

There you go--an update from me. I'll leave you with a picture of me in my fabulous new spf sun hat. It makes me look like an old lady. Let me know which side you like best, flowered or beige.