Webinar on Turning Pictures into Paintings!

On December 7th, my mom is going to be hosting an incredible webinar explaining how to turn pictures into digital oil paintings. She is incredible. As an illustrator for 20 years, she has a lot of experience and I know she is going to do great in this field. She is a self-taught digital painter  and her paintings her beautiful. I am so excited for her!
Here are a few of her websites:

http://inapainterlyfashion.blogspot.com

http://www.melissagallophotography.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is a snow version of Uncle Ico!

       There is nothing like having the family together for the holidays. Maybe it's because I'm just getting older and therefore more mushy and sentimental, but I really like being with family. I wasn't always like that. There is no group of people I would rather be with to celebrate special occasions than with the one that knows me the best, can share the longest running inside jokes and who I can give noogies to!
      It snowed again today--another weird occurrence for this area. Dad, Rachel and Jonny went outside to play in it while Mom and I got to cooking ( and boy did we cook!). They built this big snowman which they then carried up in pieces and assembled on our balcony. It looked just like Uncle Ico! By the afternoon it had warmed up enough so that the snow started melting, but there was enough on the ground to create the holiday "mood."
      Naturally we stuffed our faces, like the gluttonous Americans we are, then we went on a scenic drive to show everyone how beautiful it is around here. When we got back, because we hadn't consumed enough calories, we busted out the apple crisp pie and pumpkin pie with ice cream and whipped cream. Hmm Hmm! What fatties!  I went ahead and put up our little Christmas tree too! Happy Thanksgiving!

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Me and Laverne! First snowman of the winter.

                   Living in Provo I learned quickly that snow is not that big of a deal. It snows, the snow plows come, the salt is thrown on the ground. Done. However, when we moved up here to the Seattle area, we were informed that such is not the case here. Apparently there are a total of like 4 snow plows for the whole county and let's not forget that salt is bad for the environment so the greenies up here wouldn't dream of putting that on the roads!     
               So when it does snow, it's a big deal. A BIG DEAL. In fact, it's a fiasco. Jason received orders at work today to go home early because it was snowing, even though there was maybe a millimeter on the ground. Jason's boss a few weeks back told him to stock up on food storage ( and he's not even LDS!) because if it snowed, the roads would be shut down! Then there is the matter of keeping an eye out for crazy Seattle drivers who are swerving, going way too slow or simply just parking their cars on the side of the road because the 1/2 inch of snow is more than they can handle.

I Can't Wait for My Family to Come!

             The Gallos are rolling into town this next week to spend Thanksgiving with us! How exciting! Haha, we are all going to be staying in our one room apartment so it's going to get a little on the cozy, snug side. But it's all good, we'll make it work. The plan right now is for mom and dad to have our room, Jason and I are going to sleep on a air mattress in the living room, Rachel will have the couch and Paul and Jonny can either share another air mattress or fight over who gets to sleep on the other couch ( not that it's very comfy). It might get a little tricky with only one bathroom though...
            In preparation I gotta clean our little house ( which doesn't take long) and do a big grocery shopping to get enough food for Thanksgiving and to feed all the hungry mouths! It's all worth it because I am SO excited to have my family up here to see our new place in Washington. :)           

The Perfect Plate of Fudge

This is what we would like our finished product to look like! So far it hasn't...

Jason and I have been trying to master the somewhat difficult art of making fudge. We are trying to exercise our culinary prowess in time for Christmas. Our plan is to make lots of holiday cookie plates for people and, as is tradition, no good plate should be without  a couple of pieces of holiday fudge. So we've been practicing... The first batch was...bad. Never solidified and it was super grainy. The second batch actually succeeded in solidifying...a day and a half later. It at least had the smooth fudgy texture. We will keep persevering!

Jason Has His Own Website!

After some encouragement and nudging from me, Jason signed up for his own domain and created a website where he will blog about techie stuff. I wanted him to do this because he's really smart and excels at absorbing knowledge--knowledge that he gets from everyday work as well as from things he discovers and learns about on his own time. Unfortunately, the poor kid is stuck with me as his less-than-captive audience. Computer techie stuff is not my forte, nor my great interest in life, so a lot of stuff that he tries to explain to me gets blocked by a "zone-out" wall that I put up, if the information doesn't go right over my head to begin with. My eyes glaze over and I start thinking about other things. So...by him having his own blog/website, he can now pass on his knowledge to anyone who might be searching for it online.
Check it out!
http://casebolttech.com

Happy Halloween!

This is the first year that Jason and I actually did dress up in costumes! I was a Gypsy ( NOT a Romanian gypsy; they don't actually look like what we are used to seeing in the movies) and Jason was Michael Bleuth from Arrested Development. ( No one knew who he was) This year we were also on the activities committee for the Halloween Party--in other words, we had to go and participate rather than coming late, eating the food and running out before anyone saw us! Jason and I were in charge of the fish pond--probably the easiest Halloween game anyone can play. Simply lower your line and a toy will magically "get caught" on your line (the 'magic' performed backstage by Jason). It still seemed to be a difficult concept for some kiddies, I'm not sure why. Maybe the element of surprise can just be too overwhelming. Anyways, we had a great time and we've been gorging ourselves on candy all weekend. Oh, ironically, because I didn't really have any candy for trick-or-treaters on Halloween and I didn't want to worry about running out, we turned off all the lights and even taped a pillowcase over the small window on the front door. We are such weirdos!