A Photo Tour of Loomis

I know I've talked about my hometown before, but I love it, and so I'm going to talk about it again. :)

Yesterday I found myself in Loomis with a few free hours on a gorgeous spring afternoon, so I took the opportunity to go around town and take pictures of places that meant something to me. I've been wanting to make a mini scrapbook album dedicated to where I grew up, but I came up with the idea months ago--just in time for all the plants to die for winter. So I waited for spring (and waited, and waited...) and it worked out perfectly to take the pictures yesterday.

One of my favorite views is driving towards Loomis on Sierra College Blvd (the street my house growing up is off of).

When I was a kid, there was a local hangout called Cagles, right on the corner near my elementary school on Taylor (the main street). Cagles was eventually owned by some family friends, the Strocks. Years ago it closed (*sob*) and then a few years ago, Taylor's opened up. So awesome and yummy!

A few pics from my grammar school, Loomis Grammar School. Yep. The school is so old that it's a Grammar School. So awesome. :) Cool thing is that the falcon painting was originally done my first year I went to the school, 4th Grade, and it's right by my classroom. I got to help paint it. :)

A few pictures from around my high school.

Taylor Road north of English Colony driving towards Newcastle in Penryn.

I stopped by the Newcastle Cemetary. I've always liked it. It's really, really old with some of the tombstones from the late 1800's. So cool.

The chapel my home ward, Loomis 1st meets in. Love it. :)

This is where I killed the deer when I was 15, but going the opposite direction. I still get a bit of a shiver when I drive past.



I love my town. It's quite beautiful in the spring.  :)

Lucky Streak

I've been on a lucky streak lately. And it's been awesome. :) And I just realized that I'm posting about my lucky streak on Friday the 13th. hahahahaha!

It started when I found out that I won a $20 gift card from this fun crafty blog.

Then I got won a free book from this blog. The book was The Heirs of Southbridge, and it was from LDS author, Jennie Hansen. Love her books. :)

The big prize I got was a Silhouette Cameo!! I won it from this blog. So brilliant. It took two seconds to click a couple of buttons and comment on the blog contest and I actually won!

I've been wanting one of these since Christmas. I love the Cricut, but the program we have that allows it to cut anything kinda stopped working (since it's not supposed to work with Cricut cutters). It still cuts, but if I don't catch it when the cut is done, it'll cut a large line through everything and it's annoying. The program works with Silhouette products and last year the company introduced the Cameo which cuts up to 12" wide! Woohoo!

I can't tell you how many times I've entered to win contests and I never win anything--thousands of people enter. But I've kept entering them because there's no way I'm going to buy the machine, and it takes like two seconds. The machine is $300 plus accessories and tools and I already have a Cricut. But now I don't have to buy it and it comes with one of the accessory kits! Oh yeah! And I won't have to keep borrowing the Cricut from Cait. She'll appreciate that. :)

Hopefully soon it'll show up on my doorstep. I'm anxiously waiting. :) When I get it I should name it...hmmm...

Then yesterday I stopped by the scrap store to look for pretty paper for my co-worker's wedding invitations (she asked me to make the flowers she's putting on them and I was wanting to make a demo one). The store is celebrating their birthday (5 years!) and if customer's spent $20, they got a cupcake and a prize. The cupcake I picked out had the daily $50 gift card! Yay! Go me! So my purchase was free, and I have a bunch of store credit. Yeah, buddy! I think I'll save it for when some of the Cameo accessories come in. :)

Winning!

Now, if I could only win a green KitchenAid Mixer... :)

i am....

I came across a fun list to make on a scrapbooking website. I thought I would post one here. I think I'll make it into a scrapbook page too (cuz that's how I roll).

***

i am...lucky to have such an amazing family that I love very, very much.
i was...always a terrible speller. In the standardized testing in school, I regularly tested below 30%. The nice thing is my siblings are just as bad. But we're all excellent readers! :) At least I'm getting better. Surprisingly, spell check has taught me a lot!
i think...we should go from beautiful Spring and skip straight to Fall. I can do without Summer--only because of the awful heat. I don't like it.
i wonder...if I'll ever be caught up scrapbooking.
i wish...my future husband would hurry it up already. :)
i save...memories and history. That makes me happy.
i always...laugh. It doesn't matter if it's something sad or funny. I think the only emotional response that my brain allows is laughter. Sometimes that is quite inappropriate. But then I laugh harder because my response is inappropriate. Terrible cycle. :)
i can't imagine...what life will be like in 50 years.
i believe...in the Atonement and that Jesus Christ is my Savior. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church. I am so blessed to be a member and have that knowledge in my life.
i promise...to be kind and thoughtful towards others. I struggle with this and so I am trying to do better.
i love...my friends. They bring so much fun and (mis?)adventure to my life.
i scrap...my life, my friends, my family, and my adventures.

