Fremont Flyers Softball 16U

We spent our 3-day weekend at a tournament in San Carlos at Carlmont High School. We played a total of 6 games over 3 days. The championship game was 11 innings and ran 3 hours! The girls did great. We were undefeated for all our games. We played teams from San Carlos, Scotts Valley, and Santa Cruz. And we played our fellow Fremont Flyers 16U team.

The girls with their championship trophies.

Our catcher Lindsay Carroll at bat.

My niece Alex pitching.

Safe!
Ari Monges at bat.

It was such a great time. The girls played so well for their first game, setting the bar very high! Every year our group of girls get better and better. There are a few new additions to our team this year, and they make the team that much better!

Go Flyers!!

Glee Tour- San Jose

Anyone who really knows me, knows how big of a Glee fan I am. I just LOVE watching the shows, I have the CD's and DVD's. And I have to tune in every Tuesday, like my other Gleeks. So, when I heard that they were having a concert, of course I had to call my fellow Gleek, Debi and we just had to go to the show. LOL

My friend Debi knows a really good friend of Cory Monteith. And she invited us to go with her to the Glee concert as guests of Cory's! How cool is that!! Really??? A guest of Cory's???? OMG!!

We get to the concert a bit early, and after a bit of wandering, trying to find where we had to go, we met up with Cory! He was nice enough to look for Tammy and to bring us all backstage.

It was so cool to meet him. He's such a sweetheart! He chatted with us until he had to get ready for the show.

We also met Jenna who plays Tina on the show. She was so nice to stop to say hello to us all. I really loved meeting her!

The HP pavilion was packed!! I just had to take a picture from our 3rd row center seats!! Thanks to Cory! LOL I thought it was so funny when he asked us where our seats were, and then said, "Great Tix", thanks to him we had awesome seats!

Watching the cast perform was so awesome! They sounded like they did on the show! And it was really fun how they incorporated video on the big screen with live action. Heather Morris is one of my favorites. And they had her interacting to videos of Will and Sue.

At the end of the show we were able to go to the meet and greet. And there we met Darren who plays Blaine. He was so nice, he made it a point to stop and talk to everyone in the meet and greet area.


We had an awesome time thanks to Tammy and Cory!! I keep saying it would have been even better if I had been 16. But then I think I would have been too nervous to say Hi to them. :)

Thanks Tammy for inviting me to go along with you all, and a HUGE thank you to Cory for getting us the tickets and the backstage pass!! Totally awesome!

Italia Jacket

A friend of mine at work really loves soccer. He asked me to do a logo for him for the Italian Soccer team. It was one of the easier ones I did for him, I love how it came out. : )

And below is what it looks like on the jacket.

It was really cool cause now other people want me to make that logo for them. ;)

Paquiao

Tomorrow night is the big night. Ok, not a big boxing fan here, but I know that there is this fight with Paquiao tomorrow. One of my friends at work is a big fan, and asked me to do a special piece of embroidery for him. He drew the face of Pacquiao, and he had me digitize and embroider it on a couple of sweatshirts. One like the above, with Paquiao's signature.

And this one with Paquiao's signature larger on the hood. I wasn't sure how it would actually turn out, but I really liked it a lot. When you have the white background with darker thread, it doesn't look as good as having it on a dark background.




And here's a picture of Andre wearing the sweatshirt. It really does look very cool. If I were a Pacquiao fan, I might have to have one too. LOL

Lady Eagles Softball Embroidered logo

I can't believe I haven't posted since February. I think you need to blame those darn Angry Birds. LOL Ok, Angry Birds, Words with friends, Boggle, oh, and of course Farmville and Cityville. Darn those Facebook/Ipod apps. Can you say Time Suckers?? LOL Well, that plus with working full-time, life's been pretty busy.

