Sewing for Myself (Mostly)

I do a lot of sewing for my kids.  I do a reasonable amount of sewing for my house.  Within the past year, I made purses for both of our moms and all of our sisters.  I really don't ever sew much for myself.  I decided to change that this summer :)

First project on the list was this navy and white pleated striped skirt.  The fabric is navy and white shantung from Jo-Ann. Yeah...I actually have had the pattern and the fabric for over a year.  I don't know why I never actually got to it until now...

 I like the way the finished product looks, but the pattern was kind of frustrating to work with. That's also partly because I'm used to sewing on cotton and not such slippery fabric!  I added a few inches in length but otherwise kept everything the same.


Next up I decided to finally make myself a bag!  I tried five different patterns with the previous bags, and decided to make the same one I made for Brooke.  It was my favorite pattern both in terms of looks and also in construction.  I had been eyeing the fabric for a few months, probably because it had so much gray, navy, and emerald.  You can't really see the button, but it is emerald green and also very pretty.

My third project was this drapey top.  I LOVE the fabric.  You can't really see it here, but it's a pale aqua with small white and metallic gold triangles.  The pattern pieces are so, so oddly shaped for this top.  The back is pretty easy.  The band around the bottom is pretty easy.  The front pieces, though, are combined drape + sleeve, and they are weird.  I had to make tons and tons of markings on the pieces and in the pattern to make sure I was attaching everything correctly :)

Project four is not technically for me.  I needed to bring some secret sister presents to Girl's Camp, and the rule was that one of them had to be handmade.  I would have just made some cookies, but we weren't supposed to give the handmade present until the last day and I wanted things to actually taste good!  Instead, I raided my scrap drawer and made these little zipper pouches.  They are 5 x 7 and about the right size for tissues, candy, change, etc.  I think it only took about 15-20 minutes per pouch, cutting and everything, so that's pretty good!

 All of this is fabric from other bags that I'd made.  I love being able to use my scraps!

Team Pictures

I wasn't really sure if I wanted to buy Miles's t-ball pictures.  He had fun at t-ball, but it wasn't a really serious thing.  In the end, they were cheap, so I decided to just go ahead and do it.  I'm so glad I did!

Look how cute this turned out:

I have it up on my fridge and it makes me smile every time.  I think I had to tell him some kind of Bowser joke to make him smile, but at least it worked!

Here he is with the whole team.  His actual coach was running really late, so at first all the other dads were just going to be in the picture.  Luckily the coach did show up just in time!

Girl's Camp for Grown-Ups

I had the opportunity to go to Girl's Camp this year for the first time as an adult leader.  I went for six years as a teenager, but it was a completely different experience this time!

As a teenager, I thought that I did a lot of planning for camp.  I packed my suitcases and my backpack.  I helped plan skits and decorations and activities.  I did certification for water and first aid.

That's nothing compared to behind-the-scenes planning, and I want to clarify that I only had a small portion of that planning.  I was put in charge of the food.  This ends up being four days of food for about 30 people, trying to go for an inexpensive budget.  It's meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking on steroids :)

Thankfully, my mom was in town to help me with the shopping.  We hauled off to Costco and bought enormous amounts of food.   We took that all home and then went to Winco to buy enormous amounts of food.  Gerrit and I went over the camp director's and spent hours that night making sure all of that food got appropriately packed.

Unfortunately, here's where things started to look remarkably similar to my past camp experiences.  I was extremely disaster-prone as a teenager.  In my six years at camp, I got really terrible chapped lips, a second-degree sunburn, an allergy to dish soap, a twisted ankle, a flooded tent, a tent that blew over into a firepit, and a coughing spree so bad that I threw up.

History tends to repeat itself.  The night before Girl's Camp, I got sick and was in horrible pain until about 5 in the morning.  There was no way I would be able to make it to camp, and I felt so bad and guilty.  I dragged myself out of bed an hour later to make a detailed cooking plan, and then sent Gerrit to deliver everything for me.

