Baby Season

No, this is not an announcement. :) We have several women in our ward expecting this month and in the next few coming. We had a baby shower today for two of these women - both are having girls. One, I visit teach. She's close to my age and it is their first child. The other sweet woman is having their 4th but had given their baby stuff away since their youngest is now 2. I did games and decorations - that seems to be my assignment each time. I found this idea and tutorial a while back and kept it for such an occassion as this. I used bigger flowers but think it turned out super cute. It was swagged above the table of gifts. Originally we were going to swag it a couple times in the middle of the room so we made the string pretty long - maybe 15 or so feet and the flowers would be further apart. We ended up just hanging it from the two air vents and it worked out great.

One game we played was Pin the Pacifier on the Baby. The baby was posted on the wall and the pacifiers were cute little pink ones. All-in-all, it was good. I just wanted to show my cute garland off. (Thanks DeLynne for helping me make the flowers.) Also, DeLynne did a great baby gift as a flower box She has lotions, and cucumber-melon baby wipes, a cute color coordinating outfit, (coordinating of course) hair bow, and some wash cloths...super cute. I'm going to throw it out there that I did the little card on the front. :) The one's last name is Wright so W and on the back it says, "What whirl...it's a girl!" and the other's last name is Seagraves so S and on the back it says, "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice..." Hold your applause. :)

"So give me wuch ya promised..." Dancing with Tyce Diorio

There are perks to living in Atlanta I guess. One of them would be Dance 101 a really cool dance studio a friend of mine and I discovered and enjoy going to occassionally. Another perk connected to this is Emmy winner Tyce Diorio. He is really cool and fun and a great dancer/choreographer. I feel priviledged to have gotten this opportunity. And to prove that I did it here are some pictures. The girl in the second picture you may recognize as Mollee from So You Think You Dance season six. There was another guy from season 4, but I didn't watch back the and he was pretty cocky so I didn't care much....rude? sorry. We did a broadway jazz number, but it wasn't all jazz hands and stuff. Pretty fun choreography. I have a video of the dance if I can figure out a better way than uploading straight to here... I'm so impatient with uploading. The song is "I gotcha" from Fosse. **CORRECTION: here it is on YouTube from someone else...I'm in the back, off to the side (waiting my turn) standing up on the bench recording with my camera. :)

It was pretty awesome and only $40 for 2 hours. Oh, by they way, he told me in front of everyone that I have great feet...only to say my arms could be stronger. :) anything you say Tyce. "Where's the redhead with good feet?" "Your feet are great, but if you don't have strong arms to go with the feet then the feet don't get the credit..." I was by no means anywhere close to being one of the best dancers and I realize I will never be that good but I enjoy it and I'll take a compliment and critique from Tyce Diorio any day. :)

Be a Winner - Not a Loser

We get invites to churches pretty often in our mailboxes or on our door with flyers. This one came and we found it particualrly interesting. On a side note, we have someone who just moved from Northern California and they commented about all the choices you have in churches down here - including the drive through churches. Only in the South. :)

It's all Greek to me

Bryce and I visited Athens, Greece for 2 days over the Valentine's Day and Presidents Day weekend. We flew out Friday afternoon, landing Saturday morning and flew back Monday morning, landing Monday afternoon.

The pictures you can link to (it's been updated and there're lots more along with comments) by clicking here: Awesome Greece Pictures!

A few videos we put on YouTube:

Guard Dance 2 of 5 and Guard Dance 3 of 5....the whole thing takes about 10 minutes. The two videos are 2 minutes. Just a taste. :) They start under the awning (sp?) and end up back at the same awning. then two guards in army uniforms checks them and make sure the two guards are in order and that their tassles are straight. :)

You can catch this sweet ride through town...

You can see some of the left over partying in the square. Live band. dancing donkey toys, and little girl in an outfit. :)

A 360 of some of the Acropolis grounds. The theatre you see - according to the plaque - went up the wall. I'm sure it was something to see.

Deal of the Day

It's that time of year again. Sales are abounding and Bryce is ready for new clothes (he's ripped the sleeves on a few of his shirts). I usually sneak in a couple looks here and there and found, might I say, the Deal of the Day.

Place: Ann Taylor

Item: Yellow three-button coat

Where in store: on clearance of course - with an additional 40% off

Unexpected: one loose button

Sale sticker says 79.99. Take 40% off and I showed the cashier the loose button and received another 15% off. $43 after tax for my coat.

Big surprise: Original sale tag is for 199.99. Original retail is $268.00 That's about 85% off the original price of the coat. Not to be out done, I did find Bryce some mighty good deals as well. Bass had $60 pants for $23 (50% w/additional 20%) and they had shoes BUY 1 PAIR get 2 PAIRS FREE (or get 1 pair 50% off). We received $5 dollar coupon toward Van Heusen from Bass and used it to buy a belt for $8 - originally $45 or something crazy like that (60% off w/additional % I can't remember and our $5 coupon). He bought another very nice pair of pants there as well.