I was in a creative funk. I get so tired after work that I really haven't been very creative, choosing to play games instead. But thankfully my niece Alex has gotten me out of that funk. :)

She asked me to do the embroidery on the American High School Softball's Varsity team's warm-up jackets. Alex never asks for anything, so of course, if she asks, I'm doing to do whatever I can to do what she has requested. Cause she's my Alex! :)

So we started with a photo of the American High School logo (which coincidentally looks like the Philedelphia Eagles logo), and redrew it, then digitized it on the computer.

This is what the logo looks like digitized above. I always like taking a screenshot of the logo just to show everyone what it is going to look like. Then I'll stitch out a sample. Below is the actual logo stitched on a jacket.

I think it looks really good. I did find out that stabilizers really do matter. The stabilizer from JoAnn's worked out a lot better than the WalMart stabilizer. So guess who has to stock up on stabilizer while it's still on sale. LOL



This is one of the jackets. On this style of jacket, there is a net lining and a zipper that is on the inside. I still have a problem understanding why you'd need a zipper. There's no pocket there, and it doesn't unzip the lining from the jacket. So now when I do the names, I'll have to unzip the zipper, then baste the lining to the jacket so it won't move while stitching.

It's always a challenge to hoop different items. I hope that the girls will like them. :)

Happy 3 day weekend!

I'm so glad it's a three day weekend, but kinda bummed that I caught the office cold. So I've spent all today sleeping and recouping. I'm thinking tomorrow will be the same. But at least I don't have to miss a day of work.

Life's been kinda busy lately. I haven't done a whole lot of anything. I did get my sister's blankets done for an event she had last weekend.
They came out pretty well. And after I had already done all of them an idea popped into my head. So I'll have to work on the idea. ;)

My cousin is now selling Avon, if you're interested check out her website lots of cool stuff. :)

Was going to sit down and get some embroidery done this weekend, but I think I'll try and do stuff next weekend.

Will keep you posted as to the new things I do. :)

New Car! New Embroidery!

I have finally found my new car! Who would have thought that car shopping would take so much time and be so tiring!! It's so way different than it used to be. I love the fact that you can go on the internet and find who has what make and model.

A few times we were a bit too late, and the car had already been sold. We found that used Subaru Foresters are very hard to find. And when you do find them, and if they are in good condition, they get snapped up pretty quickly.

So when we found this one, we snapped it up as well. And I love my Forester!


It is red like my truck. And it drives really well. I am totally in love with it! And so is Phil. He even offered to take me to JoAnn's today when I needed to go. LOL


And now that my car shopping is over, it's back to work on embroidery. I have 33 blankets to do for my sister. Yep, you read right, 33. Here is what it looks like digitized. Pretty simple. I'll take a photo of the finished project once I'm done. :)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It's been a long time between posts. I hope you all are having a great new year. I've been keeping busy with work lately, and spent the last part of December making gifts for Christmas.

For our Company Christmas party we went to Golden Gate Fields. OMG, this was so much fun! Since I'm one of the new employees, I got to go down to the track and watch one race, then we had our photo taken with the winning jockey, Russell Baze. It's funny cause I had no idea that Russell Baze has the most career victories ever.

Here's the photo of all of us. I think it's so cool that we got to take a photo with him. :)


Here is a photo of my lunch buddies from work at Golden Gate Fields. Andre, Chetan, and German.


This is one of the projects I worked on for Christmas. Blankets. :) My friend Lois had me embroider a few for her for Christmas. So I spent the latter part of December making a few for some friends along with some shirts and jackets. It was an embroidered Christmas! LOL

And I'm so sad that my New Year started off with a bang, literally. I got into an accident, which pretty much totaled my truck. My truck has been everywhere with me. We went on a biking trip to Oregon, many trips to visit my sister in So Cal and trips to Tahoe. Just everywhere! I think it was the world's way of making me get a new vehicle, since my truck and I have traveled together everywhere since 1989. RIP old friend.

Growing Kitties

It's been awhile since I've posted photos of the kittens outside. I didn't realize till I looked at old photos of the kittens, that they've grown so much. They've all been fixed by the Homeless Cat Network and they have their shots. I'm so glad, cause for years the kitten population was just crazy in my folk's backyard. I'm so glad that at least now, their yard is under control. We couldn't have possibly paid for getting all the feral cats fixed. So, a great big THANK YOU goes out to them!!

