Ice Sculpting Competition

It's that time of year again! This past Saturday was the Ice Sculpting Competition at the Titanic. I have stopped by for the past few years since it started. This is the first year that the weather wasn't completely overcast and misty. Another first.....HUGE crowds and a radio station playing music. I'm so glad that people are starting to catch on to this cool event. On the other hand...I did rather enjoy it without the crowds because you could actually get closer to the pieces and watch the carvers at work without someone in your way. Here are pics of the sculptures from this year.

My knitting journey

I finally learned how to knit! I am so excited that I finally learned. I tried learning a few years back but gave up. I attempted to learn from a kit but that didn't really work out very well. I have always been fascinated watching ladies knit at lighting speeds. There is just something so calming and relaxing about it that drew me in. Also, as you know, I love to read. I always tend to "read by author". I find an author that I like and read all of their books. Once I finish those....I move on to another author. A few years back a ran across Maggie Sefton's books. She writes murder mysteries that are light-hearted and have a knitting theme that runs through the series. The main character, Kelly, learns to knit throughout the series and helps solve mursers. After reading these books I decided to give it another go. This time I had Maria, one of my adopted sisters, teach me. Amazing how easy it was to learn when someone actually showed me in person. She taught me how to do a knit stitch and a purl stitch. After that I found a few patterns online and played around. There are also patterns at the end of each of the books that I think I may be trying in the following months.

I started learning on #11 needles. This is one of my samples that I was trying to learn on. I like the look of the purl stitch so I thought that I would try and do a scarf with that pattern. Big mistake! That was one of my first lessons....purling tends to curl. Wish it didn't, but it does. Oh, in case you don't know what purling is...it's the stitch that looks like a braid.

This scarf was from a kit that I bought several years back. I forgot that I had it. Maria actually knitted the first 5 inches of it when I first had the kit. I decided to finish the scarf before trying another scarf. I figured the fuzziness of it would hide my mistakes.

Hannah really loves lime green and liked the scarf so I gave it to her for Christmas.

Here is a scarf that I started knitting for Adam. It's on #6 needles. I actually did about 14 inches or so but decided to scrap it and start over again. I messed up on the tension so it wasn't straight enough for my liking. I'll eventually finish his scarf.

While I was making Hannah's scarf, Emeline kept hinting that I could make her a scarf too. =) So...I started playing around and made this scarf for her. I tried figuring out how to make a slit in it so that I could pull the ends through. It was actually kind of big and I offered to make her a normal scarf that was more her size but she really wanted to keep this one.

SO....as I was making Emeline's scarf GEORGE decided that he wanted one too. This is after a few tug-of-wars with it. It was really cute. I was working on it during the show and trying to work on it between numbers. Every once in a while I would be sitting and grabbing a drink or catching my breath and I would have George come over to me. He would tap my leg and say," Vikki, work on my scarf." SO CUTE!

After making those scarves and while working on Adam's scarf, I decided to try my ginormous needles. These are the ones that are in the top picture of this post. I knew that I would be able to make the scarves faster because of the size of the needles and I needed a sense of accomplishment. Adam's scarf was taking me forever and I wanted to finish a scarf again before Christmas. Here is the first one that I made. Of course, as per the pattern, Jessie saw the scarf I was working on and loved the colors so.....I gave it to her.

I decided to try it on the night before I gave it to her. I decided that I should go ahead and make Mara a scarf too, seeing as I had already made 4 scarves for her family.

This is at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Christmas Eve. Hannah didn't wear her scarf so she's missing in this scarf picture.

Maria's scarf

Kristina's scarf. I also made a scarf for Diana and mailed it out with her Christmas gifts. She chose the same colors that Mara chose. The final tally for Christmas scarves was 8 this year.

I finally had a chance to make myself a scarf. I finished this one on New Year's Eve around 11:30 PM. The next thing that I want to learn is how to use the circular needles. There is a pattern in the back of one of the mysteries that doesn't sound too difficult that I may try. I have a feeling that it will take me quite some time seeing as it uses so many skeins. I'll post updates after I can track down some worsted wool yarn.

