Black Book

Last night Phil and I caught this movie on one of the movie channels. We actually caught it after it had started, but saw that it was about WW2, so we decided to watch it. Turns out that it was about the Dutch underground during WW2.

It was a really good movie. It was in German with subtitles. And it was based on true events. It was based on a German Jewish woman named Rachel Stein. She sees her family murdered as they are trying to leave Holland for liberated territories. She ends up joining the Dutch resistance.

The movie has some great twists and turns. One of the characters early in the movie tells her to be careful, and not to be so trusting in everyone. And they weren't kidding. Just when you think you can trust someone, they turn out to be working with the Germans.

If you like movies based on historical events, you'll really like this one.

Medieval Room

Since I haven't taken any new pictures, I thought I'd share my Medieval room on my webkinz account. I just got the pink dragon, and of course she's one of my favorite pets. I just had to get a dragon webkinz, cause that's me, a dragon. LOL

Hopefully Arte will have the Medieval chairs in the Curio shop soon, cause I have the table, no chairs. LOL

Kung Fu Panda

I love Po! We went to see Kung Fu Panda today, and I loved it. The story was very cute. I love that Po worked in a Noodle house. I love the fact that Po is a chubby panda who can save the town. It gives the kids a little self-esteem. That you don't have to be the tigress, monkey, viper, crane, or mantis to be the hero. If you work hard and believe in yourself, you can do anything.

It's a good message for the kids today.

There was so much in this movie to love. Love Jack Black as Po! He is so funny! Scadush! LOL I can't believe that Jackie Chan only had maybe 3 lines in the whole movie! LOL He was the Monkey. Angelina Jolie was the Tigress. Dustin Hoffman is the red panda. And Lucy Liu is the viper.

It's neat that they can get a little bit of everyone's character into the animation. The one rhino was Michael Clarke Duncan, and you just knew by the characteristics of the rhino, and it's facial movements that it was him! LOL

On the one site that I'm on, Gaiaonline, they have had the Kung Fu Panda Quests for a month or two. And I've been dying to see the movie cause the quests are so fun to do. Plus seeing the trailers in the Gaia Cinemas helped a lot too.

I don't want to say anymore to ruin it for anyone. All I can say is, if you haven't seen it already, and you love animation, this is a good one to see.

BBQ Peaches

One of things that we look forward to in summer time is BBQ peaches. We were watching Food Network one night, and saw them BBQing the peaches. So we decided to try it, and OMG, they've been a big hit!
This is a peach after it's been on the grill. As soon as it comes off the grill, sprinkle them with a bit of sugar. And it seems like it caramelizes.
Yummy in Ashley's tummy! LOL It's one of the things the softball team looks forward to every year. When Phil goes back to practice, everyone reminds him how they love BBQ peaches!

Sex and the City

I went to see the Sex and the City Movie today. Ashley wanted to go, so we went. And OMG, it was the best movie! If you loved the series, you'll love the movie. I loved it so much, I am definitely going again to see it with my girlfriends!

I am a big fan of the TV show. It was the one thing I looked forward to watching every Sunday night when it was on HBO. It was great watching their lives unfold on the little screen, seeing them all go through their dating lives, professional lives, and their friendships together.

And watching the movie was like being with old friends. You haven't seen each other for a long time, but you just pick up where you left off. I loved seeing Jennifer Hudson in the movie. She was great! And of course I just LOVE Chris Noth. He was always my favorite of Carrie's beaus. I love Mario Cantone. He's one of those who you'd want to have as your friend! And of course, seeing the girls!

I won't give away anything, cause I know some of you probably haven't seen it yet. It is definitely a movie you need to see with your girlfriends!!

Cool find at a Japanese store

While in the Japanese store today, I found these great containers for ATC's! They are for your Trading Card Collection, and so I'm thinking...ATCs!!

They come two to a package, and were very reasonable! I'll have to get a few more cause I filled up the two I have already. It was the last package at the store, so I'll keep checking back. I'll have to figure out how to decorate them now.

My Aunt

Yesterday my aunt turned 84! I can't believe that she's 84. We were talking about how when she was young, she thought that when she turned 60 she wouldn't be getting around much anymore, and here she is in her 80's!