This is one of my favorites. We call him Runty cause he was the runt of the litter. Not anymore, he's growing up so much. I just love his personality. He's always following us around the yard. I swear it's like we have little dogs. LOL

Playing with my embroidery software

So I was playing with my embroidery software. I'm finding out more things, oh like I can choose more colors of thread. LOL I had no idea that I could click on a pull-down menu and get all the different thread colors. Yep, should have figured that one out a year ago. LOL,

Had to do a Giants logo. I really want to do the scripty one, but this one will do for now. ;)
This one is for a soccer team, the Millionarios. Or Millionaros. I'm bad at spelling.
And the cowboys. Not a fan here, but I know someone who is...
And Pacquiao. A friend of mine drew this up, it looks really cool!

Anyway, plan on doing some more designs this week. none of this is for sale. Just practicing. :)

What I do for my sister...

So, my sister, who is a really big Giants fan, wanted World Series shirts. She lives in Dodger-land, so of course, they're not going to carry any Giants World Series Gear. LOL
So, the day after the World Series, we were sent to Sports Authority to get her a shirt.

This is what we saw when we entered Sports Authority...

Yes, it was a line from the front of the store to the back of the store. But do you think this was the line to pay for your shirts???

WRONG!

It was the line to pick out your shirts. Yep, we all are waiting to see what they have so we can BUY them. LOL Reminds me of the old Day on the Greens, where you wait and wait for a shirt to say, "I was there" LOL.
I know people thought I was nuts to sit in the line for a shirt. But heck, how often do the Giants win the World Series?? Of course I got a shirt, my other sister got a shirt, my mom, my aunt, and even my sister's bf got a hat. LOL Good thing we sat in line too, cause there wasn't much left by the next day.

I don't remember the lines being this long for even the 49ers winning the Super Bowl.

Go Giants!

Tonight the Giants won!! I'm so very excited. Although I'm more of an A's fan than a Giants fan, I totally jumped on that Giants bandwagon. LOL

Yesterday, my sister dragged me to AT&T Park so she could take photos of the park. It was kind of nice being there with not a ton of people around.

Here I am in front of McCovey Cove. I just think it's so pretty to have a ballpark on the water. Makes you want to rent a kayak and catch some home runs! LOL

Congratulations to the Giants!!

Getting back into it

It's been awhile since I've had the time to do much creating. Mainly because I've been working. And we've had a few big jobs that we have been working overtime on, so much of my free time has been spent just trying to relax. And of course to farm, farmville is too darn addicting. Just gotta farm farm farm. LOL

A friend of mine at work wanted a couple of designs embroidered. He's in our art department, so he actually helped me out to draw out these designs. It was a big help for him to actually draw it first so that step was eliminated! :) Then all I had to do was to digitize it.



The top design is for the league and the bottom one here is for the team:

I just now have to stitch them out.

I have one more bicycle design that I'll post after I stitch it out tomorrow. It's been so long since I've actually done anything on the machine. I'm so glad that I have the time to get back into it now. :)

Wands

I just learned that one of my friends makes these really cool wands. I had no idea he loved Harry Potter as much as I do (Ok, he might love it a little more than me if that is possible).

Here are a couple of the wands that he makes. I just think they are too cool. I really do think I need to have one. :)

His shop on etsy is lighthill01. I just love all the hand carving and detail that goes into his wands. And the finishes. :) Awesome job Matt!!

Note: I think Matthew has closed his wand shop at the moment, but I can forward messages along to him if you are interested in a wand...

Romalo's Cannoli & Spumoni Factory

Labor Day weekend, I went to Monterey with my friend Debi and her daughter Alex, and my Ashley. While we were there, we stopped into this little sandwich shop and had some lunch and dessert. Debi had a cannoli. It was this rolled pastry stuffed with something that looked like whipped cream. I've never had a cannoli before, so when she offered a bite, I tried it. And man, I'm hooked! :)
So when we got home, I thought I'd google Cannolis to see what would pop up. And Romolo's Cannoli and Spumoni factory popped up. Hmm, a cannoli factory?? Phil, of course, has had cannoli's. And when I showed him their website, he starts to describe cannolis to me in detail. So of course we had to go to Romolo's to check it out.

