Adios Iowa----Day 52

Good bye midwest. Goodbye to corn fields, creeks, hills, gravel roads, Casey's General Store, Funaro's Deli with those amazing cookies, The Outside Scoop (homeade ice cream), Simpson College, Blank Performing Arts Center, Des Moines and all your antique stores, Apprentice Artists, Principal Artists and Staff, goodbye city with no mall, Target or Joanns, goodbye sucky washer and dryer, Goodbye Nauvoo- we're so happy we got to visit. Goodbye Chicago, maybe we'll see you again soon.

I'm sure we'll miss you from time to time.

Not sure when I'll be able to blog again, but I promise we'll be back soon! Tomorrow, Gabe plans on listening to opera for at least 6 hours in the car to learn a new role. Wish me luck. I'm not sure I can take it in large doses.

Thanks for your love and for still reading!

Stars of Tomorrow

Last night the apprentice artists from DMMO put on a show of  opera scenes to raise money for the opera. It was at Drake University. Here are some pictures from the event.

(Steve, Gabe, Jennifer, Emily, Jonathan, and Adam singing the famous Lucia sextet )

(Drew and Gabe singing exerpt from The marriage of figaro)

wifey and hubby

(Robert Larsen, Founder and Artistic Director of DMMO)

The whole gang

It was a great night. It did involve one minor complication of Gabe's wallet being run over by several cars and imminent stress. But everything worked out. (Huge sigh)

Guess what, we're almost done. Back to Houston to empty out our strorage unit and see some friends. We're leaving Monday morning. Yippee! Happy weekend! 

Lets live in a mansion some day, shall we?

These last few days we have been able to explore some neat sites in Des Moines. The first site was Hoyt Sherman Place. Mr. Sherman was a business man that built this amazing space in 1877. A theater was later added in 1923 when the Des Moines Women's Club needed more space for events. Gabe recently performed in a one act opera there. It was beautiful and the house was amazing to walk through.


The next day we explored a place called the Salisbury house. A gentleman named Carl Weeks built the mansion for his family in 1928. It was modeled after the King's house in Salisbury, England. It is nestled in between hundreds of trees and seems so out of place in this city, but it has been preserved as a museum. Mr. Weeks intended to build the house for $100,000, but ended up spending $1 million to build the home and $1 million to furnish it. It took over 5 years to complete. At the time he was a successful business man in the cosmetics industry. The art and furnishings were a sight to behold. I took way to many pictures to post.

Music Room, or Common room (one of a kind Steinway piano made for Mr. Weeks)

The couple's bedrooms, pretty painting and Mrs. Weeks' loo. It is wicker. I could not get over the wicker loo's. The whole house was so lavish and unique!

Next stop, Nauvoo for more history. Would I have made a good history teacher? Probably not, Gabe just read the pamphlet to me the whole time while I was taking pictures.

The grass runs tall

This field made me wish I lived here (for a few seconds) then I gained my bearings.

This grass made we want to float in the breeze

This sweet little bouquet from my husband led me to kiss him

Then he attacked with the vicious whiskers. They tickle my face.

Duet

Part of the DMMO program consists of opera scenes, where singers get to learn new material and present shows. Gabe recently did a duet from "I Puritani."

It's about ten minutes long all together. I caught the last few minutes of the scene, which also happens to be the most impressive. Then, they did an encore because everyone loved it so much. It was so fun, and that was the first encore I've seen since we've been here.

(Encore)

(Dan (Sir Giorgio), Rick (musical direction), Gabe (Sir Ricardo Forth) after the scenes program)

These guys did an awesome job!

The program is almost over. Less than two weeks to go. It has gone by very quickly, but we're ready for the next leg of the trip.

Heaven

Off to Heaven, or in other words Fanaro's. It's a deli here with the most amazing baked goods. We went there yesterday just for the cookies!

Notice how Gabe decided he'd like a sampling. So he took a bite out of a few then decided which one to eat first. I don't know the names for all these cookies, but I do know that I'm pretty sure it's like heaven in your mouth.

The cookie I am holding on the left is a snickerdoodle, but with an actual mini snickers bar in the middle. You read that right. A snickerdoodle with actual snickers. It was amazing. Best cookie ever. I may not be a good cook/baker, but in the next few years I have a new goal to master this cookie. I'm sure you recognize the dark liquid in the glass. Made the cookies even better. Forget about milk.

Now that I am putting you over the edge, take a look at this...

Kelly Ryden Photography

Ladies, forgive me for what it will do to your ovaries.

I didn't want to put any pictures up due to the copyrights, but you will not be disappointed.

