The Last Few Months Catch Up

It's been quite a while since I posted more than WIP Wednesday, FO Friday, and book reviews. I've honestly had so much I wanted to share, but I just haven't had time to sit and devote to writing it up. This have been pretty crazy the last few months, but I do still want to share a few things so I decided to do one big wrap up post of it all :) So hang on folks, get ready for lots of pictures.

I figure I'll start off with the farthest back - my 5th anniversary :) My husband and I have officially been married for 5 years as of April 18th, and we decided to commemorate it with a little trip down south to Fort Lauderdale for the weekend. We stayed at Don Shula's Hotel (which we only decided on the day of, lol). It was nice enough I guess - no where near what I was expecting from their pictures online. We had fun though. We drove the 4 hours down the state, had dinner at Shula's 2 (just to say we did - and yes, I had a steak), and even grabbed some French pastries at a cute little shop outside the hotel. The next day, we had a little time to kill between checking out and our main activity, so we meandered around the hotel - there's a cute little shopping district where we found this festively painted cow (which totally warranted a photo op, n'est-ce pas?).

Then we drove a little bit farther to our big event - touring the new Fort Lauderdale Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know I've never really talked about it on the blog before since this is just my creative blog and I don't really want to offend anyone with religious talk - I like to keep things light. I've been thinking about it a lot lately though and I've decided to out myself, lol. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. My church membership is a huge motivator in many things I do in my life, and I'm so proud to be a member. As a member, I abide by a certain standard of modesty in my clothes, which is a big motivator for me making and altering clothes for myself - let's face it, we don't live in the most modest era. It's very difficult for me to find clothes in stores that 1) I like, 2) fit me well, and 3) fit my modesty standards. I figured it was time to tell you why everything I wear is to the knee and always has sleeves, lol. Anyway, hopefully this isn't too weird to talk about a bit. I promise that my blog isn't going to start talking religion or anything, I just knew it would help some of my sewing choices make a bit more sense. So, moving on!

The church just finished building a new temple down in Fort Lauderdale, and they always open up the building for tours to anyone and everyone before it it dedicated (then you have to be a temple recommend carrying member to enter). Even when you have a recommend, there are certain areas of the temple you don't get to see "unless you need to" (ex. the bridal room, etc), so my husband and I really wanted to go take the tour. It just happened that the last weekend of the tour was the weekend of our anniversary, so we made that the focus of our trip. Appropriate considering we were at the Orlando temple exactly 5 years earlier getting hitched :) It's really such a beautiful building, and I love seeing all the differences depending on where the temple is located. The building always reflects the area it is built in, so there is a large mural of a coastal beach inside, and the decor is all earth toned. While walking around the building we even spotted a bird's nest - they certainly picked a pretty cool place to roost :) We really enjoyed taking the tour around that day, and then we drove back home. It was a quick trip, but it was just what we needed.

I also never posted about Mother's Day! I made my mom something I knew she'd love - eclairs! I'd never made them before, and they really were fairly simple to make. And trust me - they were delicious :) I also was kind of at a loss of what to give Justin's grandma, so I crocheted her some flower pins. They are the Twirl Center Rose and Leaf patterns from Crochet Garden by Suzann Thompson (a book I picked up from the library a while back) and I just added pins to the back. I made one red and one purple so she can accessorize a bit :) The other two pictures in this set are a bit random, lol. First off, we finally were able to put our office back together after I (unintentionally!) flooded it a few months ago. It was a horrible experience, but we finally had the carpet reinstalled so we were able to put all the furniture and books back where they belong (and no longer all over the rest of my house). And that poster is something I came across in a thrift store that seriously gave me pause. Anyone have any idea what it's supposed to mean? lol.

May 26th was my baby Gordo's 5th birthday! He highly enjoyed his meat-filled-feast for lunch and then his slice of ice cream cake for dessert (don't worry, we didn't give him any chocolate). Isn't he just so cute?!

And here's some cute shots of Daisy (the cat) and Louis (the bun), who are also super cute :) I just had to give Louis a bath yesterday - a very interesting experience, lol. But he got parsley from the garden out of it, so he was ok with it.

Another exciting occurrence has been the last 3 weeks. My parent's went on vacation to Japan (to visit my sister) and then Hawaii on the way back, so that meant I had to run the store completely by myself. It was stressful at times, but after the first few days it was pretty smooth sailing ... until my sister got sick. We've been passing around this absolutely horrific stomach bug the last 2 months at work, and it seems to take a week or two break between its victims. Luckily it's only 24 - 36 hours, but still it's a completely debilitating day and a half. My nephew got it the previous week, and then my sister and her husband both got it at the same time. I can't even imagine trying to wrangle an 18 month old while being as sick as I had been with it, so I took charge of Luke for them :) He came to my house and even slept at my house - making me the first away from mommy night out. And he was fine! He came to work wit me the next day and it all worked out. He's totally my best bud :)

And as a (totally unnecessary) thank you, Kelly bought me Huge & Huggable Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec. I was thrilled :) I'll be making Luke a rolly pollie soon.

So, that's a few things that happened the last few months :) I definitely missed a few things, but you get the big points here. Hopefully I don't let things go so long next time!