stegosaurus

New location!

2011-03-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Our New Home!!

It is so bright inside and very open!

The upstairs hall, downstairs living room, and kitchen and dining room!

Nature at it's best!

First things first, Cleaning!!

Then removing unwanted visitors, the Brown Widow Spider and her plethora of egg sacs

Next up remodeling, hoping to one day put shelving under the stairs and knock out the back patio that was installed incorrectly.

Flooring was also installed incorrectly and will need to be fix and a later, much later, date!

I am so excited to get to work on the remodeling/decorating,

Too bad cleaning has to come first!

COCO Beach!!

2011-01-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

Nephews first time at the beach, and he loved it!

I also got to see my little cousin who was down here with his highschool band!

Someone scared up all the seagulls :(

This Seagull had such beautiful eyes, and the little guy was trying to sneak up and steal the babies snacks!

White Christmas!

2011-01-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

Christmas day in Clearwater!!

I saw this pink church with a nativity set,

and the palm trees with presents under it is very FL!

We sat here for awhile listening to the waves hit the rocks and smelling the salt!

The water was beautiful in the sunlight, and the moonlight!

We got free coffee cause our waiter thought he made us wait to long, little did he know we were in no rush. So he got a big Christmas tip!

Loved these turtles that were all over, and so did the man who fell asleep looking at one.

I just love the beach!!

Boat tour!!

2010-08-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

Another day off!!

We went on a boat tour through three lakes in Winter Park. Lake Osceola, lake Virginia, and lake Maitland.
The lakes were attached by these small canals that were just a foot wider then the pontoon boat we were riding on! The area has not been taken over by construction, so the vegetation was very lush and the trees quite large. Because of this the canals were very shady and cool. Many of the exqusite homes had small boat garages on the canal!

One of the homes was owned by the ex-NBA star Horace Grant lived, another by Mr. Walgreen of Walgreen's Pharmacy. The very expencive Rollins College is also on one of the lakes!

This area below is known as the Isle of Sicily. The black bird is a "snake bird" also known as the Anhinga.

Here are a few more random shots from the boat trip, as well as one shot from our walk around the beautiful town with brick streets and fancy shops!

Day Off!

2010-07-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

My day off spent at the polynesian hotel!

~~I finally felt like I was in Florida~~

I Watched The Birds Fly Around And Rest On The Beach

The Beach I Had All To Myself!!!

Discovering Florida

2010-07-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

Downtown Disney and my favorite, LEGO-LAND!! We weren't able to stay for too long as the heat index was in the three digits! The Locness was really in the water :)

The Henry Leu Gardens were inexpensive, but for a reason! Almost all the plants were dead looking, and the fruit trees were dropping fruit and rotting, such a waste! There were a few pretty flowers around.

But there were plenty of Butterflies and Geckos!

And there were a few butterfly daycares.

Last Day!!

2010-07-05T18:17:00.001-07:00

Cumming, GA ---> Orlando, FL 480 Miles

Our last driving day, and a very long one!! Here we are sitting outside my families house!

We left very early so we were able to get to our new home around mid-afternoon.

These pictures are from the last couple days, but here everyone is watching the fireworks, and we watched baby Caiden while his parents went out for their first wedding anniversary!

Day Six!

2010-07-05T17:57:00.001-07:00

The only driving we did today was to and from the Georgia Aquarium!

These buildings are known as the King and Queen buildings, and they can be seen from almost anywhere in Atlanta.

These are some of the flowers in front of my families house in Cumming. So many beautiful flowers! We were able to spend a lot of the day with family I haven't seen in awhile, and some I had never met. So much fun!

Here we are at the aquarium!! The first is a Beluga whale, they were so amazing to watch, they would come right up to the glass and they kept doing flips in the water! Next is a Whale Shark!! One massive animal! Third is a Sawshark!! So many mesmerizing animals at the aquarium, my favorite is the Hammerhead, and we even got to pet some!! Coolest thing ever!

Day Five!!

2010-07-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

Murfreesboro, TN ---> Lynchburg, TN 42 Miles

Lynchburg, TN --->Cumming, GA 207 Miles

Today was going to be a short day of driving, so we decided to stop by Lynchburg TN. Why? Because that is the only place in the world were Jack Daniel's Whisky is made!

The weirdest thing is that Moore County where the distillery(pic 2) is located, has been a dry county since prohibition. They give free tours, but only my boyfriend was able to go because one of us had to stay with our dog Lexi, and turtle. So I took Lexi on a little walk around the distillery(pic 1, 3, 4). It seems the way they make the whisky is pretty neat! Jack's greatgrand niece still lives there and is in charge of tasting for quality. Because of some loophole, they are able to sell special edition bottles.