9th Anniversary

January 5, 2011 was our 9th Anniversary. I can't believe it's actually been 9 years already! Still no kids because my body just doesn't seem to want to co-operate but we do have 3 very spoiled furry children. To celebrate we just spent the day doing a few things together. Last year Adam actually had to leave town for a show so....this year was definitely better. We did lunch, shopped, and then had dinner in our theatre room downstairs whilst watching a movie. Nice and relaxing day. =) As for the gifts, we chose the modern theme which was - leather. As you can see, Chewie likes my gift that I got.

Adam got me a B. Makowsky bag to add to my purse collection

I tracked down a leather chess and checkers set. The board rolls up and the pieces are made of leather discs. Apparently it will also fit on an airplane tray table so it's perfect for traveling too.

My Netbook Drama

It all started on Black Friday. I decided that I wanted to get a netbook so that I would be able to blog more frequently and efficiently. Yes, I have a small laptop, but I figured this would be easier to bring to the theatre. Also, because it was such a great price, I could bring it to the theatre without having to worry about one of the kids accidentally destroying it. (Yes, that is a valid reason)

So....after our Thanksgiving Festivities I decided to run to Michael's to stock up on yarn and then make a quick trip to Best Buy to check out the line. Several members of my family were planning on going there later to stand in line but I figured I should check to see if there was a line forming. A lot of the teens in our family were planning on getting the same netbook and we weren't sure how many were actually going to be available.

When I got there I saw around 10 people in line and decided that I should hold our spot in line. I can not even describe to you how FREEZING it was out there. I wasn't prepared to stand in line for a couple of hours. I did have a jacket and a scarf however, had I known I would be out there, many more layers would have been worn. The first people in line had a tent with a space heater inside of it. It was THAT cold. I have to admit, it was pretty funny when the family pulled up. They brought the motor home so that people could take shifts warming up and taking naps. I still think it would have been great to bring the Tour Bus. LOL

Long story short, I got my netbook. YAY! ....or so I thought.

This was going to be my Chrsitmas present from my parents so it was going to be wrapped up and put under the tree. Luckily I decided to try it out and make sure that everything was working. NOPE. I had a burned out pixel. Loooovely. Back to Best Buy I went. They were sold out of the Netbooks by that time and apparently this is an item they don't normally carry. It is something that was made for the Black Friday sale. They told me that it had to be sent back to the manufacturer and it would probably just take a couple of weeks. HA! It took 4 weeks to get it back. When it was back they called over the phone said that they had run tests and everything seemed to be working fine. HA....AGAIN!

Silly me, I trusted them and took it home without testing it in the store. As soon as I got home I fired it up and....another dead pixel PLUS the screen wouldn't even turn on if it was tilted all the way back. Lucky me, now I had a dead pixel AND a short in the screen. Back to Best Buy I went. Once again I was told that I had to send it back but that they would expedite it. Fancy way of saying that it would be shipped out quickly but that it would still have to go through the same process as last time.

Needless to say, it did not make it under the Christmas Tree. I just got it back a few days ago and for now it's working great. I'm hoping it'll stick this time.

Ok...so as I was editing this post my netbook decided to randomly shut down and update. Hmmmmm

Christmas Morning

Once again, it's time to catch up on a few blog posts. I suppose I should attempt to blog at least once a week as a New Year's Resolution.....again.

Normally we have 3 trees up in our house for Christmas, however, this year, the red one was the only one that got finished. The blue tree was up sans decorations. For some reason I couldn't get into the spirit of decorating until a couple of days before Christmas. We'll make up for it next year. =)

Here is our tree Christmas morning. You will notice that there are only a few bows on some of the gifts. Chewie has taken a liking to the bows. He is constantly licking them. Have you ever heard the sound of a bow being licked? ANNOYING! It. Doesn't. Stop. I seriously wanted to throttle him a few times. Grrrrrr

Kahlan had fun that morning. She kept going up on her hind legs so that she could peer over presents to see what was going on.

These fleece pants were in my stocking. I had to change into them before I opened gifts. I love me my fleece PJ pants and squishy socks! One of my gifts was the Wii Fit to go with the Wii that we got last Christmas.

Every year we get a gift for the cats. This year we got this little toy that didn't work properly. It has a fan that is supposed to blow the "butterflies" around inside the globe and then they fly out the hole. Static was the enemy. We had to keep thwacking the globe so that they would unstick. Kahlan still had fun.