It's a Sunday, late afternoon, and there wasn't a line at all. Since we were Romolo cannolis virgins, the owner greets us and begins to show us what all our options are with the cannolis. Do we want plain shells, which is good if we're going to eat in right away. Or we could have chocolate lined ones, which will keep the shells crispy. And once filled, we had more options. Did we want chocolate chips, pistachios, or a cherry?


We ended up with half a dozen. 4 with chocolate, 2 without. Don't they look so yummy??

And he hand makes the ice cream there. OMG, it was the yummiest ice cream ever!! So very creamy. I know I have to go back to try the other flavors!!

After we were there for like a minute, the place started to fill up with customers, we lucked out getting there first! :) Will have to go back again to try other things, the tiramisu looks so yummy!!

It's already September!

I can't believe how fast the summer has passed. Didn't the kids just get out of school just a little while ago?? I guess when you are back to work, the days fly by that much more faster.

I've been going to movies more this summer, although I didn't see all the ones I wanted to go see before they left the theatre. It is way convenient having a movie theatre just blocks away from home. I keep telling my folks, "Why didn't they build a theater there when we were kids? Would have been way more convenient to walk there then to have to get rides all the time." LOL

I haven't been as creative as I used to, mainly because when you work all week, when you come home you just want to crash or to spend time with everyone. But with Christmas coming up, I'd better get cracking!

The outside kittens have grown up a lot:

The runt kitty (pictured at the bottom) has grown a lot. We thought he would stay kitten sized. He's much smaller than the others, but he's grown a ton!

This is my kitten, bitey. I call him Bitey or Cujo cause he always bites me before he gets comfortable. I've become a cat chew toy/kitty bed. He loves to sit with me after dinner. I swear he's one of those kitties you could pose for sleeping pictures, and he doesn't care. :)

This is a new kitten that showed up the other day. He was crying and crying all day. His mom was just so tired of feeding kittens that she pretty much abandoned him. But the other kittens have adopted him, let him stay around and sleep with them. So he's not so needy anymore. Which is so great! I don't like crying kittens cause you can't tell them everything will be ok. Ok, you could tell them, but heck, they don't understand you. LOL

Other than that, I've started reading the five hundred kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey. I really love them! I thought it was funny that they're labeled as romance novels. I still think of them in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. I have always loved reading fairy tales and mythology. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like them, but OMG, they are so addicting to read! I just love it how they incorporate all the different fairy tales in the books, and especially explaining how a fairy godmother becomes a fairy godmother. I'll let you all read them to decide if you like them or not. I know they are going to be a re-read for me too!!

Monterey Bay

Yesterday we spent the day in Monterey. I've been wanting to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for awhile now, so I decided to take Ashley, Debi, and Alex with me. It's was my kind of day in Monterey, not too warm, nice and foggy. It was awesome! Here are some photos from the aquarium:
They have a Seahorse exhibit going on right now, and i just love that seahorse. It looks so neat.

Debi was cracking up at me after I took these photos, cause they came out so cool. My comment was, "It is almost like swimming there in the ocean". She thought that was too funny. :)

Had to take my photo of Dory. I just love Dory!! :)

Here's Ashley.

And this seal was sitting on a rock outside the restaurant we had dinner at that night. It was so cool to see him swimming in the bay. It was really fun walking around the wharf, especially cause every restaurant there wants you to sample their clam chowder cause they want to reel you into their restaurant for dinner. We had some really good chowder, one that the owner called "The best Chowder on the Wharf" really wasn't. LOL You can't make that claim if you don't back it up, buddy.

All in all, it was such a nice day. We got to see the aquarium, did some shopping, and had some eats. Two thumbs up!