The fifth picture is simply how we felt driving through Atlanta!

Day Four!

2010-06-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

St. Louis, MO--> Murfreesboro, TN 330 miles

Since we had a traumatic experience driving downtown in St. Louis, we decided to avoid downtown Nashville, and stayed in a nearby town. But before we began driving, we did a little sight seeing!!

We decided to go to the top! So we crammed into this little "pod" that takes you to the top. The folks we went up with took our pic for us, and we found out that we were basically crossing paths as we went in opposite directions. They were going from DC to CO! The picture of the knees shows how tiny the "pods" were!!

Once at the top there were little windows to look out. Even though the windows were tiny, you could see a lot!!

We then had some lunch at St. Louis Bread and hit the road again!!

Day Three!

2010-06-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Norton, KS--> Kansas City, KS 321 miles

Kansas City, KS--> St. Louis, MO 257 miles

This was our longest day. The sun rising in Norton was amazing!

During one of our rest stops I just happened to see a beautiful building!

And the other pic is our lunch break in Kansas city. KS or MO, not sure which cause we kept entering MO!

Not a great pic as I was driving and couldn't look through the lens, but this was crossing over the Missouri River! As I said this was our long drive, but we just had to stop and get the "hitchhikers" off of the car's grill!

Do you think there are certian requirements to live in this part of MO?!

Ahhh finally at our hotel! Such a beautiful place, and it met all our requirements, pets allowed, oversized parking, and close to the arch! Thanks to my parents for finding it for us!!

Day two!

2010-06-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

Denver, Colorado to Norton, Kansas 273 miles

Since there was no leaving Colorado sign, we took a pic of the entering CO sign! And there was the chalk writing "Colorado Hell Yeah"!

Although most people choose to drive straight through KS, we stopped for the night to visit with boyfriends Aunt and Uncle. We had a great chicken dinner, and homemade pie, then for breckfest a homemade cassorole. I think we were a little too spoiled cause I've been expecting it every night!

After listening to the cardinals singing in the morning, we headed off!

Day One!!

2010-06-30T19:44:00.000-07:00

Day one was simply a drive from Fort Collins to Denver. Good Bye green futon :( But don't worry, it went to a good home.

We visited with my boyfriends family having a great salmon dinner with his mom and sister, and then staying the night at his dads. We were supposed to be in Denver for two nights, but due to having way to much stuff to pack we were a day late :( The big puppy is Max and the little one is Lexi.

Here is Yertle enjoying his baking light at boyfriends dads house.

ART WORK

2010-06-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

My first set of pillow cases! I even added some trim!

The last ATC's I made in CO and sent to family!!

The mothers day cards I made for my mom and my boyfriends mom.

My little sisters 20th birthday card!

AROUND

2010-06-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

Some randomness from my life!

The first picture is two magnets that I made, the second is of my boyfriend and I as we were finishing running the Bolder Boulder!!

Can you tell we are biologists?!! The tulip was at the front door of a friends house, I saw it after a long bike ride, and had to take a picture of it!!

My pup likes to snuggle with us!!

Wine Label Removal

2010-04-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Over a year ago I started a wine of the month as a Christmas present for my boyfriend. I found so many of them to have interesting labels so I couldn't throw them out. After deciding the best way for me to remove them, I began!

I used my electric water pot to boil the water, then I poured it into my teapot so I could easily pour the boiling water into the bottles. I did two bottles at a time. I poured in the boiling water and let it sit for a minute, meanwhile I started another pot of boiling water.

Once the bottles had time to sit, I used an exacto knife to peal the label away. I think a straight razor blade would have worked better because the angle I was cutting at caused the more waxy labels to crease. Once the label was removed I poured the already boiling water into the teapot, and poured the water from the bottle into the boiler, to re-boil it. That way there is not much wasted water!

I put the labels in between some heavy books. Who said old text books would never be useful? I also cut off most of the neck labels and put the in my flower press.

In the end all but two labels came off!! Here are some of the labels! The Mad Dog is my favorite!

ART'S

2009-12-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my random ATC's and cards.

CHRISTMAS CARDS!!

2009-12-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

Here are my christmas cards/ATC's. They are all basically the same with little variations. First are my ATC's. The trees are smeared acrylics on card-stock. I made them into ornaments as well. I have other cards that I will post after Christmas!

VEGAS!!!