She has lived in San Francisco for much of her life. I can always remember visiting her in San Francisco, and seeing her at the different Cherry Blossom Festivals. She is so independant, and always told me to look for a good job with a good company so that you have a future for yourself. It's always fun to go to visit her because you hear so much about their life in Hawaii and what it was like to grow up on the Sugar Cane Plantation. I really need to start writing about their stories!

We went to Todai for her birthday. I hadn't been there in such a long time. It was better than the one we normally go to, Hokkaido. What I thought was neat about this restaurant is that they cook a lot of their meat on long skewers, then come to your table to see if you want anything off the skewers. I have never seen that before.

Then we went to her home, and for the first time, she showed me things in her apartment. Like different pieces of art in frames, she actually took scarves with cool japanese prints, and put them into frames. She also had a few frames of japanese paper art. Someone created neat scenes with washi paper for her. And of course I loved seeing the paintings my other aunt has done. My Aunty Dorothy used to live in Japan for awhile when she was in the military. And she did some really beautiful paintings of some of the places in Japan. I'll have to take pictures of them the next time I go to visit.

It made me realize how lucky I am to have such creative people in my life.

Still working on Las Vegas Books

I'm still working on the Las Vegas Books. Not that it's all that hard to work on, but I've been doing things in between. I started reading Mr. Darcy's daughters. It's pretty good so far. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth have left to Constantinople. They have 5 daughters and two sons, the daughters are visiting their cousins in London.

The premise sounds really good. I'm just getting into it, so we'll see if I really like it or not. A good indication is that I can't put it down for long.

I'm going to teach a friend to bead tomorrow, and visit with my parents and see one of my aunts in SF. That should be really fun!

Hopefully I'll start my etsy store soon. I have to get some things made first, then I'll be there making stuff. I have to figure out something really fun and unusual to sell. We'll see how far we get.

Hope you all are having a good night, and have a fun weekend!

Sadie's in the Modesto Bee Newspaper

They did an article on Sadie in the Modesto Bee Newspaper about Nashville Star tonight:


http://www. modbee. com/local/story/322882. html

How cool is that??

Sadie on Nashville Star...

Well, we hope she'll be on Nashville Star. She auditioned in April and made it all the way to the top 45! We saw her on one of the Nashville Star commercials, Jewel said she was singing out her nose. LOL So, we are hoping since she was on the commercial, that she'll be on the show.

It's on at 9 on NBC, I think for 2 hours. That's so cool!!

Sadie and her Guitar

I think Sadie enjoyed her Krispy Treat Guitar! LOL

Sadie's 21st Birthday

So, Sadie has the bright idea of having a cake eating contest for her birthday. And she thought what a great idea to have everyone blindfolded with their hands tied behind her back. She tried to recruit everyone to play this game, but many of us have been around too long to know what was going to happen next.
If you think you're going to have a cake eating contest with Victor and Al around you're totally WRONG! When they said "GO" Al picks up his and Victor's cake....
And smushes it right into the girl's faces. They really thought they were going to be part of a simple cake eating contest...NOT. Of course the lovely cake I made was totally used for the fight. And notice in the background, Phil and Diane are walking away from the fight, and Philip is pretty much enjoying every minute of it!
This is what the girls looked like after the fight, before the turkey grease was dumped on them from on top of the roof. Yes, you read right, from on top of the roof. The girls thought they would actually go on the roof with the hose to attack the guys from above...
The guys thought of it first, with turkey frying oil.
But if you don't throw the oil, you don't have to clean it up. Although the girls got beat, they had justice in the fact that the boys had to clean up the backyard. LOL

Just like the old days of dinner with the Louisianas. Do I have stories I could tell you!

All in a days work at the Louisiana-Brown house. LOL Kristen, I bet you are SO glad that you missed this dinner!!

Sadie's Cake

So, after many many tries, here is Sadie's cake! LOL Devil's food cake with Whipped cream. I love whipped cream and not frosting cakes.

But in the middle layers, I mixed mini marshmallows in with the whipped cream. That made the layers taller. But it helped fill in some of the layers too. :)

Then I shaved some Nestle's Bliss dark chocolate and put more marshmallows on the top. It looks so YUMMY!!! I hope I get a piece!

