Uganda Details: Everything must have a beginning

Alright, I was too excited to think through my post. Some details:

1. We are going as part of the Engineers Without Borders program.

a. This means we are going to help people get access to a clean water supply (Dave's engineering degree comes i

n handy here). 

b. And help train them to be good workers (Dave's MBA comes in handy here).

c. And hopefully have an awesome dance party.

2. We are going sometime in July.

a. Dave is the team leader and he doesn't even know when in July we are going.

b. But we are going for a month . . .

c. or maybe longer? 

3. Some other exciting things

a. We might have a layover in Dubai 

i. where we kind of want to live someday

b. We are taking a week to get there so we can see some of Uganda

ii. Including, but not limited to

a. White-water rafting

b. Waterfall gazing

c. Looking for crocodiles in rivers

c. Scott pointing us to one of his clients blogs: aeglenn.blogspot.com

ii. We loved this post 

"Children at an orphanage in Entebbe, Uganda. There are so many children here it is incredible; there are orphans everywhere. The people take them in and it is not unusual to see families struggling with 8-10 children. We talked to a woman yesterday who has taken in twelve children. She said, 'Sometimes I feel sad that I cannot do more, but everything must have a beginning'. We have decided to use that as our personal reminder to guide our actions here as we try to help."

4. We'll keep you all updated.

»»  read more

Uganda

We are going for over three weeks! This is probably a shock to everyone, because it is a shock to both of us! We were simply discussing it on Tuesday, and today we are going!

This makes me smile:

»»  read more

It may be manipulation...

But I love this commercial. I want to make something awesome, learn origami and buy Asics shoes. There is something about Kihachiro Onisuka (yes, I had to look that up) that makes me wish he was my grandpa, or granspa's best friend (you know the one who comes over on Sunday afternoons for canasta).

Credits to Mabona Origami for making origami cool. 

»»  read more

'Tis the season to blog about Christmas

This year, Christmas Rocks! I've spent the last month preparing the decorations. It is our first year (or holiday) that we've actually put anything up. First things first, I bought stockings. I've wanted to make some forever, but decided against it when I saw these at Pottery Barn (for the cost of material I would have had to bought). Right now, a lot of their stockings are on sale and they all ship free.

Alright, enough free advertising for Pottery Barn. It's Martha Stewart's turn. I started decorating ornaments and it wasn't working out. The tree was so overwhelming. But I wanted a lot of color. At the craft store, I saw a Martha glitter set of 18 great colors and ta-da:

(Side note: if you are a widow because it is finals week, don't get too carried away with the camera...)

And now advertising for me. Not really, but I did make sweet Christmas things this year. The back side of a gift certificate I made for a client:

I used it to make tags for our neighbor/friend gifts. I'm finishing them up but will show them to you later.

»»  read more

Pictures of the New Apartment

The new pepper plant (ah, orange).

Our wall of Kathy art. The center piece fits PERFECTLY over our thermostat.

A section of our new tablecloth.

My favorite plant piece (and the only fake one!).

Our new bookshelf wall. We arraigned it by color.

A french not tutorial I'm putting together (mostly for myself).

We are loving it here. It is bigger, cleaner and brighter. We are currently taking reservations for visitors (because we miss you all).

»»  read more

Grandma Vivi

Laurie decided to scan some photos of Vivian so we could display them at her funeral. While we were scanning/editing the photos, I thought I'd upload them on to flickr. Get your fill here. I'm still uploading, so there will be many more photos in the near future.

A before and after shot.

»»  read more

Boy Bands and Cannibals

Every night for the past three nights, I've had a dream about dating some random person. The thing is, I never think about Anthony Hopkins, Justin Timberlake or the Jonas Brothers on a regular basis (or ever).

The first dream: Anthony Hopkins saw me at a show his daughter and granddaughter were performing in. I asked him if he wanted to sit next to me. It took him the whole rest of the show to get there. He asked me to eat with him, so I ran ahead to make reservations while he walked (slowly) to the restaurant after me. I went back to get him and he was dead. His daughter and granddaughter wouldn't let me go to the funeral because they thought I was trying to get his money. I didn't even like him, I just felt bad for him, so it wasn't such a big loss.

The second dream: I kiss Justin Timberlake and then he tells me who I should vote for because, "[He] used to be a member of the boy-band *NSYNC and [he] knows these things." He said it in a manner that implied, "Duh, you should have already known that."

The third dream: I'm dating one of the Jonas Brothers, but I've never seen them before and have a hard time remembering which one I'm supposed to be dating. I figure it must be the oldest one (at which point I try to figure out if it's against the law to date someone so young, but figure I'll just pretend to be 18), but I keep forgetting what he looks like, so I have to listen for clues. I don't like him but I think it's fun when we go places and everyone screams. Plus, we got to live in an awesome house in Disneyland.

»»  read more