Just stoppin' by to say hi!

Wow! It's been about 12 days since I've stopped in here! My mom is here and we are having lots of fun. Being very busy! I have only worked a tiny bit on Patchwork Bears and Howling at the Moon. But not enough to share a photo quite yet!

Yesterday, Alyssa turned one year old!! Wow! She is so fun to watch and play with now! I will be sharing photos of her birthday soon! We will probably go to the zoo today, provided the weather holds up, it's been really rainy lately! So I will also share photos of that too!

Besides having my mom here visiting, and keeping us busy, we were also very busy with some sadness last week too! Wednesday morning we were awoken by a phone call from a friend here. She goes to our church, and her husband also works with my husband. We've known him for 8 years, as we were stationed with him at our last base. Her 6 year old son, Daniel, had been crushed by a big screen tv and passed away during the night, so the rest of the week we were just busy with trying to be there for her. Her husband was deployed when it happened, and there was quick prep to get him home quickly. We had a memorial service for Daniel at our church on Sunday morning. And they flew out two days ago to return home to the states for the burial.

So, been busy with some fun stuff and some not so fun stuff. But I will definitely try to post again soon and share photos of Alyssa's birthday!! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Progress on SAL and Bears

For the most part I have only had time to work on Patchwork Teddy's here lately, a little bit when the baby goes down for her nap, we have been pretty busy lately. And my mom gets here tomorrow night, which I am really excited for, but I probably won't be back here for about 5 weeks! (That's how long she'll be visiting!) and I probably won't have much stitching to show then! But we plan on going on a few day trips around the island so I will have stuff to share, but probably not stitching stuff.

Here is my progress on Coming Home for the Holidays...it's coming along slowly, and I realized we have a big counting mess up which we need to figure out how to fix, but that is way over on the right hand side, so I'll get there eventually, right now I'm pretending it doesn't exist, and just working on the left hand side!
Other than that, Alyssa seems to be taking up the majority of my time, lately. She will be turning 1 in less than 2 weeks, so she is in that needy "I want mommy by my side all the time" stage. So when she's awake I am usually hanging out with her. Which cuts into my stitching and reading BIG time. I am trying to be good and stay off the computer for the most part, but that doesn't seem to be working, I still go on frequently...UGH! I need like 5 more hours in a day! Oh well.

Well, friends, I will sign off here and see yah soon...or in 5 weeks! Happy Stitching!

Howling at the Moon progress...page 9... almost there!

I am sooooo close!!! I just have alot of light color fill in and a tiny bit of other fill in....it almost looks finished as it is, but don't be fooled, there is still a few more hours to go on this one!

Life has been pretty busy, after our trip I really got down and dirty with my work outs! I work out 8 times a week! Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings I do cardio, in the afternoon I do Interval training, and Tues and Thurs I do weights/toning and abdominal work outs. It's pretty intense! But I enjoy feeling the way I feel when I work out...I have so much more energy! It's amazing! So I am hoping to be able to keep this routine up. I keep thinking "Summer is just a mere 5 months away...I can have that bikini body by then!!!"

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! This weekend is my SAL weekend with Juls, so I will be working on "Coming Home for the Holidays". So I will share my progress on that one next week,and I have some progress on my Patchwork Bears to share soon as well!

My vacation

I know my title is very creative!! LOL...So, me and the hubs (and Alyssa of course!) just got back from visiting the mainland of Japan, where my Hubby's father lives! Which is why I've not been here posting lovely stitchy photos!

The first day there we went to this Art museum, as my hubby is taking an art class and one of his assignments was to go to an art museum. It was pretty nice! They had some Monet's and I think that's all the works I would recognize...haha!

On Tuesday we drove all day and arrived in the city of Nagoya, where we stayed the night and we ate here...yup, Denny's in Japan! Don't be fooled! There were only 2 things on the menu which one might ever see on an American menu...a sandwich and french toast!
My husband is 6 foot 2...look at how short the doorway to our hotel is!! He had to duck to get through!
We later came to find out that where we stayed was in a bad part of town...where the Japanese Maffia squats, and they own most the town....I was glad we only stayed one night!