Hope you all have an amazing July 4th weekend!

The Zoo

We ventured off to the Des Moines Zoo a few days ago. It was HOT! Not Florida or Texas hot, but nonetheless. We loved it! We are members for the Houston zoo, so we got in for free. Yipee. Oh my gracious, guess which animal we happened to see first? Not one, but two red pandas. Gabe was obsessed with the one in Houston. It looks more like a racoon, than anything. But Gabe remains fascinated.

Here he is on front of the exhibit for the red panda in Houston. This picture always makes me laugh. He looks like he is going to implode with excitement, but wants to remain a casual adult. The panda is in the tree.

Back to the Des Moines zoo. It was amazing, smaller than Houston but I dare say better. There were areas where you simple opened up a gate and walked into the exhibits or "cages" and just stayed on the sidewalk and the animals roamed free, even on the sidewalks sometimes.

Peacocks

wallaby

This was soooo neat! They aren't skiddish at all.

The giraffes were my favorite. They have feeding times too where you can get really close, but we missed it. I told Gabe we should go back again just to feed them.

I just love looking at their necks. The fur is so amazing!

Here are a few more pics. Too many to share!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

The balloon

Indianola is known for a hot air balloon festival held every summer. Sadly we will be leaving Iowa a few days before it starts. There is even a musuem that Gabe and I plan to peruse one of these days. I was on my way back from Des Moines when I spotted this off to my left...

Because I had nothing else to do, I decided to get closer and try and find it. So I went down a couple country roads and got pretty close. It was beautiful!

If you wanted to know how to reduce stress in your life I suggest the following

1. Quit your job

2. Follow your husband to Iowa

3. Craft/Sew

4. Follow hot air balloons down country roads

You won't have a ton of money but you'll have a job again soon and you'll know you're living your life to the fullest. Happy Monday! Didn't know I could really mean it until now.

Iowa day 19

My Day in a nutshell (round 2)

So, again, woke up shamefully late. Whoa with the insomnia. It's weird. Varies from day to day.

Ate lunch (yep, it was that late)

Gabe got back from rehearsal and I told him I wanted to go to Goodwill down the street to see if I could find treasures. Gabe is reluctant, but he has a long break and wants to indulge me. We walk to Goodwill (it's getting hotter, but still nice). We split up, because we always split up at stores. Is that just us? Does anyone else do that? I look through the dresses. One of my sewing goals is to find a dress that needs a little help and alter/embellish/spice it up a bit. No such luck. Then, from across the store I hear Gabe laughing. Not like a belly laugh, but just a little giggle. I instantaneously know someone is flirting with him. That kind of laugh. I don't even have to know what's being said, I just know. Maybe a wife intuition. Gabe had been on the opposite side of the store trying on blazers. Then from behind a lady comes up and proceeds to tell him that he looks good in every one of them blazers and doesn't know why he is even trying them all on.  So, he giggles. I of course am curious, so I walk over to see what he is giggling about...sure enough, and he tells me the story. Then he said "See what happens when you leave me alone." I didn't know goodwill could be a threat. He tries on a jacket and makes this face...

Oh my.
Guess what, he found a blazer for under $5 (not the one above, just to be clear) He may never wear it, but I think it will give him fond memories.

Then we walked to the corner sundry and shared a butterscotch milkshake. Yuuuuuummmmmy.

He played a game of basketball later in the afternoon and I just lounged in the shade and read a book. It was lovely. Good day. He'll be done with rehearsal soon. We'll have to watch more hulu. Seriously, amazing.

Thank you all for the sweet comments and emails about my latest craft endeavors. I love making them so it's always nice to receive the compliments. Thanks a bunch!

Look at my new nephew sporting the snake onsesie. AAAHHHH! How adorable is he? Look at the cheeks. I love it! I think his big brother Aiden is pretty darn cute too.

Bye bye for now :)

Something new

So, here are some things I'm working on...The crafting bug has bitten. I took a trip to Joanns the other day. It's roughly 12 miles away, so I don't frequent it very often. On this last trip I stumbled upon the jewelry making aisle. It was kind of dangerous. I might be addicted. My problem with accessories is that I never want to spend much money on them. I always think everyone looks so cute with those statement necklaces and hair pieces, but if it is over $10, forget it. Maybe I'm cheap, I like frugal better. I'd rather save that money and buy another piece of clothing eventually. Agreed? So, the more blog browsing I do the more I thought jewelry might not be that difficult. So, I started very simple.

