Another Crochet Project

Well, I finished another afghan about 2 weeks ago and am finally getting around to posting a picture of it. I am now almost finished with the afghans that I needed to make. I have one left and this has been the toughest one yet to come up with some type of design. It's for my new little nephew. My sister has not been very helpful coming up with a design. So sis, since I know you will be reading this, got any ideas for me?????

Belated Birthday

Well, my birthday has come and gone for another year (it was on Mother's Day). I wanted to share with you a great present that one of the girls I work with put together for me. She went around collecting 'well wishes' one the little cards she put inside of the jar. I thought it was a great birthday present from the people at work. Now I really need to come up with something great for her birthday here next week!!!!! Any suggestions big sis????

Goldilocks has got a bear!

Okay, Eric actually got the bear and my hair isn't as blonde (hence Goldilocks) as it used to be, but I've wanted him to get one since we moved up here.Look at this beauty! It measured 8 ft tall (okay, I was just informed that it is 8 ft from nose to tail, if it stood straight up it would be about 10 ft). The head is huge and so are the paws. The claws are longer than my fingers. Check out Eric holding one of the paws.
Eric has been thinking about how he wants to mount the hide. He was originally thinking of doing a hanging rug, but also thought a full body would be cool too (on all fours not standing). Guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and mother-in-law. I sent them cards earlier in the week and hopefully they have gotten them by now. I have been wanted to post a picture of the cards I made, but wanted to make sure they got them in the mail first before I posted them here. Well, I'm not waiting any more. Drum roll please.........................................................
It was hard to get a decent shot of the cards because there is glitter on the petals and leaves and it isn't showing up as glittery as they really are. Here's a link and here too that I found the idea from. If you want the directions on how to make them follow this link. I hope all the mothers out there reading this are having (or had) a great mothers day.

Teacher Appreciation

So, late in the afternoon on Wednesday, the campus director came to my office and asked me what I was doing the next couple of nights (the first thought that came to my mind was that she needed a babysitter for her boys. Don't ask me why that came to mind, but it did.) She said that she forgot that it was Teacher Appreciation week and was wondering if I could make cards for the faculty.

I said "Sure, how many?"
"Oh about 30 of them" she replied.

Good thing I had two nights to make them. I told her if she got my the sayings she wanted on them I would get to work. Well, she turned that job over to the Assistant Director, who was too busy to get anything to me on Wednesday evening. I didn' want to start a card until I knew how long the saying would be. Well, I finally got something on Thursday. I spend from about 6:30 - 11:00 pm making 34 cards. I was lucky I found something that was simple, but looked nice. I was able to use up alot of my papers from my stamping group. Here's just one of the cards and then a picture of the pile of cards. No two cards were the same (okay, maybe one or two were the same, but I think there were 30 different paper combos!)
Well, I'm off to do some more card making or maybe a little crocheting. I still have to finish the basketball blanket. I'm done with the base, but I need to decide what type of border is going around it.

Hello Spring? Are you out there???

Well, I hope you all in the lower 48 are enjoying your spring weather. Currently at 10:00 pm we are at a cool 34 degrees. Spring has been trying to show it's wonderful self, but winter just doesn't want to leave yet! The light is coming fast gaining more than 5 minutes a day. Sun rises about 6:00 am and sets about 11:30 pm. This past weekend we had temperatures in the high 50, low 60s. I don't even think we hit 40 today. We have had some flooding upriver about 150 miles working its way down. The river isn't quite ready to go yet, but the warmer weather this past weekend has loosened some of the upriver ice. Reports are that there are ice chunks as big as cars and houses.

In other news, Eric is currently out grizzly huntin'. He left on Saturday with a buddy to go looking for grizzly bears. They are only about 70 miles from here, but they had to fly into their dropoff site. I'm hoping he comes back with a 9 footer! That would be awesome. Mount that sucker full body, cool!!!!

I have some pictures of the mother's day cards I'm sending out, but I can't post them yet because I think a mom or two checks this thing out. I'll post them either this weekend or early next week. Well, I'm going to start getting ready for bed. Talk with you all later.

Happy Earth Day!