Thankfully, I felt better enough to head up to camp for the second half with another leader :)  I spent my next two days helping with cooking, hiking, doing skits, going to activities and testimony meetings and helping clean and pack out the food at the end.  I was sad to miss the temple trip and the day at the lake, but at least I was able to go for some of it!

I'm glad to have had the opportunity to go, even if it was exhausting and kind of stressful.  It was neat to see the girls helping each other and getting the opportunity to strengthen their own testimonies and share their thoughts with each other.

Day Six: Science Center and Day Seven: Just Get Me Home

Day six was our last day at the reunion.  The plan was to go see the Oregon Garden in Silverton, but the kids were really not up to a day of walking in gardens.  It would have involved a lot of whining.  Gerrit had his heart set on seeing the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, so we headed back to Portland.


This museum was also on our pass, but it actually turned out to be a free day at the museum anyways!  It meant that it was a little more crowded, but it still wasn't too bad.

Having a great time with dad!

Of course, their favorites are the ones where they can get wet AND sandy.

It looks like Miles has inherited Gerrit's love of probability.

There was a sign up that the van de graaff generator wasn't working well that day.  Gerrit had a theory that they just needed the right sort of hair, and apparently Molly and I have that sort of hair.

After the museum, we headed back towards Silverton to have dinner with Gerrit's great-aunt and some of her family.

Miles idolizes Gerrit's cousin Christian, probably because he is willing to talk to him for hours on end about computer games.

Okay, so this was hilarious.  Catherine (a cousin-in-law) was playing frisbee with her two dogs.  The frisbee fell into some thick bushes.  It was Blue's special toy, and he was so sad.  He just kept staring at the bushes and whining.  Gerrit felt bad and helped get the frisbee out.  Blue was so grateful that he immediately peed on the Frisbee :)

Gerrit was laughing too hard to drive !

We made it back for a fairly early night so we could leave before 6 AM the next morning for our drive back to Utah.

I had made all kinds of plans for our drive back.  I found several playgrounds.  We were going to stop at Multnomah Falls and Shoshone Falls.  Instead, we just all wanted to get back home as soon as possible.  The kids slept through our first planned waterfall stop, and there was no way I was waking them up.  Instead, we made exactly one stop at a playground, one stop at a rest stop for a picnic lunch, and one stop for dinner.  Here's our one stop at the playground in Pendleton, Oregon.

 I am so grateful for the portable DVD player!  The kids would play with toys for a while, but it was nice to have something else to break up the pace of the 14-hour drive.  We made it home around 9 PM and we were just all so, so grateful to be back :)

Day Five: Oregon Coast. Moo.

This was our cold day :)  We went to a very cold beach and had some even colder ice cream on the Oregon coast.

The beach was beautiful, but much too cold to really go into the water.  You'll notice that everyone is in sweatshirts!

Toes in the sand!  This California girl has missed that :)

 Molly loved playing in the sand!

 Miles really liked building in the sand with the other cousins.

 Molly loves Grandma!

 None of us went into the water, but a few of Gerrit's cousins ran in wearing their regular clothes.  Luckily there was a Goodwill in town to get some dry things!

After our chilly trip to the beach, we drove up the coast to Tillamook to the cheese factory.  I LOVE Tillamook products.  They make the best cheese and yogurt, and we love their ice cream and butter, too.  I was so excited to see their factory!

It's always fun to pretend to be a cow or drive the Loaf Love bus.

Gerrit's grandma bought everyone an ice cream cone.  We tried a few flavors, and marionberry pie was one of the favorites along with the hazelnut salted caramel.

The factory also gives out cheese samples.  Gerrit and I liked this one well enough to buy some for the drive home.  Gerrit is not as big of a cheese fan as I am.  He usually just humors me when I buy fancy cheese as a snack, but he liked this one well enough to tell me I could buy more whenever I want!

Day Four: Silver Falls

This day may go down as one of the few times in my life where one of my children being ill was both a major blessing and a very expensive catastrophe.

Early that morning, we realized that Molly had gotten Miles's awful fever.  She was tired and just completely drained of all her usual energy.

That day was also the day that the family was going to go hiking at Silver Falls State Park.  Since Molly was mostly just tired, we decided that we would go ahead and join everyone on the hike.

