Indian War Cry

Look what my Auntie Tasha taught me. She only had to show me one time in the car and then I had it down! Of course, there's not much I can do wrong as far as she is concerned.

Visiting the Oregon Howards

Following my visit in San Francisco/San Ramon I drove up to Central Point, OR to visit my brother Deven and his family, Sara and Owen, and had a great week with them. On Wednesday we all joined Deven on a business trip to Newport, OR, 4 hours from home. While Deven was at his appointment Sara, Owen and I walked up and down a touristy section of the docks.

Owen had a great time walking the entire length of this boardwalk. He didn't want any help and thought it was quite funny to try and make a run for the street, thinking he was going to outsmart his Auntie Tasha.

Later Sara went for a run on the beach and Deven played with Owen in the pool. Owen slowly relaxed in the water and eventually found it fun to splash his daddy. He also found it quite funny to dip his finger way under the water and then present it to his daddy to lick the water off.

The next morning Owen was a perfect angel the whole way home. He slept for about 45 minutes and then just quietly relaxed the rest of the way, with hardly a peep.

Friday afternoon Sara, Owen and I went to the park with the Moms Group. (Token picture of me to prove I was there.)

Saturday we went to the petting zoo. The ducks were the favorite.

Don't you all wish you were this flexible?

And now I'm back home and seriously missing Oregon. Thanks for all the fun Howards!

Family & Chocolate in San Francisco

Sunday I drove from Camarillo to South San Francisco on a business trip. Tonight after I was done with work I took the BART into downtown San Francisco and met up with my nephew Justin and his wife, Julia, my niece Shantel and her husband, Aaron and niece Brittni. We met and walked around Chinatown for a while and Aaron bought a few things for the Chinese class he's teaching next year. Then we crowded into Justin's car to find a place to eat. We settled on Thai food and used the GPS to find a place. After Aaron called and was satisfied that they would be a good place to eat (amusing us all as he spoke Thai) we went in search of it. It turns out the restaurant was not in a nice part of town at all. But, the restaurant seemed decent so Justin grudgingly left his car and we went to eat. Dinner was very good and we were all glad to see the car still in the parking spot with all it's parts. From there we drove to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream. I then got dropped off back at the BART to find my way back to my hotel and the rest headed back to San Ramon. It was a fun evening spent with great family!

Sewing

After a very long hard year at work my project finally completed and I was blessed with a little bonus check. I decided to treat myself and that it was time to purchase my first, and hopefully last, sewing machine. I spent a lot of time researching and testing and finally ended up with this Bernina Activa 220. I'm very exceited to use it.

Quilting

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything new. There hasn't been much happening. However, over the last several weeks we have been working on a quilt for my nephew Nathan who's getting married in August.

It started on June 7th when Shae and I drove down to my parent's house in Hawthorne, then on to a fabric store in Buena Park (? or somewhere near there). Shae got tired of sitting so she sat on the edge of the batting bin and then decided it was hurting her rear. So, she scooted back just a little and leaned against the batting. After a moment... plop! she fell right into the bin. My mom tried her best to get her out but we were all laughing SO HARD! (Fortunately Shae had just visited the restroom...). I finally had to add my extra muscle and it took quite a few tries till we could stop laughing long enough to pull her out. There were a few fellow shoppers who enjoyed quite a show.

Back at the house we washed, ripped and ironed the fabric and began a little bit of sewing. Dad lent a hand as well.

Over the next couple weeks Shae and I finished sewing all the blocks together and adding the borders. This past weekend we all got back together again in Camarillo to tie the quilt. We find the RS room at the church comes in quite handy in these situations. Shantel and Aaron were in town so they helped as well.

The finished result! (except the binding, which mom gets to finish over the next several weeks). We are quite happy with the final product and hope Nate and Caitlin like it as well (they never read blogs so I'm not worried about them seeing this ahead of time). It looks pretty good in my room too!