Krispy Treat Guitar

Yesterday was Sadie's 21st birthday, and today we are celebrating. So, Phil has this great idea to make Sadie a Krispy Treat Guitar. She loves Krispy treats, and well, you know her and music.

These are the photos of the final processes. Phil molded the guitar by hand, and he cut the shape out and the hole in the center. I went in after and made the chocolate strings out of melted chocolate, and even wrote her name on it! It is very cool!

Hope she enjoys it!

Frosting

After a few recipe flops, I have decided that premade frosting is always good. LOL I have tried and tried to make chocolate frosting from scratch, and bombed every time. So, I'm just going to go with the frosting from a can. LOL

I'm not even going to show you because it was really bad! LOL

Adventures in Marshmallows

So, Sadie's favorite thing to eat is Marshmallows. So I decided that I'd figure out something to make her that had marshmallows in it that was new and different.

One important thing that I've figured out about Marshmallows and baking...don't bake with marshmallows. Well, you can use it as a finishing element. LOL

I put them inside of some cake batter to see how they would hold up in the baking process. Well, just so you all know...they melt. Yep, melt into goo. And since it started out as a nice big fluffy piece of marshmallow, melting into goo leaves a gaping hole in your cupcakes.

So, while standing there looking at the holes in the cupcakes, I decided to put a marshmallow in there while they're still warm. And this is great to eat while they're hot, but not so much when they're cold. Phil says that the marshmallows and cake are too dry together, that there needs to be something goopy to mix it up.

So, tomorrow will be experiment #2. I'll keep you posted as to what will be next.

Last two sections

These are the last 2 accordian pages in the accordian book. I think I will decorate the inside cover with a picture, but I have to figure out what. I am going to put some embellishments on the last page. So, I'll take another photo. I LOVE that paper too, wish I could find more.

Inside pages to Las Vegas Book

I have finished most of the pages of my Las Vegas Stamping Sisters mini accordian book. I haven't glued it into the cover at this point, but I wanted to post some pictures of what I've been doing so far.


This is the first page, I printed the title from Word onto cream colored cardstock. Then used TimHoltz's ink pad to soften up the color a bit. I drew the swirlies, then cut out of cardstock. And then punched the round dots with a round hole punch.

The papers on all the books might be a bit different, cause it depends on what I have left by the time I get to book 5. LOL I found the cool cherry paper from a store in Tracy that isn't there anymore. Love the pink theme to the book so far.

But then, I had to find something with a little blue in it because the photos at the nugget's fish tank were blue. So I found this poker chip paper, and thought it would be good. :) And the next set of photos are from the Las Vegas Experience on Fremont street.

The flip side has 2 double layouts. I'll post those tomorrow.

Las Vegas Books

So, with my time off I've started on my Las Vegas books for my friends. We took a trip to Las Vegas in October, and I haven't had the chance to do anything till now.

These books are from Petaloo. They are accordian books. The cover is made of cardboard that was covered in pink paper. Of course I couldn't just leave the paper pink. I found this really great patterned paper that is a photo of the strip. I cut the bottom portion off and used it for the flap.

I used one of Tim Holtz's ink pads to "antique the edges, then used clear glitter to edge the book, cause it just needed some glitz.

The book has a magnetic closure, so it just pops closed.

Before the trip I had found the Las Vegas Poker chips that I was going to alter for something else. But I thought they would make a great accent on the book. The dice are from Joleen's.

I'll post photos of the pages as I get them done.

It feels so good to create!

Mao

This is Mao our outside cat. I've talked about her before. She's a really cute cat that has been hanging around our house. Well, I guess it doesn't help that I feed her too. Although, for an outside cat she's been getting pretty spoiled.

I took this picture of her waiting near the birdseed bowl. She doesn't catch any of the birds or squirrels that come in the yard. But it's funny to see her waiting around the yard for something to come in.

And I've named her Mao because she talks a lot. And I've always wanted to call a cat Mao, and have it answer. "Mao!" "meow". lol

Ok, I must figure out what to do soon cause I'm talking to cats! LOL