Can you believe Christmas will be here in 16 days?!? I swear every year it seems Christmas creeps up faster and faster. I've decided against posting from my iPad because it's so dang slow and it's very frustrating trying to maneuver pictures around. Blogger already make that hard enough as it is and I don't need Apple to make it harder. I just wanted to give a few updates on what's been happening in the life of the Khau's. I had my very first after-hours Christmas party. Can you believe that after 7 years, this is my very first one?! It's sad but true. Jamie was sporting his Movember mustache, which I wasn't a huge fan of but at least he shaved the rest of his face.
We've been having regular family dinners and Jamie's side of the family has been held at their new house on the north side. They're doing a lot of painting and they're smart to not actually move in until the painting is complete. It's much closer to drive there and there's a huge fenced backyard for Khuno too! Jane's been crocheting up a storm, just in time for the cold weather we've been having. Here's Khuno posing in a neat little accessory Jane made. It's a hood/scarf, hoarf?
Now I know all of you have heard about the new roasted kale chips craze. It's the bee's knees right now of "health" snacks but what we have discovered is roasted brussel sprouts! They taste almost like roasted kale chips except meatier. All we did was pick up some gorgeous looking sprouts at Costco, quartered them up, drizzled them with oil and sprinkled them generously with salt and pepper. Pop them in the oven and roast at 375, checking on them regularly until they're nice and burnt toasty. They're so good I ate them at 11 the other night as chips.
This last picture is to update you on our camera situation. After we took photos of James and Julie, Jamie dropped our camera and broke the shutter. The beloved Nikon D60 is quite old and when we asked about repair costs, it just isn't worth us spending the money to ship it to Nikon for fixing. So we hummed and haaa-ed about whether or not we should get a new camera for the last couple of months. One Saturday afternoon we stopped into Vistek to do some window shopping. You all know where this is going. Whether it's home, furniture, SPCA window shopping, it's always a bad idea to go and "look". In this case, it was no exception. We are now the proud owners of a new camera and although we couldn't afford to get a new lens to go with the sexy new camera body, Jamie's previous thinking ahead and buying a FX lens saved the day. Hopefully this upcoming year will bring back some better photos.
Bringing it around back full circle to the Sunday update, Jamie spent most of the day working and I spent it crafting while listening to Christmas Pop music on Jango. I managed to sneak in some crocheting after lunch and some intermittent reading of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Top that all off with a home cooked meal and I must say, it wasn't that bad of a day. It's dinner time so I bid you all good night.
This is my very first post on the iPad mini and its not all that easy so this will be short and sweet. Can't even figure out how to move the picture and I'm not wasting another precious second on it! This rail fence quilt was such a great project to start with. I dabbled with free motion quilting and loved it! The certificate is nothing fancy, just something for completing the class. There was way more homework than anticipated and even now that the class is over, I have to hand stitch the binding. Paper crafting is taking a backseat right now because I've been bit by the sewing and crocheting bugs! Have a great Sunday night!
I started a quilting class with my friend, Jinnee, a while back and I thought I'd post an update! I was driving one day and saw a sign for Sew Divine. They had an evening beginner quilting class on which worked perfectly with our schedule so off we went! It's a very basic Rail Fence quilt and I've learned over the last few weeks that it's very forgiving and if you have mistakes, it doesn't show in this quilt. One might ask why pay $120 for a class that you can learn through YouTube videos and such, but I like the social aspect of it and sometimes it's just easier having someone tell you what you're doing wrong instead of realizing the error when you're too far along. Some basic skills we learnt include how to cut fabric, square blocks off and press things properly. I'm very anal about getting things aligned so I admit, I'm a pinner. Just take a look at my photos! It's insane the amount of pins you need but in the end, it's worth it. I'll post the finished product once it's done. This week we basted our quilts and next week we will learn how to quilt all three layers together!
I've always been a knitter and if you know my hubby, you'll know that he's a knitter too. Recently I picked up crocheting instead because Jinnee peaked my interest in it by showing me some of the items that she's made. I found a pattern on People Webs and it seemed easy enough so I gave it a go. It took about 5-6 times of undoing and redoing with a whole whack of fudging with the help of my sister-in-law, Jane, to finally get the hang on this darn pattern. It's actually called a Catherine Wheel so if you YouTube it first, you'll understand the pattern a lot better. I thought it'd be a good idea to use chunky yarn since it's a chunky scarf. Big mistake. The scarf is too chunky! I'm on my second one with regular weight yarn to see if it'll be better. If any of you crochet, I'd love to see some of your projects too!! Stay warm everyone!
How ridiculously cute are these two? My brother wanted to go to the dog park a few weekends ago so instead of driving all the way to their end of town, we made them come to us! If you've never walked along the Gold Bar off-leash train, please go! It runs parallel to the North Saskatchewan River and it stretches on and on. We used this trail to train Khuno how to be off-leash. It's not a big open field and yes, there are bushes he can run into and rivers he can jump into, but we usually manage to keep him coming back to us by running in the opposite direction. My brother wanted to bring along Chalkie too. We had three dogs under control for almost the entire walk.
