Ride like the wind, Bullseye! — Woody, Toy Story 2
Ride like the wind, Bullseye!
Our Thanksgiving Table (2010)
I would like to express my gratitude for my wonderful family and friends for their unending love and support. I’ve had an absolutely wonderful year, and I couldn’t have done it without them.
We celebrate this year with a new tradition. I’m calling it Thanksgrilling. That’s right! No turkeys in the oven. No yams on the table. No stuffing to stuff our faces with.
Our family chose to make a simple yet delicious meal of hamburgers, hot dogs and a steak (for me, thanks hun!). Throw some rolls in the oven and some veggies in the microwave and let’s eat!
We’re celebrating being together as a family without all the fuss. We’ll have more time for fun and games and enjoying each others’ company this way.
Happy Thanksgrilling, everyone!
I went to a group meetup today where I learned some new nail techniques called Water Marbling, Konad Stamping and Newspaper Transfer.
I instantly fell in love with the water marbling technique and used it to “paint” my nails black and red. In summary, you drop nail polish in a dixie cup filled with water. Then you swirl it around with a stick (think: cappuccino art) and place your nail through the design. Clean off the excess and BAM! AWESOME NAILS!
Water Marbling Nail Art
Add a rhinestone or two and you too can quickly reach your minimum 37 pieces of flare…
I was snapping photos by the window today, but Olly had other plans. Like petting. As in, me petting him. Right now. Apparently, he really wanted to be in the photos! I don’t mind at all.
He sure is a sweet kitty when he wants to be. Talk about a loyal companion – that’s Olly for you.
Oh, and that weird look on my face? That’s me blowing him kisses. He loves it when I whisper to him. He bonks his forehead into mine and purrs like crazy.
Olly and Me
Jessica and Andrew during construction
Ten years ago today, Andrew and I signed our life away and got the keys to our very first home.
We built the house to our specifications and picked out everything in it from the floor plan to the vault orientation, the number of bedrooms, colors, carpeting, cabinets, counters, appliances, fixtures and even the location of every outlet and cable throughout the home. I don’t think I could ever move to a used home having been so spoiled with the ability to make such personal and specific choices!
We visited the home site during construction every day and took pictures of the entire process. Those pictures, over the years, have been absolutely priceless. We have used them to map out cables and piping, locate gas lines, change out air conditioners, fix electrical problems, and much more. I think Andrew’s family secretly wondered about my sanity because I took more than 2,500 pictures during the process with my brand new 1.2 megapixel digital camera.
Check out a time lapse view of our Home Progression (MPEG video).
Our home construction in progress
Here are a few fun facts about our first house:
The article below was in the East Valley Tribune, July 7, 2001 on page B1-B2. It talks about our experience in buying our first home in Gilbert, Arizona.
One of the things I love about genealogy is the ability to find information about our family members published in historical newspapers. I thought it would be useful for future generations of our family if I noted one local newspaper article that featured Andrew and me.
East Valley Tribune, July 7, 2001. Page B1
East Valley Tribune, July 7, 2001. Page B2.
Ty Bonnet the Bear, my favorite newest addition
My Ty Beanie Baby collection is still growing. You can find images of all 461 unique Ty Beanies in my Flickr pool.
More than 95% of my collection consists solely of “New Face” teddy bears. There are still over 170 bears on my wish list that might be attainable. My wish list does not include the impossibly expensive ones that I will likely never get, like the autographed Billionaire bears.
Of course, if Beanies aren’t really your thing, you can always browse Andrew’s collection of Transformers images on his Flickr pool.
Use caution however; his robots are sometimes in disguise. Don’t let them fool you! They take up at least five times more space in the attic than my Beanie collection does.
Our Evergreen Pear Trees lost most of their leaves in the frost this year, then they started blooming for the first time since we planted them. They sure are beautiful flowers!
Evergreen Pear Tree Blossom
In a Pile of Puffkins - January 27, 2001
Exactly ten years ago today, I had a massive collection of Puffkins. They were kind of like Ty Beanie wannabes, and I loved them. These little stuffed animals were small and round and filled me full of joy! It all started when I found a display at a local Hallmark store of little bears in every color of the rainbow. I picked one up, and Andrew thought it would be funny to start handing me one of every color. I loved how bright and cute they were, so I ended up buying all of them. It just blew up from there into a massive collection of more than 100 Puffkins. Eventually I sold them on eBay when I no longer had room to keep them all in the house.
My favorite Puffkin was called Mystic the Wizard. He was very rare and hard to find, and sported a “2000″ wizard’s hat in blue and yellow to celebrate the new millennium. If you look closely in the picture you can see four of them near the lower right corner.
The Puffkin line was retired in 2002. I still have some of them which are Holiday related with the decoration bins, and they come out and join us for Halloween and Christmas.
My Personal Ty Beanie Baby Collection
This is my personal Ty Beanie Baby and Buddy collection. There are 332 Ty plush animals pictured, 299 of which are unique Ty Beanie bears. This photo was taken on November 11, 2010 and my collection is still growing. I also have thousands of Ty Beanie Baby Trading Cards that are not in the photo.
A large number of these Beanies reside in Holiday bins that are taken out and displayed throughout the year. We have displays for Valentine’s Day, our Anniversary, Easter, July 4th, Memorial Day, Summertime, Birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Beanie that started it all was the 1998 Holiday Teddy – I was hooked by the thrill of the hunt and the bell inside the Santa hat on that particular Beanie. My oldest Beanie is Chocolate the Moose from 1993, and my favorite one is Fuzz the Bear because he’s so soft. I must say though, Quackers the Duck and Daisy the Cow may also tie for first place because of how much of an impact they had on building a relationship with my husband while we were dating!
One unique fact about my collection is that I once had to sell it. Yup – I was forced to sell it when I moved to Boston in 1999 and couldn’t pay my rent one month. I sold it to my dear friend Andrew (for $800 if I remember correctly) who moved in with me not too long after that and eventually we got married. So technically, a large part of this collection belongs to Andrew! Ironic, eh?
Take a look through my entire collection on Flickr. Every piece of this collection (and my newest additions) have been photographed and posted in my photostream for reference.
Nine years ago today, we got the keys to our first home. This picture was taken in early September 2001 just a few weeks before we got the keys. It was taken by our friend Mike at night. We are standing on the front porch in front of the kitchen. I can’t believe that was nine years ago! Oh, the things we’ve learned since then…
Our home under construction in September 2001
Climbing Peace Rose
This was my climbing Peace rose that I had in the garden back in 2003. It was beautiful, but unwieldy since it kept growing over the path and had massive sharp thorns all over it. Eventually we took it out of the yard.
At one time, I had more than 40 rose bushes in the yard. It was too much to take care of for what little time I spend outside. They sure were pretty, though.
