camera strap for the Canon...

We got our snazzy Canon Rebel for our anniversary and the strap, well it is just a black strap was CANON EOS on it. It really isn't too pretty and I've been wanting to spice it up for a while. I found a tutorial on the blog Skip To my Lou with a tutorial on how to make one. I finally got the fabric yesterday. I didn't want to get something too girlie or too busy, but wanted it to still be fun! I decided on a black/red/white combo to appease Jason and a little "paisley" to appease me!

I like the results. I"m totally head over heals for it but it is a great first try! I did buy double the amount I needed so mabye I"ll make version 2.0 sometime. I will also be making them in various other colors, of that I am sure. I took me under and hour to make...and to think, people sell these at $20 - $30 bucks a pop! Maybe that's another avenue I could go down. I seriously had a day dream today about getting a booth at a craft bazzar next year with me and maybe another friend or two who are crafty :) You never know!!!

On this project the ends of the fabric come about a quarter inch on each end from completely covering the strap which will probably annoy me enough to make version2.0 soon but over all it isn't the worth thing.

I really do need to invest in (or ask Santa for) a Quilters Rotary Set so that I can cut very straight lines. These lines...not so straight but it works none-the-less.

The colors. I was going to do poka-dots but it was too busy...

reinforced ends.

finished product.

in action.

:) view from the top

a visit to Stepping Stone Cafe...

This weekend Jason was "oncall" which meant he had to go to work for a bit...not too bad! When he got home on Saturday morning he accidentally brought something with him he shouldn't have and needed to bring it back to the office. He suggested we go out to breakfast since I was already out. I always have in the back of my mind the few places that Adam Richman visited in the Man VS. Food Portland Episode. We have been to VooDoo Doughnuts as you can see here!

For breakfast we headed to Stepping Stone Cafe. It was amazing. Not only were the portions huge, but good, tasty, and not greasy!! Win all around. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a seat but it was well worth it! I would guess that place only seats about 50 people MAX!

Peaking at the menu outside :)

Jason had the smothered B.A. I had the absolute.

*By the way. B.A. stands for Bad A**, in case you were wondering.

Jason being a good sport about my picture taking.

Me.

Coffee!

Our breakfast. It was gigantic!!

One MANCAKE. 13 inches (probably more)...

The "damage" we did. Not much! Haha.

Jason wanted this documented and the comment to be...

Omelet 1, Jason 0.

So good but to mancake-ish.

Pancakes to go. Yes, we did reheat them on Sunday morning. Our waiter told us it was best to use a toaster oven, which we happen to have! And I will say, it was good!

Jason claimed he would re-heat this for dinner. And he did!

Stepping Stone Cafe. Off NW 23rd on Quimby. Worth it!!!

And now we have one more MVF place to visit in Portland...Salvador Mollys which is a pirate themed restaurant. We're kind of waiting for some people (Kenny, Chris, Matt) to come visit us!!! Because we know they'd love it too!

from the 4th row...

...we enjoyed a Blazers game! Another perk of my life is my Dad knows people who get good seats to the Blazers (among other events)! Actually, there were his company seats and WOW were they good. 4th row behind the basket. Though the basket did block some of our views, it was awesome to be so close to the action!

Nice view!

He went to EASTERN!! Go Eagles!!

Paul Allen is the guy in the hat in the front row...

:) happy campers.

So during the game we were noticing (okay, my Dad and I were...not so sure about my Mom and Jason) that people who kept getting up were going across a few sections and then somewhere mysterious, instead of up the stairs like you would expect. At half time we decided we needed to follow them to see what was up..

Walking under the bleachers.

still going...

ah ha! a nice relaxing place for the people court side...because apparently court side isn't fancy enough ;-)

fun times with a fun family!!

sunday snapshot (on a sunday!!!)...

Finally, one of these on time. Maybe day light savings helped me this morning!

If I could go to space camp, I would!!

Fall colors are vivid around here right now.

Powerful and pretty.