This was my favorite shot of her playing. She was like a little kid reaching past the object to try to get to the inside.

A few of Adam's gifts. Now he has his own small camera to take with him when he goes out of town.

A few things from my brother's family. Love the gift card for my Nook. I've already used my gift card to buy 3 books so far. Wahoooo!

So Adam already opened this gift before Christmas. This little video camera rocks! We've been using it ever since Black Friday....of course, we had to wrap the box for the tree. =)

YES! I love Deadliest Catch! This one has the extra disc with the extra Captain Phil footage.

Personalized Tins for our theatre room. I suppose we should get a mini popcorn machine next...

I finally have a nifty little light to attach to my Nook!

A snazzy new shirt and tie.

We had a few more gifts but I figured you would be bored looking at those pictures. One of my gifts, my netbook, will be in another blog post. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Great gift idea

For my friends who know me....you KNOW that I love to shop. =) I love finding great deals and especially love finding that perfect gift. With the holidays here and a new year just around the corner, full of special occasions, I thought I would share my friend's website with you all.

Sweetheart Silver has a wonderful line of handmade jewelry for men and women. Each piece is hand stamped and carries a special message. I ordered the one at the top of my post. All of them come packaged in a silver organza pouch...how cute is that? You can also choose to have them gift wrapped in glossy white paper, silver sticker, organza pouch, box and gift card. Because I am a huge supporter of Livestrong, I chose to get the "Fight like a Girl" design, in support of breast cancer. I also like it because, well....girls rock! Yep, we're tough...ya hear that guys?! By the way, that perfect pink ribbon is not soldered to the oval. It's a separate pendant so it has movement. LOVE THAT!

Here is another design that I absolutely adore and want if I ever get pregnant. I think this would be the perfect gift for an expecting mother. It's original and personal.
This one is called "I love you". No explanations necessary. =)

It's fun looking at all of the designs and reading the meanings behind them. If you are a guy looking for a simple yet classy piece of jewelry for your gal, I recommend reading the descriptions and messages of each piece of jewelry. Heck, you can tell her the meaning behind the piece you bought her and she will be amazed at your thoughtfulness.

In addition to the necklaces she also makes, earrings, bracelets and pet tags. If you are in sorority or fraternity she even has Greek letters. Great big/little sister gift in my opinion!

As I was looking at the website tonight I also noticed that she has a fund-raising program for non-profit, public or private school, club or organizations. I may be looking into that myself.

As an even bigger incentive to check out her site, I have a coupon for you all to use. You will get 10% off of your orders if you use the code "branson". The code is in all lowercase letters and has NO quotation marks.

What are you waiting for? Go check out her website!

The Legend of Kung Fu Show

I blogged about wanting to see The Legend of Kung Fu show January this year and finally got a chance this month. In November I kept running into the cast at Tanger Mall or at the Wal-Mart Supercenter.....it's pretty easy to spot them....that whole shaved head thing.

My first run-in was at Tanger. I was getting my coupon book and a few of them were in line waiting to purchase them too. I get mine for free and wanted to give them one but...being the pathetic Chinese person that I am, I can't speak very much. I understand Chinese but can't actually speak it that well. What I CAN speak has an embarrassingly bad American accent. UGH. It took me a couple of minutes but I finally conveyed to them that I wanted to give them one of the books for free.

After that I kept seeing them on Tuesdays. Apparently that is their day off and they go to the Supercenter around noon. I usually went after our morning show, hence the bumping into them. We didn't start doing morning shows until November so that's why I never saw them before. I just figured that out as I was typing the previous sentence. LOL

Forty of the cast members came to see our show and we loved it. I loved it. I love seeing "my people" in the audience, especially a HUGE group of them. They were the perfect audience! I saw them before the show and talked with a few of them, mainly the five that spoke English. I also went out at intermission to meet a few more of them and our family and their cast all took pictures after the show. There are a few boys in their cast and the oldest member is 30. A couple of their boys did a few tricks and our little guys tried to do those tricks after they left. TeeHee.


Our family finally got a chance to see their show a couple of weeks ago. AMAZING!!! I love martial arts so I was loving every minute of it. If you haven't seen their show....GO! Well, you'll have to wait until the Spring because they all went home a couple of days ago, but go next year!
I plan on seeing their show again and can't wait to see them running around town again.