Matty's Birthday and Repurposed Wool

We have more birthdays in February than any other month.  Most of the family birthdays are lumped into about a one month time period - from January 19-February 20 (Jared, Hazel, Ezra, my mother, Shaury, Matt and Dave!)

Mike and I took Matt to lunch today at Cafe Rio's. I forgot to take a picture, so I pulled this one off his facebook page.

I love working with wool and found a super buy at Savers this afternoon. Everything was half off today. So I picked up quite a few 100% wool sweaters for between $2 and $3 each.

I will felt them by putting them in the washer with a few tennis balls, hot water and detergent. The agitation will break down the fibers and is the first step to "felting" wool. After placing in the dryer the pieces will be ready to be used. Sometimes these two steps have to be repeated a few times.

 I plan on making a few more puppets.

Shaury's 31

Today was Shaury's 31st birthday. We enjoyed yummy cheescake, played some wii games and had a good visit.

Vancouver Winter Olympics

I love watching the Winter Olympics. I especially enjoy the human interest stories. This year brings back memories of when they were hosted here in Utah and I was teaching SEM at Clinton Elementary. I remember meeting with the principal to propose creating a course in which all students who would be attending one or more of the events would be able to attend classes and learn the history of the Olympics and the event they would be attending so that they would be more prepared when they actually attended an event. We also had triva games going on and other activities. It was very rewarding to watch them at the events and hear their comment on things they had learned in class. I thought it might be fun to look through my collection of Olympic pins - if I can ever find them!

 Apollo Ono

 The size of the skis has to do with the size of the skier.

I thought it might be fun to look through my collection of Olympic pins, if I can ever find them. But I did run across my 2002 Olympic quilt. Each person in my quilt group created one of the icons, then we all traded so we all had one of each. We were even invited to have them displayed in the Salt Lake Capitol during the Olympics..

Good Luck, Nate!

The stepson of one of our administrative secretaries, Nate Roberts, is participating in the Freestyle Olympics on Sunday.

The opening ceremonies tonight were absolutely amazing. My favorite was an acrobat who performed an aerial ballet over a prairie to Joni Mitchell's song, "Both Sides Now." I had to download the remastered version to my IPOD.

I was amazed at the imagination and creativity of the opening ceremonies.

6:40 a.m.

I was surprised when I looked out the window this morning to see the beautiful snow. When I returned from the gym, I took my camera and tripod out on the deck. It was still very dark. Time always passes so quickly when I'm with my camera.

 I didn't like the color in this photo, so I changed it to black and white.

 Looking out from the window seat in the living room this morning. The geraniums are still growing strong.

Daily Bread

Our  food storage arrived yesterday.  Hard to believe that just a few boxes of freeze dried food will sustain us two meals a day for six months! And it has a 25 year shelf life (as long as we don't open the packages.)

Mom's Birthday

My mother's birthday was yesterday, but she had other plans, so Mike and I took her to Maddox tonight for dinner. She's 85.