This is the official poster of Earth Day 2009 according to www.earthday.net


*****Oh big sis, is this day also the birthday of my newest little nephew, or is he still hanging in there?????????

Weekend in Anchorage

Well, I was lucky to get to Anchorage over Easter weekend. Mt. Redoubt has calmed down and didn't give me any problems. We spent Friday and Saturday doing some shopping. Kohl's just opened up last week and it's right next to Target, so I got to do a little shopping at both places. Friday night we decided to do dinner and a movie. We went to the Bear Tooth Theatre which actually does dinner with a movie (dinner theatre). The great thing is you order your food and then go sit down and start watching the movies and they will bring the food out to you when it's ready. We were lucky enough to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop. We just missed it back in January when it opened. I was suprised at how good of a movie it actually was. I was expecting the typical Kevin James comedy, but it was really good! On Saturday we decided to go to a regular movie. We went and saw Observe and Report. Horrible movie. It's another mall security movie and it is horrible compared to Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

On Easter Sunday we decided to take a road trip. We drove down the Seward Hwy to Girdwood. This is the first time I've been somewhere else in Alaska besides Anchorage, Bethel and Marshall!These pictures (above and below) are pictures of the mudflats south of Anchorage. Those big chunks you see are actually huge pieces of ice. The get hung up on the mudflats when the tide goes out.

Here are a couple of pictures of Eric and I. The one above is at Beluga Point. It's a stop on the Seward Hwy where you can sometimes see Beluga whales in the water. We didn't see any. The picture below is the mandatory "in the vehicle while traveling" picture.

The above picture is a view of the mountains from the airplane. I wanted to get a picture of Mt. Redoubt, but we didn't have a clear enough view of it from our flight pattern. The pilot was talking about there being an ash cloud at about 15,000 ft, while we were traveling at 30,000+ ft.

Finally I will leave you with this picture. This is Bethel from the air on April 13, 2009. You think we have a little bit of snow left?????? This is the second pass we had to take for the landing. The first pass we were lined up, hand the landing gear down, descending nicely and all of a sudden the plane starts going back up. Apparently some other smaller plane was either coming in or going out and we had to back off. I like this picture because you can see how far spread out Bethel is. Our house is out of the picture on the bottom right.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone out there in blogging land. (I'm doing a little scheduled post here because if the weather and Mt. Redoubt work with me, I will be joining Eric in Anchorage over the weekend.)

Here are some pictures of the Easter treats I made for everyone at work. I thought they turned out pretty good.

And I just have to show you the cutest card. This little "chick" is made using the Big Shot Top Note die and some punches. I made a few of these for the people I work with.

I'm Going to College

*****Sidenote - Just realized that I started this post on April 8 and never got around to posting it.

Well, actually I've been to college already and I've been working at colleges for longer than I can remember. Okay, I remember, but I've always worked at colleges so it seems like forever. Anyways............2 1/2 weeks ago today, I (my program) helped to host an I'm Going to College program for 4 different 6th grade classes here in town. A total of 64 kids came to the college to learn about different careers.


The kids were supposed to get piggy banks with a penny in them as a start to their college savings. Unfortunately there wasn't enough money in the budget to actually purchase the piggy banks, so I came up with a clever idea for a "nest egg" for the kids. Here's how they turned out. This is actually the matchbox die cut for the Big Shot from Stampin' Up.

'Tis the Season

Application season that is. I always love this time of year because I start getting a whole lot of applications in the mail for my summer camps. This is what my mailbox looked like today.

By measure of the ruler, it almost measured 5 inches. I'm not sure how many applications there was, but there were alot.

On a side note, I made a card to go along with the baby afghan I finished (the moose/plane one). It doesn't have anything to do with mooses and airplanes, but I love how it turned out.

DU Banquet

I hear $150, who will give me $175.

Well, it didn't raise as much as I would have liked, but neither did alot of the other auction items. The main competition to my afghan was a Flannel quilted quilt. Usually the quilts go for over $300, but last night the quilt only went for $225. With that being said, my DU afghan went for $150. One of my good friends and her husband actually bought it. Their 9 year old son put claims on it before they were out the door. I know it will be well used and cared for. Now, it's time to get busy working on the basketball one I'm doing for cash. I think I have all of the yarns I need, so it's just getting started.

Well, supper should be here soon. We decided to order out since Eric leaves for Fairbanks tomorrow.

The Flying Moose

Well, I have finally finished the Moose afghan. I think it turned out pretty good. Hopefully the recipients will think so too. It's for one of Eric's buddies. Him and his wife are both moose biologists and the guy does a little flying. They had a little girl about a month ago. It will be sent to Kenai to them provided that Mt. Redoubt doesn't decide to throw-up any more ash.

This Saturday is the Ducks Unlimited banquet. I have been told that my afghan will be going on the live auction. I'm so excited. I'll keep you posted on how much money it brings in.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for my sister who's expecting her 3rd boy here in a few weeks. She's given me some vague ideas, but I haven't been able to come up with anything yet. In the meantime, I was asked if I would make a blanket (for profit ;) ) for a lady at one of the agencies in town. The baby is a year old and the parts are really big into basketball. This is what I came up with for her.