We're off to Costco and to do some cleaning today. We have a few projects in the works (ie. planning stages) that I'll be updating upon soon, hopefully. One is building a wall shelf for our kitchen. Another is updating the closet in our green/brown room to become a desk/Annie craft space!! I'm actually kind of excited about because right now I just have a table and all my stuff is always put away but hopefully if I have this desk I'll use it. I'm reading this book and it talks about not only being more purposful with your eating but with your life. We are really trying to turn off the TV more often, be on the computer less, and be purposful with how we spend our time. For me I would like that to look like to include activities during the week such as sewing and scrapbooking, along with baking. Being purposful about who I spend my time with and the things I spend my time thinking about (ie. not worrying about work when I'm not at work). We'll see how it goes :)

country concerts - josh thompson & new boots!

Sabrina and I went to yet another Friday night concert! I really love going to concerts and the singing off key-as loud a you can-no one can hear you or cares-have a few beers moments!!! Though part of me wishes that Jason either a-liked country music because I know he likes concerts OR b- had someone down here to go to concerts with. Unfortunately neither of those is true and while I would certainly go sit through (some) of the bands he likes, it would be just that, sitting through it while probably wearing ear plugs and knowing 2 songs. Though, I would do it! I actually just looked up tickets to one of his favorite bands and they are coming to PDX in a few days and there are still tickets...but he's asleep and I don't want to buy them if he doesn't want to go with me...alas. Back to the original reason for my post.

Sabrina and I headed out right after school last week to Duke's Bar and Grill which is a country bar. We got there super early, mainly because we wanted to drink and beer and eat dinner. The show was a standing room only show if you wanted to see anything, which we did. We weren't leaning on the front row but we were right behind them, a bit off to the side...and right in front of the speaker! My ears were ringing for 2 days! We had the standard "standing room" show troubles of people trying to push and sneak their ways up front but Sabrina and I made alliances with the people around us and did our best to prevent this from happening. It was a fun show. Josh Thompson was one of the people we had see back in September when we went to the H2O Tour. It was fun to see him again and he played a lot more this time around...including some stuff off his album he is working on. I think he's someone to watch in the country world!

Sabrina and Me :)

Josh Thompson.

The band.

He walked within feet of us a few times...love little settings like this!

*************************************

Oh...and Sabrina and I had gone out the week before to Coastal Farm and Ranch to get ourselves some cowboy boots!! We were probably there for an hour! Sabrina ended up getting the 'real deal' and I got the super padded 'crazy step sister' boots. Though, they still weren't that comfy to stand in for 5 hours, but then again, nothing is for me.

A total "us" shot. We couldn't decide...

My boots. I really wanted black!

I'm really not a huge fan of the black and blue but odds are I'll never wear them without jeans so I figure I"m in the clear.

These were about $75 so not too bad overall. We both made it out of there with boots that were under $90!!! Go US!

happy halloween...

We had a VERY laid back Halloween this year. With no kids and no parties to attend, there isn't much to the holiday it seems. This time last year we'd been in our house a few days and hadn't actually even gone to the pumpkin patch at all, Amy and Ian had bought ours for us.

This year we did go to a pumpkin patch with some of Jason's family up near Auburn which was fun! My pumpkin didn't make the carving cut because it was a bit rotten (I forgot to look at the bottom) but we did carve Jason's pumpkin, the day before Halloween :-) Better late than never. We had about 10 trick-or-treaters which was up a few from last year!

Enjoy a few pictures.

simple (ie. quick)

carving.

where's kitty???

we couldn't find matches so we used the kitchen torch. classy, we know.

2010 jack-o-lantern

where's kitty (version 2)???

Halloween morning. I wanted to cut Jason's toast out with a Halloween cookie cutter. He obliged while poking a bit of fun at me. I told him to 'just wait until we have kids' because it is going to get much, much worse both in respects to holiday traditions and the amount of picture taking that will be happening...just wait my dear, just wait.

posts from the past...

So I just realized that I'd totally forgotten to write about our adventurous weekend in September that included a concert, wedding, and NFL football game :)

Head back to the month of September to see what we were up too or click on the links below :)

Friday the 10th - H2O Concert with Sabrina

Saturday the 11th - Maranda and Kolton's Wedding

Sunday the 12th - Seahawk Sunday