Sewing Machine Cover

You may remember that I am slowly trying to finish all my craft and sewing projects that I have stashed away in my craft room.  Well, I finished another one!!!   Woohoo!!

This was a short and sweet one but lots of fun.  It's a sewing machine cover.  It's patchwork so I got to piece together some cute fabrics and then I practiced some free-motion machine quilting.  It was a little difficult at first because I couldn't get the tension right with my new presser foot but then I figured it out and it was pretty fun.  I don't think I could do large quilts since my sewing machine area is limited, but it may work well for small projects.

Cruise to Mexico and More!

David is turning 50 on June 11th of this year so I surprised him with a cruise to Mexico, Honduras and Belize.  We went in April since I found a good deal on the cruise.  We had a fantastic time!  I ended up just leaving my camera in the room so almost all the pictures were taken by David on his cell phone.  We just focused on enjoying what we were seeing and doing.  We didn't get to take any pictures of the cave tubing we did in Belize since we were in the water riding on a tube through a giant cave.  It was really neat though and we would highly recommend that.

After the cruise, we spent a couple of days visiting David's sister, Julie, and her family in Ocean Springs, MS.  Since our cruise was out of New Orleans it was a quick drive to get to Julie's.  We had a great time there and loved spending time with them.  Thanks Bahr family for having us!

This trip also took me to 3 new states (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama) and 2 new countries (Honduras and Belize).  I only need to visit North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin to have visited all 50 states.  I guess I will start planning my next trip.  :-)

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Hail Storm

Yesterday we had the biggest hail storm I have ever seen.  I had to go pick up Rebecca in the middle of it and it was so bad on the freeway that many cars were just pulling over to wait for it to pass.  It literally flooded one section of the freeway.  I thought it was rather exciting and liked all the thunder and lightning.

The bad part was that it destroyed my yard.  I posted some pictures below but the saddest part was my garden.  I just planted some new little cucumber and tomato plants a few days ago.  They are pretty much gone.  I'm so glad I am not depending on my garden for my food or I think we might starve.  It's also nice that I can go to the nursery and get more plants and replant.

HAPPY SPRING!

That is all hail on the road.  

 Sad tomato plant

 Sad cucumber plant.  Pretty much gone

Saturday morning in my flower garden

Saturday afternoon after the hail storm

Driving - Rainbows - Flowers..... It's SPRING!!

It's been a while since I posted but not because of lack of material, just lack of time.  I'll post at some later date the pictures of the trip David and I took to Mexico.  Today I post a few pictures to capture what's been going on in the Powell house.

Rebecca has her permit and is loving driving.  She does a good job too!!

I spend lots of time watching soccer and therefore, I get to enjoy God's beautiful creations!  I saw this rainbow while in Orem at Rebecca's soccer game.  I wish the picture could capture how big and bright it was.

My iris have begun blooming.  So far just the purple ones are out but hopefully the rest will bloom soon.  I also planted most of my garden!  Woohoo!

On a sad note, the blue fountain I built last year needed rebuilding.  So I improved, fixed and added some nice rocks and it turned out great.... FOR ONE DAY!  Now it keeps running out of water which must mean there is a leak.  Which means I have to take the whole thing apart to find and fix the leak.  Yikes!  Wish me luck and remind me not to build anymore fountains.

Happy Easter! Happy April Fool's Day! Happy Spring!

The tulips and daffodils are all blooming in my yard and it is so pretty!!  I'm still hoping to get another ski day or two but I'm also enjoying the nice spring weather.

Tori and Boston arrived 2 Sundays ago while Jared was on a business trip to Washington DC.  Boston got to get acquainted with his great grandma Hill.

We had a wonderful Easter last weekend and were so happy to have Jared, Tori and Boston with us as well as Josh on Easter Sunday.

We started off the weekend with a sledding trip.  We had to go all the way to the Olympic Bobsled park in Park City to even find snow and when we did, we only got to sled for a little while before we were told it wasn't allowed.  Oh well!  We had a fun time.... Boston was a little leery of the whole thing and just wanted to watch.

After our fun in the sun, we colored Easter Eggs.  Boston wasn't too sure about that either but we had fun!

Easter morning was fun for all.  Boston liked carrying around the baskets and eating the candy.  All the kids liked hunting for eggs, especially the "money" egg which is what they are all searching for in the 2nd picture down.  :-)

After our yummy Easter dinner, Josh and Adam went outside to have a chalk fest!  Joshua brought it back from the Color Festival that was on Saturday.

In the evening we enjoyed the nice spring weather and played Spike Ball and Basketball.  Even Tori (5 months pregnant) was doing a pretty good job with the basketball.

This next picture is what Boston did to all my stools in the kitchen.  Apparently this is what they do at home so he won't climb up on the table so he thought it should be the same way at Grandma's.  It was adorable.

The aunts and uncles all loved playing with Boston.  Rachel even taught him a little bit of chess.

When it was time to go back to California Boston gave everyone hugs!!

Once again... HAPPY EASTER and HAPPY SPRING!!!!

This weekend is General Conference!!  Woohoo!!

Our Last Cub Scout Graduation

Adam turned 11 in December and has been attending the 11-year-old scouts since then.  But last night was the official graduation from Cub Scouts.  He received his Arrow of Light and crossed over the bridge to Boy Scouts.  There were 6 boys crossing last night so it was a big group.

The Pack Leader makes these cool arrows and plaques when the boys get their Arrow of Light.  She wraps the arrow with different colors to represent all that they have achieved.  It is very cool.

Adam also received a special achievement award because he earned 28 activity pins in Webelos.  This is amazing because in the new program there are only 14 and in the old program there were 20.  The program changed in the middle of his Webelos year so he had a bunch from the old program and then earned a bunch in the new program.  GOOD JOB ADAM!!!

For those of you who are familiar with Boy Scouts, you may be wondering why Adam has already reached the Life Scout Rank and has a Camp Hi-Sierra Patch from 2005.  It's because he was born in Boy Scouts and grew up at Camp Hi-Sierra.   Hahahahaha.  Just Kidding.  It is Joshua's shirt since we don't have one for Adam yet.... and he loves it because it is all worn and soft and comfortable.  :-)

More Skiing

It's been a bit warm the past week or so and the snow is melting fast... even up in the mountains.  But, we managed to get in some more skiing and are hoping for a good snow storm so we can keep skiing for another month or so.

We went a week ago Saturday and David went with us.  We met some friends (the Grames) up there and skied with them for a while too.  On our very first run down, David's friend, Keith, kind of ran into David.  Rachel happened to be filming so we got some good video of it and a few pictures that capture it as well.  Luckily nobody was hurt and we had a great rest of the day skiing.

The kids had a short day on Tuesday so we headed up again and had a great day without many people.  David was the responsible adult and went to work.  We sure love him for making it all possible.

 David is the one on skis and Keith is just plowing into him

 Rebecca

 Gaylene

 Rebecca, Keith, David, Rachel, Gaylene, Adam

This is Rachel smiling.   She smiles like this the whole time she is skiing because she loves it so much.

Here is a picture that shows the difference in crowds between a Saturday and a Tuesday.  Now you understand why we cut school so much and go during the week.  Hahaha