Pumpkin Carving

We traveled to Zach's parents' house this past weekend to celebrate Pop-pop's 80th birthday. In addition to the delicious food and cake, Zach's mother and I had a fabulous time carving pumpkins! I can't remember the last time I carved pumpkins, but it was definitely not very fancy. Nothing like the awesome pumpkins we whipped up on Saturday! Take a look...

The patterns were the key to our success.

These two turned out great, so we decided to try two more.

The patterns we chose for our second pumpkins were much more difficult. Had we tried them first, they would have been the only ones completed that evening.

Our final product - Mom did a ghost and "Fat Lips," and I did a cat and an owl.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

On September 19th, we surprised Dad with an early birthday party. I arranged for the whole family to come into town (minus Steve, who is working and going to school full time) - which is a feat in and of itself! The reason we needed to hold this surprise party over five and a half weeks early was due to the gift itself. We bought him tickets to the Garrison Keillor show at the forum on September 20th. He is the biggest GK fan and we knew this gift would suit him perfectly.

What we didn't plan on was having the concert cancelled! Garrison suffered a mini stroke a couple weeks prior to his engagement and chose to reschedule the concert until 2010. But, we proceeded with the plans since everything was put in place and it would be difficult to pull off again. Thankfully we got Dad out of the house in time for Brian, Zach and I to arrive and surprise Dad when he returned. He had no clue why we were celebrating so early, but he was allowed to sit and watch football, have food and pie served to him, and open presents. He wasn't complaining!

Here are some pictures...

Surprise!

Dad fell into his role of couch potato rather quickly!

Dinner prep! The menu was delicious...

Mediterranean lasagna, artichokes, salad, bread, and apple pie!

The gang's all here.

Dad's pile of gifts.

Tickets! Dad had to work to finally open this gift. I had 10 trivia questions about GK and A Prairie Home Companion that he had to answer first. He did pretty well with all of them.

Dad with the four-legged critters - Jack, Ceilee, Natas and Sparkle

The gang from the 'Delph.

Baltimore Aquarium

A few weekends ago, Zach and I made the drive down to Baltimore to visit the aquarium. Neither of us had been there in a long time, but I still had memory of many of the exhibits. We were able to arrive at the aquarium as it opened on Sunday, so there were not many crowds. In addition to the fish exhibits, we also "enjoyed" a 4D show of Blue Planet (getting poked multiple times just isn't funny after a while) and watched a cool dolphin show. The rest of our afternoon was spent walking throughout Inner Harbor and then finding our way to Fells Point for dinner.

We both agreed that Zach sometimes gets this look, too.

Lots of cool jellyfish!

In addition to fish exhibits, they also had a rainforest exhibit with birds.

Dolphins!

Scenes from Inner Harbor

Fourth of July...Belated

Here are some highlights from our Fourth of July weekend spent with family.

This was the start of a delicious clambake held at Zach's grandparents' house. These sacks hold chicken, corn on the cob, carrots, onions, celery, sausage, clams, king crab legs, shrimp, and lobster!

Playing with my food. These things are huge!

Ready to dig in. And to think that when I first met Zach, I had never tasted a clam in my life! I ate only one clam that year. Now I'm always ready for seconds.

We had a cook-out at my parents' house. It was just Zach and I that visited, but it was a pretty day and the food was good!

Sparkle!

Some of My Creations

I love sewing for new babies! It just puts a smile on my face when I use cute and colorful fabrics. Here a selection...

This is a cross-stitched and quilted piece for Carolyn Stum.

A cute dolphin quilt made for Marina Eshelman.

These are little puppy-dog bibs for Cameron Saunier.

My most recent quilt for Susan Clements' soon-to-be little one!

And although this one wasn't created for a baby, but rather for my husband, it's one of my most treasured quilts yet since I hand-quilted this!

Eye Candy

Our wedding was picture-perfect and thanks to our awesome photographer, Danielle Vennard, we are able to enjoy perfect pictures! I cannot get enough of these beauties.

Danielle's ability to capture the excitement of the day was amazing.

Such an unobtrustive presence was exactly what Zach and I wanted.

And boy, did she deliver. Amazing.

Absolutely the most picture-perfect one of all...

For a fabulous slideshow of more amazing pictures from the wedding, visit Danielle's website - www.daniellevennard.com.

Danielle - you're the best! Thank you so much for capturing the many fabulous moments of our day.

More pictures to come! (This was only the beginning)

Welcome

This is my first post to welcome you to my new website. I'm glad you found your way here. My intention for this site is simply to stay in touch and update you with the events of my life. I hope to post to this site weekly, so please check back often!