Cool right? This all was inexpensive, made even cheaper when you use a gift card. Score. I put three "pearls" on a head pin, then used the pliers to bend the remaining part of the pin into a loop. Second, using the pliers I opened up the loop on the fish hook and put the pearls on. You just use the pliers one last time to make sure everything is snug. I was almost jumping when I was finished. I made earrings! I dare say they may have cost like a $1 to make. I showed them to Gabe and he told me they looked expensive, I think he was impressed.

So, since I had the supplies, I wanted to make more. I found this idea from trey and lucy for lace trim earrings. The spool of lace I bought for $2.50, then I just proceeded to cut some of the designs out of the silk.

Saved the best for last. I saw a dollar tree on the way to Joanns and stopped in to look around. Have you been in a dollar tree lately? I found great stuff. Including a pack of three headbands, for you guessed it, $1. I am picky about headbands. I have a funny head, a little mishaped I guess you could say, I'll tell you about that later if you don't know that story. Anyway, these were great, thin and very flexible. Then, I thought they were the perfect kind of headband to experiment with, maybe I could fancy them up a bit.

So, I took a silk flower that I found at Joanns, and popped off all the plastic and wire until I was left with just petals. Then I arranged them so they were pleasing to my eye then hand stitched more of my "pearls" in the center of the flowers using clear thread. I saved some of the petals for future projects.

Then I used hot glue to attach them to the headband. I about died. How cute.

Now, what to wear it with? I'll take better pics when I wear it out somewhere. Maybe a performance or church or something. It's been a productive day :)

Swords and flowers

Here are a few pics from yesterday. Gabe is currently entrenched in rehearsals for three operas and several different scenes programs. The three operas for this season are Susannah, The Marriage of Figaro and Macbeth. Below Gabe gets to put on a choreographed battle with swords and all the regalia for Macbeth. He is always pumped up when he comes back from those rehearsals and now I know why. Everything is done in slow motion at first, and then is gradually supposed to go faster once everything goes smoothly. I was still nervous, even when they were going at a turtle's speed. I took these while he was onstage, so forgive the quality, he was moving and I didn't want to use the flash. (He's in stripes) 

I'm excited to see the finished scene. While Gabe is playing with swords, I am either watching him or trying to be crafty. It's kind of overwhelming when I see all the cute tutorials online. I feel like I just want to try everything. I made this little rosette hair pin from this tutorial. It was quite easy and I plan to make a bunch more. This little one seems to get lost in my hair. I think it would look cute with a few of them clumped together. I also didn't have an extra barrette, so I just glued it to a bobby pin.  

I looked at this picture and instantly started looking for gray hairs. Isn't that sad. I found one for real a few weeks ago and now I'm scarred. Do you see any? I was also kind of stunned by all the freckles. Summer must be here. Love to you all.

Old photo challenge

I hopped over to one of my new favorite blogs, Busy Bee Lauren, and she challeneged her readers to post some old photos and give the stories behind them. The wonderful thing about this girl, is her story is much like mine. She married her high school sweetheart, who also happened to go on a mission. She waited for her husbsand too and now they are happily married.

It was really fun to go back and read her story of the day he returned from the mission. I felt everything she felt and related in such a way that I think others might not understand unless they experienced it themselves. I loved reading her story.

So here they are...

The day he came home from Brazil.

My heart lept out of my chest the first time I heard him call me baby again. I wrote this post last year to sum up my feeling about the mission. He came home almost five years ago.

Gabe asked me to marry him a few weeks later. He sang Unchained Melody and got down on one knee.

It was perfectly romantic.

We were married six months later. All my dreams came true.

Go ahead and take on the challenge. Post some of your favorites!

The projects have begun

Gretchen turn your eyes away :)

My sister in law Gretchen had a baby last week, a day shy of her own birthday. His name is Owen Jacob. How cute right? I should have made this stuff months ago, but knew I would have ton of time here in Iowa. So, I tried some more onesies and a couple burp cloths. I think they turned out pretty cute. They are in the mail now, so hopefully she doesn't peek ;)

I thought of the first onesie as I was looking through my stash of fabric. A green checkered fabric reminded me of a snake, so I thought I might try it. I added some embellished detail to the face and the snake goes over the shoulder and twirls in the back. It was a bear to do on the sewing machine but it probably would have taken three times longer to do it by hand.

The finished product.

Turned out pretty cute, I think. I can't wait to meet little Owen once we make it back to Florida. He was  9 pounds, 6 ounces and Gretchen had a natural delivery. Holla! So amazing! I know you are giving her a standing ovation right now.

A nap

He's so sleepy. He needed a nap after lunch. So I layed down with him.

I was playing on the internet, then I remembered the webcam...

I love him.

I was sewing today. I'll show you the finished product soon :)