2009-10-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the ATC's I have made. The pics a pretty bad since I loaned out my camera! Most of the cards were made using a "Thins to do in Vegas" booklet that I picked up while I was there. The first picture was from a Chris Angel, and BodyWorks ad. The second was from an ad. for Stratosphere Hotel, and the quote is "how do you live."

The card above is from Mystere, a cirque du soleil show that we went and saw!

The last three cards were made using a play, a magic show, and a Mandalay Bay Aquarium ad.

More and more!

2009-06-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

To the left is the card I made my dad. I added the waikiki paper because that is somewhere my family loves to go to. Below is the card for my boyfriends brother. The wording says "inspire," and defines it.

I was making the frog card his brother, but it just turned out to kiddish. The last one was made for another friends birthday.

I used my phone again to take some of these pics, apparently my rechargeable batteries are no longer rechargeable!

New Stuff!

2009-06-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

I just got a great job, and ran out of card stock, so I decided to treat myself to some new art stuff!

I got a multi-pack of card stock, some distress ink, a new stamp, and behind all that glare are my my new shiny letter stickers.

A friend got married and this was the wedding card I made.

I used all my new stuff! I added the letters after I took the pic, but I did the initials of the bride and groom. The flowers are made of thin shiny paper.

This is the fathers day card I made for my boyfriends dad.

Latest cards

2009-06-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

My pictures are a little off because my cameras batteries died, and I used my phone.

So I didn't really stick to the guidelines for the previous two card weeks.

This one started out as flower/star/stitching.

I used a flower and stitched on the lettering, but no star.

The purple part got a little thick from gluing over mess-ups and then cracked a little. I might just cut the top off and start over.

These next two were meant to have pink/brown/scallops.

Neither have scallops and only one has the two colors. The first one has a velum cake, but the glue is still showing. If it doesn't go away I'll put something over it. The next one I really like.

The top card is my little sis' birthday card.

The bottom one is my moms mothers day card.

Make it Monday: Brewing

2009-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we received the brew kit at our door! So my boyfriend got to brewing ASAP! After boiling and cooking the "tea" and "wart" for about an hour, it was time to chill the wart from 180 down to 75. The copper tubing has cold water flowing through it which cools the wart in minutes. The only problem is the water flows through, then gets wasted. We can only water the plants so much!

Here the now cooled wart is being filtered and poured into the first fermenter. This took forever due to the fact that we put orange and grapefruit shavings in the wart, as well as all the leftover hops. The yellow in the sink is iodine water to sanitize everything.

After about 24 hours the fermenting beer began to make a film at the top called krausen. This is caused by all the yeast eating sugar, making co2, and dieing. The co2 then goes out the top through a special bubbler top which lets air out but not in. Once the krausen sinks to the bottom, it will be time to transfer it to the second fermenter. This is done to leave all the dead yeast that has sunk to the bottom behind, if you don't transfer the beer, the dead yeast will release unwanted flavors into the beer. Now in a few weeks we will have some India Pale Ale infused with orange and grapefruit!

Card Challenge!

2009-05-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

This week the challenge was to use blue, green, circles, and make it a birthday card. As I don't have many supplies, because I have just started making cards since I recently graduated from college, it took me awhile to find circles that worked. Because of this I made two attempts.

Live and Love

2009-03-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

The first card required red, black, some bling, and letter stickers. It started off bright and cheery, but one oops after another and it turned out as a fairly nice, but dark card. Not sure what occasion to use it for.

The second card required a button, a ribbon, a heart, and something pink.

One Long Card Day!

2009-03-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

These where meant to be an addition of Make it Monday, but it took me awhile to add them. It's been so long since I made these, I'm not sure if any of them where ideas from Cardalicious...
This first one I haven't decided who is getting it, its a toss-up between two people. I really liked how the ribbon picked up the yellow and the purple. This one doesn't show up very well in a photo. It is made with green and yellow acrylics. Its a little thick, but I still like it. This card is the other part of the toss-up.

I used a section of some of my new ribbon for this card. (Mom's idea)!
I sent this one to my parents. I made it so the "I believe" is on the inside.
This is my big sisters birthday card. She is a Horticulturist, so it says "bloom where your planted". When she was little she wanted to be an entomologist, hence the Lady Bug. Weirdly enough, I am currently the entomologist.

Card Day!!!!

2009-02-24T18:05:00.000-08:00

For this weeks card the requirements where:
Use ribbon and green, and make it a friend card........

Tuesday Treats

2009-02-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

For my first addition of Tuesday Treats I have added some pictures of the pizzas that my boyfriend and I made from scratch the other night, and by boyfriend and I, I really mean he did all the work, and I just decorated mine! The fat pizza with a slice cut out was my three cheese, jalapeno, white, and green onion pizza. The flatter one is his which is basically the same plus tomatoes. They were delicious and will be made again!!

