At the Butterfly Garden in Victoria



photo taken by Chick : )



Victoria

I'm back.  Did you miss me?  I've been busy.  I'll have pictures about the random stuff that I've been busy with...but today is Victoria.  Time to catch up, since I've been back from vacation for, oh, 2 months!

Anyhow, we loved Victoria.

I loved the architecture and general style of the city.  Truly beautiful and charming.

Chick's favorite was the castle.  She asked to see it everytime we went out for a drive.

We loved the fisherman's wharf, which was literally next door to our condo. 

We ate there a couple of times, and loved seeing the seals.  The girls loved the playground.  And they loved dancing to the street musician.  He was equally entertained by them, and gave Chick a free cd of his music.

We loved Beacon Hill Park & the Beacon Hill Drive-In (we ate there a couple of times too).  We went to the petting zoo, the playground (a couple of times.  This trip featured LOTS of playgrounds), and saw part of "The Last Starfighter" there (part of the B Movie Series.  I don't know how my Dad feels about one of his favorite movies being classified as "B"...).

We giggled at the "goatee club"

and TRIED to get a good family picture in the awesome tree. 

[Note to self: don't trust random little girls who wander by and SAY that they took the picture and that it turned out well.  Only the self timer ones will turn out, and 10 seconds ISN'T long enough to climb the tree]

We took a lot of walks. 

Around the inner harbor, where we admired the street performers.

around the beautiful Empress Hotel

and around the touristy spots...because we were tourists. [I took this picture of HH on our honeymoon (the last time that I was in Canada, 7 years ago).  He was equally as cooperative then as now.]

And because we have kids with naptimes, etc etc etc, we spent a fair amount of time in the apartment ("appointment" as Chick called it). 
I watched as much HGTV as I could get away with. 
We marvelled at all of the commercial products being the same but different (for example: "FibreOne" instead of "FiberOne"). 
HH read a short story by Mark Twain to me...not sure of the title but it's about BlueJays.  My favorite line, that I made him repeat several times because I love to hear him say it (and read to me in general):
"You think a cat can swear? Well, a cat can."

We enjoyed our view.  Day...

and night. 

We were right next to where the hydroplanes take off & land.  They were noisy if we had the door open, but pretty fun to watch.

We enjoyed our 9th story deck

our barbecued kebabs

the pool

and our living room textiles (I really loved the combination).

And I don't have any pictures of it, I totally loved going to the local Value Village!  Seriously, if the trip there wasn't so expensive, I'd totally go for a daytrip.  It was a huge store with nice stuff and great prices!  And I got to go all.by.myself.  The only downside was that it was timed parking so I had to just breeze through.  But that's where I got the souvenier t-shirts and a teacup set for me.

The End.  (but not really because we also went to the Butterfly Garden and I have so many pictures to share that it'll need it's own post.)

Sleep and the Dress

Here are more pictures of the dress that I did for the competition.  I wasn't picked for the top 50, which was disappointing of course (I won't say more since it'll just be sour grapes), but I'm glad that I did it because it gave me incentive to get the dress DONE. Quickly, even.

the difference between ironed and not.

Anyhow, it's breastfeeding-friendly, comfortable, and fits. And I'm proud of myself for making something so very wearable without a pattern.


I'm setting a 2 week goal, starting yesterday, to get to bed by 10pm each night. This week is layout, so it might be very very hard, but I think I need to do it anyhow. It'll help in many aspects of my life.

yesterday: 9pm.

A Newsy, My-Blog-Is-Getting-Backlogged Post

KCWC Days 5,6,7:

About a year ago I bought this tunic at the thrift store specifically to refashion because I liked the fabric.

Chick's new tunic-y dress:

The neckband is made from a costume that was being made for a production but then wasn't used.  The underlining is an old slip (that was my grandma's and then mine & the waistband was wearing out but the fabric still was wearing like armor).

My favorite part?  The mismatchy fabric covered buttons.

Monkey will be getting a very similar one, but I haven't gotten to do it yet.  Her's will be made from the sleeves.

When Monkey's is done I'll post pics of the girls wearing them.

Other Sewing Adventures:

The first episode of Project Runway: They had the designers take something out of their suitcases to refashion.  Then the twist? They had to pass their item of clothing to the person next to them.  So they had to use a random article of clothing.  They had 15 minutes to sketch, and 5 hours to sew.

When I watched it I thought I'd really like to give myself the same challenge.  So I had my sister randomly select something from the thrift store for me to refashion.  She picked this dress:

Even though she took color into consideration for me, it was very true to the show because I would NEVER have picked that dress.  The fabric isn't dye-able, and the skirt fabric isn't bleachable (the top bleaches into a pretty orangy yellow, though).  But there was a LOT of fabric to work with, because the dress was huge. 

Here's my sketch:

I hadn't started the dress when, during KCWC, I saw the BurdaStyle/Rowenta Project Runway Competition!  I had to finish KCWC, but then this week I got started on the dress to enter the contest.  But it's been a busy week, so most of the sewing took place yesterday (the last day to enter).  I did exceed 5 hours, and though I have a finished product to enter (at almost the very last possible minute, because that's how I operate, unfortunately) I am doing some tweaking today to make it a better fit for me specifically.  But here's my entry:

The bodice pattern is a copy of a blouse in my closet.  The back is strips sewn together because I didn't have enough fabric to cut it in one piece, but I like it like that.  My life is full of happy accidents (Moose).  The skirt is just wide strips sewn into gathered tiers, and shirred at the waist.  The satiny trim is what the crazy original puckery stippled fabric looks like when you iron it!

This week:

I went to the Relief Society General Broadcast last weekend, and we had a dinner in congunction.  I loved the cupcake decor, and I got to bring home these beautiful flowers (which I'm still enjoying everytime I'm in my kitchen).

I took the kids to the Picture People at the mall for Moose's baby pics and a picture of the three all together.  Monkey had to be bribed just to be IN the picture (I couldn't afford to get her to smile, though).  Moose, though very smily usually, was tired and not so cooperative.  I think I should get an award for attempting it by myself.  Here's the link, though.  I bought #3 & #10.

I was busy with slightly sick kids, my new calling, babysitting, rotating toys, etc.  HH worked late every night.  So no improvements for the home.  But we sodded this little bit of land recently (to the left of Chick in the picture).  It's been dirt and weeds for the past couple of years.

A while ago:

We got a new car.  It's been a couple of weeks now.  Anyhow, I really like it.  It has some really great features, and best of all it seats seven : )

Ok.  Next time I'll tell you about Victoria!