Pre-hike.  Sweet little Molly is so sick, but still smiling.

 This hike goes to ten different waterfalls.  I think we saw something like 6 or 7 of them, but we needed to turn around and get our kids back to the hotel :)

 I think the Pacific Northwest is just so beautiful.

 Miles was a pretty good little hiker.  He did get to hike on Grandpa's shoulders for a while.  Molly did not technically hike at all.  Someone had to carry her the whole way.

 You can hike behind several of the waterfalls.  This is actually the part where it was a relief that Molly was sick.  Usually, she would have been running all over and struggling.  It was so slippery that it was nice that she didn't even want to walk at all!

 On the way back, Miles was completely done with hiking.  He wanted us to carry him.  I can carry Molly.  I can't carry Miles.  Luckily, Gerrit and I came up with a plan to convince Miles that he was beating "the narrow walk" boss, or the "edge boss", and that he was getting a new level every time we crossed a bridge.  He practically ran the rest of the way!

 End of the hike and still smiling!  She is such a sweet little girl, even though she was so exhausted at this point.

We brought the kids home and Molly either slept or watched cartoons for the next 6 hours.  Finally, she started to feel better at the same time that Miles got sick again.  This was a recipe for disaster.

See this beautiful hotel room?  Pay special attention to the light brown leather bench at the foot of the bed.  I was in the back bedroom holding Miles through a coughing fit.  Gerrit was in the bathroom.  Molly somehow found a pen and colored all over that beautiful leather bench.  Do you know what does not come out of leather?  Ink.  We had to pay to reupholster the bench.  Gerrit's family was very sweet and helped us cover the cost, but still....someone's natural state just might be trouble :)

Day Three: A Tale of Two Downtowns

Day three of our family vacation was our day in Portland.  Again, we wanted to head to one of the museums covered on our pass, so this time we went to the Portland Children's Museum.  I prefer the one at Thanksgiving Point, but it is still a nice little museum.

They have this giant crocodile for kids to brush its teeth.  Miles took one look and said "I'm going to stick my head in there!"  This is not the approach I hope he takes to real animals.

 He's a lot more adventurous overall now.  He really loved this rock climbing wall.

 Daddy's little engineer.

 Basically a giant Lite Brite.

 Molly loved the imaginary vet's office.  She and this puppy were great friends.

The museum also has a clay studio.  Gerrit and I watched all of Jim Henson's Creature Shop on Syfy recently, so we decided to try our hand at sculpting cultures of our own.  Final verdict:  We should keep our day jobs.

 The outdoor section of the museum is a lot of fun.  Our favorite parts were the twisty branch maze Molly is running through and building this lean-to together.

After the museum, I wanted to take the family to one of my favorite spots from my last trip to Portland , Powell's City of Books.  There's nothing I love quite as much as a giant bookstore, and Miles and Molly both loved the enormous children's section.

Very high, very full shelves.

The other thing I really wanted to do in Portland was check out a food cart pod.  Food carts are a lot like food trucks, but less mobile, and they tend to cluster in groups.  We eventually settled on the Good Food Here pod, because it promised lots of parking and seating.

Just a few of the pods.

For my lunch, I settled on Korean barbecue.  This has some delicious meat, a big pile of brown rice, and a lot of green vegetables.  It was delicious!  Gerrit got some sort of tater tot-nacho hybrid.  It was, unfortunately, not as delicious.  In the background, you can see poor Miles.  His sickness came back with a vengeance :(

After our adventures in downtown Portland, we headed to Silverton, about an hour to the southeast.  We arrived a few hours before the rest of the extended family.  Oops!  It did give us a nice chance to wander around downtown.

This beautiful house was across the street from our hotel.  I loved the beautiful shades of turquoise paint!

The city of Silverton is covered with murals.  We found at least ten that first day, and then saw more and more the rest of our trip.  This one, of Norman Rockwell's four freedoms, was one of my favorites.

After a few hours of exploration and rest, the rest of the relatives arrived in Silverton and the family reunion officially began :)