And the Volcanic Pops

Mt. Redoubt has finally popped it's top. There has been a total of 7 burps of the volcano since late Sunday evening. The most recent 2 just happened this morning. They are saying this can happen for months. Air traffic is going to be hit and miss. Yesterday they had some traffic, today all flights from Anchorage were canceled because ashfall this morning was blowing toward Anchorage. Here's a couple of pictures of the ash clouds from the eruptions today.
Both of these pictures are courtesy of the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Mt. Redoubt is about 400 miles southeast of Bethel. The closest reports of ashfall have been about 200 miles upriver almost directly east of us in a little village called Crooked Creek.

Spring?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well, I think today is suppose to be the first day of Spring, but that sneaky Mother Nature has different plans for us here on the YK Delta. Does this look like spring to you?????
Yes, that says -10. I'll try to get a picture later today and update this post with a picture of just how "springy" it is not here in Bethel!

Stampin for Skyler

Last Sunday we had a Chili Cook-off and Silent Auction fundraiser for Skyler Twitchell. He is the son of co-workers of Eric and mine that was shot over Christmas. He's doing remarkably well. He's currently in Seattle for physical therapy and they are trying to get him to Denver to a center that specializes in spinal injury therapy. They need help financing the therapy, the home remodels and for the wheelchair.

I was impressed with all of the people that donated their time, chili, desserts and silent auction items. I decided that I would put together a little box of Thank You cards. Winning bid was $23 and the lady that bought them said she was willing to go alot higher if she needed to.

What do you all think? What would you have paid for something like this? It's all Stampin' Up stuff except for the brad looking things.

Overall it was a good day. Last I had heard was that there was about $8,000 raised. This will help greatly. The wheelchair itself is around $27,000.

On a side note, I made my first official sale as a Stampin' Up demonstrator on Wednesday. Granted it was for my Stamping Group, but still I was a sale!!!!!!

1 Afghan Down, 2 to Go

So I think I have finished the afghan for the Ducks Unlimited banquet. I haven't backed it yet, but I don't know if I'm going to. It's going to be really hard to find material to match the burgundy that I used. I'm excited about how it turned out.
Next I'll start working on the moose in the plane afghan. The third one will have to be a suprise until it gets mailed to my newest little nephew when he's born. Since my sister reads this blog, I can't let her see it this way. Also, she really hasn't given my any good ideas on what she's doing in the little guys room. I may just do something I think is cute and suprise her.

I've Started a Business

So, anyone out there that reads this thing interested in Stampin' Up?????? I recently have decided to become a demonstrator for the company.

Need some new stamps - I can order them.
Need some cardstock or Designer Paper - can do that too.

Want to become a Demonstrator yourself - I can sign you up for that too!

I haven't been able to do any workshops yet, because I'm still waiting for my starter kit to show up in the mail. Should be here early next week. I'm so excited. Hopefully this will be a nice little side business for me. Any of the Bethelites that are reading this, if you would like to book a show please give me a shout and I would be more than happy to set something up.

Now that I'm a demonstrator, I can offer you a sneak peek and earlier ordering of a few new stamp sets from the new Occasions Mini catalog that will be available starting April 1. If you are interested in ordering any of these stamps let me know and I would be glad to order them for you.

Another Muskox Bites the Dust!

The freezer is once again full with muskox. Eric went out to Nunivak Island last weekend for the big hunt. He got out on Saturday morning after a snow storm came through (we got a few good inches!). His flight was the only one of the day out there (the other companies decided to cancel their flights). He had a day of hunting on Sunday and got halfway back to the village of Mekoryuk where he was staying when another system hit. Luckily he was only about 15 miles away and had GPS. He was able to get out of the village on the only flight late Monday afternoon that came from the village. We've had really strange weather patterns come through here the last couple of weeks.

For those of you questioning the size of the muskox, here is a picture of Eric starting to cut up one of the front quarters. It's the top of the shoulder bone to the elbow joint. We still have 1 quarter left to cut up.Eric is out today possible getting us a caribou. He wanted to get all of his snares from upriver pulled out this weekend and if they ran into some caribou they were going to try to get one.

What are you working on????

I am currently back in "crochet" mode. Here is a glimpse of what I am working on. This is for the local Ducks Unlimited banquet. I'm going to donate it to the live auction hopefully. Every year they have a couple of ladies that make a quilt. The quilts always go for quite a bit, but honestly I don't think they are that great. (Sorry if any of the makers are readying this and I hurt their feelings!) I am still working on the border, which I don't have on this picture. I'm thinking I'm going to do a few rows of gray and a few of black.Here is what I'll be working on as soon as I get done with the above project. This on is for one of Eric's buddies. John and his wife both work at the Moose Research station and I guess John is also a pilot. They are expecting next month and I have been told that they are pretty sure it is a girl. I hope so because the airplane is going to be PINK! I can't wait to get started on this one.