Right at the very start of the trail, there is a bend in the path and a little direct pathway that leads down to the river. Khuno disappeared so fast down that river path and Audi joined in on the fun. We looked down to see that we were 30 seconds too late and both dogs had jumped right into the frigid water. We climbed down to the river to have some fun with them since the dirtiness was already done. Little Chalkie doesn't have experience with moving water and since he loves hanging with the big boys, he hopped right into the water with them. His head dipped under and as he pounced back up to get air with little legs frantically doggy paddling, his eyes showed instant panic. I shouted to everyone that Chalkie was going to drown and my brother was on it! I mean, ON IT. Within a split second, he whipped the water bottle strapped around his chest off and threw it to the ground all while running into the water to grab his beloved dog. Joke was on him though because Chalkie's little legs got him far enough in that he was able to touch the ground and hop back onto shore. It was definitely scary though because if you know pugs, their breathing sucks. And inhaling dirty river water can't be a good thing.
We hosed Khuno down in the front yard because he had way too much dirt clinging to his underbelly and then bathed him in the tub. We don't do this often as you can imagine the amount of work it is, but one trick to drying him after a bath is to use a shop vac. If you plug the hose into the other end of the shop vac where the air shoots out, you instantly have a cool air dryer! Works great and I feel a lot safer using that than a hair dryer.
That's right, it's National Boss's Day. Did you wish your boss an extra happy day today? My staff did! I don't post much about work on here because I want to keep this blog about my extracurriculars and work just doesn't fit. I started a new job just over 3 months ago. It was a hard move because not only was it a new site, but it was an entirely new role. I had to leave my union and go "out of scope" which was very scary for me because that leaves me with no protection in this new job. I would also lose all my seniority within the union if I ever chose to go back. I've learned a lot these past three months. Some lessons were rotten and gave me a nauseating black hole in my stomach every time I went to work while others were great ones that allowed me to learn a little bit more about myself.
You all know the saying, "Time to wear the big girl panties". I use this analogy a lot. I chose to make the leap over to bigger panties so I have no one to blame but myself. Sometimes I will slip them on just to get acquainted with my new intimate wear. Sometimes I look away and pretend they don't actually exist. Other times I will dream about my old little girl panties that fit oh so snuggly and comfortably, but alas, they are only a dream now. The few times I have slipped on these new panties, they were awful, just plain awful. I questioned how others could wear them for such long long periods, some longer than I've been alive! I'm learning different ways to put these panties on so that I can keep them on for longer than 3 minutes. Am I succeeding? Absolutely. Is it fun? Absolutely not. But I feel challenged, excited, anxious, and nauseated all at the same time and since I can't differentiate if these feelings combined equal good or bad... I'm just gonna go with the flow and see how I can make these panties feel like a second skin. Like I'm wearing nothing at all.
Back to the whole point of this post, National Boss's Day. I know it may seem like a ridiculous... holiday? Occasion? Event? But the card I received from the girls at work made me feel so good. Today made all the hard panty days worth it. Happy National Boss's Day everyone.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of photographing some of my good friends who are expecting TWINS! We got up super early to catch some of that morning sun and although I don't have a lot of experience in using this golden light, we still managed to capture a few decent shots. Here are some of my favorites.
Can you believe Christmas will be here in 16 days?!? I swear every year it seems Christmas creeps up faster and faster. I've decided against posting from my iPad because it's so dang slow and it's very frustrating trying to maneuver pictures around. Blogger already make that hard enough as it is and I don't need Apple to make it harder. I just wanted to give a few updates on what's been happening in the life of the Khau's. I had my very first after-hours Christmas party. Can you believe that after 7 years, this is my very first one?! It's sad but true. Jamie was sporting his Movember mustache, which I wasn't a huge fan of but at least he shaved the rest of his face. 
We've been having regular family dinners and Jamie's side of the family has been held at their new house on the north side. They're doing a lot of painting and they're smart to not actually move in until the painting is complete. It's much closer to drive there and there's a huge fenced backyard for Khuno too! Jane's been crocheting up a storm, just in time for the cold weather we've been having. Here's Khuno posing in a neat little accessory Jane made. It's a hood/scarf, hoarf? 
This last picture is to update you on our camera situation. After we took photos of James and Julie, Jamie dropped our camera and broke the shutter. The beloved Nikon D60 is quite old and when we asked about repair costs, it just isn't worth us spending the money to ship it to Nikon for fixing. So we hummed and haaa-ed about whether or not we should get a new camera for the last couple of months. One Saturday afternoon we stopped into Vistek to do some window shopping. You all know where this is going. Whether it's home, furniture, SPCA window shopping, it's always a bad idea to go and "look". In this case, it was no exception. We are now the proud owners of a new camera and although we couldn't afford to get a new lens to go with the sexy new camera body, Jamie's previous thinking ahead and buying a FX lens saved the day. Hopefully this upcoming year will bring back some better photos. 