Next we went to the city of Toyota...where there are 12 Toyota Car Plants. We wanted to try to catch a tour of one of them, but by the time we got there we'd missed the tours for the day, so came to this museum. I loved these stuffed tigers....it was hard to get a good picture of them, because of the glass encasing!
there we are on the outside of the museum! Pretty building!
We were on the road for 5 days, and when we got bored me and Alyssa played with the camera and practiced for her days as a model! LOL!
Next stop? Hiroshima. This is the city where America dropped the Atomic bomb that ended WW II. Here is the memorial. This is called the A-Dome. The bomb exploded directly above this building. They have kept it in the state it was in since then, as a reminder. They do restoration on it every three years or so, that's why there is a bunch of scaffolding there!
Down the street to the Castle of Hiroshima.
Alyssa fell asleep in her little carrier while we walked around all day! How do baby's do that?!
This was also a castle. It was completely demolished in the A bomb blast, but when they restored it they turned it into a museum, we weren't allowed to take photos inside though.
Except for this one...they had Samurai get up to try on and photograph.
When we finally got back to the hub's dads house, his step mom had a little birthday celebration for Alyssa...(her birthday's in a month!)
Before we left they kept telling us to bring jackets it was between 30-40 degrees there. I was hoping it'd snow while we were there....and it did!
Alyssa's first time in the snow...she wasn't sure what to make of it!
This photo was taken as we were flying in, this is mount Fuji. My husband hiked this the last time we came in Aug 2010, all the way to the top. You know this wasn't taken as we were leaving, there was TONS of snow on it then, and I was on the wrong side of the plane to get a picture when we left!

So, that was my vacation. We had some fun times. I know my last post said I was bored, I was just having a bad day I guess. I did enjoy most of it, but you know how it is after awhile you just wanna go home!

I will share stitchy photos very soon!

Still on vacation...

I can't wait to go home!!! We are on the mainland of Japan visiting the in-laws, and I feel like I am getting nothing of any production done at all. I have stitched a tiny tiny bit, and read a bit too, but I'm just BORED! And we're staying at my in laws and you know how it is when you are staying at someone's house, you just feel more comfortable with your own things....This has been the longest vacation EVER!! I will share photos when I get home! We are supposed to get a plane out of here Weds, keep your fingers crossed!

SAL progress on CH4TH

This first photo is mostly all I worked on this weekend. The left hand side of the house, the upstairs window and some of the area below it!
And here is how the entire thing is looking, as my husband has been working on the foliage on the right hand side, he's been putting a bit of work into it too! Jules is such a fast/great stitcher it's taking two of us just to Keep up with her, and she's still WAY ahead!!!
Hope you are all having a wonderful week! Next week I probably won't be posting as we are going on vacation to the mainland (Japan) for a week. I might post photos of our adventures, but we shall see. I may just use the time to stay away from the computer all together and just enjoy life! I will probably post one more time this week, as I still need to share photos of Howling. For some reason, I have lost motivation for that one! And here at the home stretch! I have to MAKE myself work on it! ::sigh:: So I have a tiny bit of work in on it, and I am going to try to get a bit more work in on it today and tomorrow and I will try to share it sometime later this week before we leave!

Patchwork Bears progress!

Here is my progress on this one! I apologize for the "foggy" look in the center, my daughter got ahold of my camera and slobbered on it! LOL, then it dried on the lens, and hence the fogginess! But it didn't fog up the area where I've been working, the border on the left hand side!

Sorry for the late post...I know, you probably didn't even know this was a late post, but I am trying to keep myself to posting every Monday and Thursday, except the first week of the month when I will post Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, because that is my SAL weekend with Jules and so will use Monday's post to share my progress on THAT project! =) We'll see, maybe I will just replace my normal Monday post with my SAL project instead...

Well I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I will share my SAL progress tomorrow!!! It's coming along slowly!