Pictures!

The following photos are a menagerie of ones I've collected on my camera in the last few days. Enjoy! :)

My brothers and I, lined up for a photo similar to one that we took 5 years ago. (I'll try to find that one and post it so you can see the difference 5 years makes!)

Our building has a stair-way now! This picture was taken yesterday and the guys have made more progress on it today (see pictures on Andrew's blog.)

After our noon meal was over, Mother informed us that it had been 11 days since she'd washed dishes!! I just had to get a picture of her getting her hands in the soapy water once more. :)

Yesterday afternoon and this afternoon, I worked on a skirt I want to wear with one of my scrub-tops. I didn't have anything to wear with this certain top--other than a skirt that I got at a thrift store--which, once I sewed the slit closed on it, I could no longer walk in it! Soooo, I dug out my sewing machine.......

.....used a seam-ripper to open up the 2 side-seams...

...and added some material to make the skirt more full. You can see the top in the following picture. I'll give my "New" skirt a test-run tomorrow. :)

The other day, I made some butter and pressed it in our fancy wooden butter-mold. It didn't want to come out of the mold very well after it had been frozen, (I tried dipping it in hot water and all), and I needed butter, so I just took a chunk out of the corner. Later, when it did come out of the mold, this is what I had:

And now for some pictures of Dad and Mom's return home....

When they got back on Monday, they had many things to show and tell. I think my favorite thing they brought back with them was the 1,700 some odd pictures they had taken while gone!!! All of the photos were stored on the lap-top computer they had taken along--all except for the following 2 which they purchased on Friday while on their-----

HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE!

(The picture of the balloon was also taken while Dad and Mom were inside the basket...)

This is the pretty hair-comb my parents bought me in China Town. :)

Dad--happy to be unpacking.Our parents bought all of us a T-shirt, as a souvenir:

Dad and his palm trees...

Mother and the Golden Gate bridge... (which they crossed several times on their journeys.)

Me with the sparkly cable cars...

Andrew with his favorite color--and the Golden Gate Bridge...

Jacob and a cable car, the big bridge, and the curviest street in the country!

They also had bought a big bag of jelly beans while on their tour of the Jelly Belly Factory (NE of San Francisco quite a ways.) These jelly beans, the Belly Flops, are ones that didn't turn out quite perfect--they're misshaped or don't have the Jelly Belly logo printed on them. There are around 50 different flavors of jelly beans, so it was fun to look through the booklet of varieties and try to figure out which was which... There are some REALLY strange ones too, the weirdest, I think, being "Skunk Spray"--of which I was an unhappy recipient while thinking that black bean was a black licorice. Ewwwwwwwwww......!!!!

AAAAnnnyway....

Here are the pretty roses that Mother couldn't help but bring back with her from their bouquet in CA. How lovely~

Oh, and here is when Dad and Mom first got home. (I guess I loaded these in reverse order tonight!)

I got a picture of Mom getting a picture of me getting a picture of....

While at work one day, I saw in a book in the lunch room this really cute way of making a fruit flower. I purchased the necessary ingredients and, after some help from Andrew...

...this...

...was the result. (It's covered here to keep all flys or other pests off of it until serving time.)

Jacob and I had also made a cake for the vacationers...

And that, dear friends, is what we've been up to (that I've taken pictures of, anyway!)

Sleep well (and I hope this posts this time...)