Speaker Swap*

Before wires use template (comes with speakers) to position holes use hammer to beat wall - find stud in wall then move template over and beat wall with hammer. Repeat as needed. Use saw to finalize circle hole.

Patch holes and paint speakers to match wall.

*I, Cecily, do not claim to have any real knowledge of this speaker swap. (I left once the hole making began.) Thus said, please address any questions which are not answered in this post to Bryce. I'm sure he would love to tell you all about it. :)

We have a couch for our front living room. Its high back and sides mimics the hemp chair we have in there. The couch on its own is a bit fancier than we are, but we'll be able to cozy it down. We're now working on finding the right art to go above the couch to fill the tall empty wall. I may venture and do my own...I have this vision. We'll see if I ever get my shot at it. Thanks olystudio.

Sleeping Puma, Hidden Thread

Poor Battle Puma. Jamba got in a fight with a long piece of string.She has learned that the string always wins. Long story short, Jamba found some really nice black thread that looked delicious (and must've been) so she ate a long piece. It ended up getting caught on the back of her tongue, down into her intestine and into her colon. Needless to say she didn't feel well at all and we took her to the vet after a couple vomit episodes. They did an exploratory surgery on her belly and this picture I caught while she was sleeping to show her part of her battle wounds. The shaved leg is especially sexy in the cat world. This was a month or so back so she is back to herself and doing well. Her hair is growing in nicely. :)

Way back to Hallooweeeeeeeeeeny.

For Halloween I treated my YW presidency to some goody shoes. I made a "witch" shoe (high heel of course) out of black card stock and cute printed paper for the lining then sewed on some buttons since I don't own a hot glue gun. :) Filled with nummies, wrapped and tied with a bow, the note says, "You're such a TREAT!" I found the pattern online probably at sugardoodle.net or something like that. Someone said they used it for dorothy slippers too. I'm sure you could do lots with it. If I find the link again I'll add it (here).

Thanks Jose Lopez!

Bryce and I enjoyed 1 1/2 days in San Juan Puerto Rico earlier this month all thanks to Jose Lopez. Who, you may ask, is this Senor Lopez? As noted in the previous blog, Bryce bought new wheels. He sold his stock wheels on ebay and a nice gentleman in Puerto Rico bought them. We did actually make $9 after his new wheels were mounted and balanced, all ebay fees, paypal fees, shipping, and the actual price of the wheels are taken into account. Good job Bryce, keep it up and I'll have a new pair of shoes in no time. :) We shipped the 4 wheels - acutally, let me stop there and say I mailed the wheels. Bryce put them in my trunk. On my lunch break I was lucky enough to go to the Post Office ask to borrow a dolly and push the wheels in myself - while wearing heels! You read that right. I like the people in the parking lot watching me as I pulled boxes out of my trunk and pushed a pretty janky dolly into the post office. I had to make 2 trips because the dolly was not tall enough to lean all 4 boxes against the back. It would've been too heavy for me anyway since I am a little girl. Each wheel weighed 25 lbs packaged. So, I got them inside and they took them away into their back rooms. Done right?! No or our story would not have such a happy ending. One of the 4 wheels gets lost and never makes it to Senor Lopez in San Juan. Bryce now decides it would be ok for us to buy a replacement and fly to Puerto Rico, spend part of the weekend and give Jose the wheel in person. And so our journey begins: Jose met us at the airport he brought along his 16 yr old daughter (he kept referring to her as his husband, but we got the point) He was nice enough and clean, and he drove a nice, new Mazda 6 (he got the point across that he bought it a few months befoer) so we took him up on his offer to drive us to the hotel saving one taxi fare of $17. Note: taxi drivers add in their own tip to the base fare in San Juan. The guy we took back to the airport apparently thought he was worth $2. 1st thing we learned: Bryce likes to pick a hotel by price and overall cleanliness ratings. 10 minutes and I'm done upon finding it on a map. Cecily likes to look at mpas, read reviews, read about the districts and areas of where she's visiting, come to the point of recognizing roads of where they'll be and then look and read some more. We went with the Conrad. The site has a neat aerial shot of the hotel and a couple lobby pictures. The first day we spent in Old San Juan - it rained all morning while we were at the airport and with Jose. a map of Old San Juan. The view to the left (southeast on a map) of the island. the fort walls on the northern side of the island another fort in Old San Juan the main fort on the tip that you see pictures of. Christopher Columbus statu in a square where there are lots of vendors set up. The guy had parrots and such on his shoulders. the view from our window. 10th floor city view - the body of water there is the lagoon. The white van and car taxis lined up in front of this hotel and we could walk over and take the next in line. I liked the taxis because they were playing tapes of some sweet mexican music. It was the real deal. sculpture in Old San Juan sculpture down from the hotel, near the beach and where we ate lunch/dinner. blue cobblestones of Old San Juan while we were at the fort in Old San Juan - a full rainbow. at our hotel's beach. Where we spent the morning before heading to the airport. the other side of our view from our hotel. The traffic over the bridge was backed up all night. Got busy. There was lots of nice shopping just down the street. Gucci, Cartier, and others of the sort.