Thank you Cardalicious blog

2009-02-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

My mom and I have started to semi-join the cardalicious blog fan club. I'm not too great with computers so instead of uploading to their web site, we have used their creative weekly card ideas and I have posted the ones I have done so far.

This card was to use something green and orange, as well as use a card tag. I think when I find the right thing I will add some sort of pop-out flower or something like that for depth.

For this one we were to use three types of patterned paper and orange letters.

This is my favorite so far. The things to use were pink coloring, stitches which I just used fabric, felt, which I had none of, and make it a thank you card.

This one was my first one, and it called for flowers, sparkles, and circles.

Thanksgiving flee market

2008-12-03T18:19:00.000-08:00

Although Thanksgiving was a bit of a bust, the weekend made up for it.

After a more then delicious lunch at the Moot House with most of my family, we took a trip to the Loveland flee markets. Here are my finds:

A beautiful bright green vase that would be perfect for some freshly picked wildflowers!

To bad there's an inch of snow on the ground.

A regular photo frame for half sized pictures. After consulting my little sister, I finally found the right four pictures to put in it. One from the top of a hill a Red Feathers, my favorite flower, a view from a little deli on my last day in Mexico, and of course some good ol' rocky mountain sheep!
My next find was this brass elephant taking a bath. Everyone tried to talk me out of it, but I knew exactly where it would go....
Its hard to tell in the photo, but the carving of the wood plank that held the elephant is identical to a plank that my great-grama used to do a mod podge many years ago. My last find of the day was this solid metal recipe holder. It is comprised of two metal plates bound together with some leather. On the inside of each plate are conversions including how you convert 4 pecks to 1 bushel. I have tried looking up this item, but I can't find anything on it.

The outside is carved amazingly too!!

And that sums up my Thanksgiving!

What is Halloween Without Pumpkins?!

2008-11-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

This year we decided to have a pumpkin carve off!

The winner gets dinner! Currently no winner has been decided:(

So who should win?

Angel or Monster?

After watching the talented carvers on Food Network Pumpkin Carving Challenge,

I think its a draw.

Baking is Deadly!

2008-11-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

We were simply trying to make some acorn squash.

After baking it for an hour, the pan was taken out, and hot water placed in the pan to keep the caramelized sugar from sticking to badly to the pan.

When all of a sudden.....

The pan shattered into, literally, a million pieces!

Apparently this happens fairly frequently, but most of the time it explodes in the oven, not in peoples faces, as it did with us. This picture only shows a third of the broken glass.

So the next time you are cooking with glass...

WATCH OUT!

Little Green Hitchhiker

2008-09-17T16:46:00.002-07:00

A few weeks ago I drove my little sister up for her second year of college. In order to do that my dad drove an hour to pick me up, then an hour back to get my sister. The next day we drove 3 hours to drop off my sister, then 3 hours back. At some point in those 8+ hours of driving, we picked up a hitchhiker. He became so attached to us that he did not want to leave, and the bees that normally reside in our oriental cherry tree, tried their best at getting the green hitchhiker to leave. I am not sure how long it took, but the next time I looked the hitchhiker was gone, and bees had gone back to their cherries, satisfied that they were able to remove the hitchhiker.

Daily Calendar

2008-09-17T16:46:00.001-07:00

It was my boyfriends birthday the other day, and since I have no money, I made him a daily calendar. Although it took a long time, and June and August still are not done, I think it turned out pretty good. It is able to stand up on simply the pages, and is held together by two 2 1/2 inch rings. Most days have a quote, picture, drawing, painting or daily holiday.

This is a view of all the pages. On the other side are tags that stick out a little and mark the beginning of each month, as well as contain "mini presents", such as a coupon to get out of cooking for a weekend.
Here is the fist day of the calendar. It includes a picture of my boyfriend, a quote by William Blake, and the first of the "mini presents".
This is another day with a quote, and some artsy paper. And no, that is not my finger in the lens, it just shows up on some pictures.

BUBBA THE BAT!!!

2008-09-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

About 10 years ago we had a bat live on our front porch. One night he flew around our heads when we were sitting outside, and he was never to be seen again. Then just the other night his great^3 grandchild came back to our front porch. But he only stayed for one night. I assume it was his great^3 grandchild because bats will start having children at age two.

I did it!

2008-08-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

Welp, I just wanted to search for coconut deserts, but I ended up making a blog!