Rachel's New Trick

Rachel has a new trick that she has started doing.

She can hold the bottle all by herself! At 3 months!  Now, she can't hold it for very long, especially if it's full, but she did hold it for a couple of minutes. She's so awesome.

Here are some other cute pictures of her sleeping last night. She looks like a little toddler already!

Hopefully she's just like her momma. :)

The Letter K

Today's post is brought to you by the letter K.

Apparently that is the magic letter now in my family.

My sister literally married a "Kay."

And now my other sister is married and her new last name starts with the letter K.

This just means that I HAVE to marry a guy with the last name that starts with K. If he doesn't it'll be a deal breaker. ;)

And WHEN I do...we'll be the KKKs. (Thanks, Cait, for pointing that out.)

Quite apropos when you consider that we were raised in the South. Just kidding. We do not support racism. Just so you know. And actually, extremists like that totally freak me out. In fact, once I saw a hilarious comedic play in West Yellowstone and there was a small bit at the end with members of the KKK and I totally freaked out. I can't handle it.

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, so one of the things I did for my baby sister that just got married was make her a large letter K. Kinda like the one I made here for my friend Summer.

So I learned from my first attempt. This time I used thinner cardboard. Actually, I used cereal boxes. I blew up the K in a font I liked (Storybook) and traced an outline. Then I actually redrew part of it because I wanted it taller. Then I cut it out twice and assembled it with 2 inch strips of more cereal box. I used masking tape and secured the inside and outside of the letters. Something that I would have done different this time is to add crumpled paper to help the cardboard hold it's shape better once it was wet with mod podge.

Once the letter was put together, I cut strips of newspaper and started paper-maching it on with mod podge. I learned that cut paper looks better than torn paper. I did lots of layers and this process took quite awhile to do. After a few layers, I noticed that the cereal boxes were starting to sag a bit (this is where the crumpled paper would have been handy) I used a lot of masking tape to re-create a level front. It actually worked pretty well. Then I paper-mached a few more layers.

When I was happy with the layers (okay, when I was tired of getting glue everywhere), I glued down large 2-3 inch strips of newspaper to cover it. I wanted to reduce the amount of visible lines on the letter. If I had really been thinking, I would have just traced the K and made it slightly larger and then just glued one piece on. Oh well.

But it did create a smoother surface which I liked. Once it was completely dry, I primed it by spraying a layer of white spray paint and then I spray painted it a lovely shade of green.

Then I started quilling. And quilling. And quilling. And watched 3 seasons of Lost. And quilled some more.

And then I was done. YAY! (And, "Finally!") And I also tied a cute pink ribbon bow so it would match the wedding colors.

We used it as a table decoration for the gifts table and I gave it to Erin and Jim as a present. I figure as poor college kids, they can't afford cute decorations, so they needed one as a present.

This was a lot of work and I don't think I'll make another one anytime soon. Or, at least not one with all the quilling.

General Conference

I loved General Conference last week. I know, I always love General Conference. I love the speakers and their messages. I always feel so happy and rejuvinated afterwards.

I found a fun blog that took some awesome quotes from Conference and put them into fun graphics. Here are a few of my favorites. Definitely check out the site for more fabulous quotes. They are free printables!

Elder Nelson said this when talking about the Big Bang Theory (the actual scientific theory--not the TV show. :) )

Elder Holland's talk was probably my favorite. And this was my favorite thing he said. It was so funny. :)



And I loved President Uchtdorf's talk too. He is so adorable. I love the way he speaks. :)

Conference was wonderful. I love having the oportunity to just sit back and listen to wise words from the Prophets and the Spirit! :)

Wedding Pictures

My baby sister is married!! AHHHH!!! Erin and Jim were married on March 30th in the Idaho Falls Temple.

I didn't get to be there. That made me really sad.

But I was very, very happy for Erin and pictures have been filtering in over the past 48 hours. Awesome!!! Erin looked beautiful! Oh, and ya know, Jim looked pretty good too. ;)

I'm having everyone send pictures because Cait and I are using them for part of the decorations for the reception this Friday.

So, here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Here's a great one of the back of Erin's dress and her gorgeously long train.

Fun story: So Mom had talked to the manager when she, Nana, and Erin had checked into the motel and told her about the wedding. Then later, after the temple, Mom went back and wasn't able to get her room key to work and went back to the front desk and spoke to the manager. The manager asked if Erin and Jim were around staying their too. She said no, they were staying somewhere else. The manager then pulled out this beautiful bouquet and said they were for Erin as a congratulatory gift. So generous! Way to go Idaho Falls Motel 6! :)



I'll post more pictures of the reception once I have them. :) So exciting!!