Marlene and the Exchange Students

Marlene has been here now for 2 1/2 weeks and we are loving the new addition to our family. We could not have asked for a nicer, fun, and enthusiastic person. She and Kinsey are having a great time checking out all the stores in Manchester and working on their wardrobes. Marlene also likes the outdoors and has been playing lacrosse, shooting baskets, throwing frisbees and just generally playing with Jamie. He is thrilled!
School started last Friday. There are a total of 11 foreign students and four of them are from Germany. The day before school started, I invited all the EF exchange students and their host family kids to the Bromley Thrill Zone. We spent 3 hours going on a variety of rides. In this first picture, Sasha (from Northern Germany) is standing on the left and Marlene is standing next to him in the brown sweatshirt. Sasha is living with Matt Rosenthal who is lounging (posing) on the bench.







Here's another, closer in, picture of Marlene. I don't know - with this expression she must have hit a bad shot in miniature golf.




















When we were looking at Marlene's application, there was one area of concern. She liked cats (which is essential), but she stated that she did not like dogs. We were aghast. How could anyone not like dogs? Well, even if she didn't like dogs in general, we knew that she would love our two dogs. At least, that is what we were hoping. Yeah, well look how much she dislikes dogs. She has been won over by Brook and Belle. If we breed Brook again in the Spring, we are convinced that Marlene will want to take a puppy back with her to Germany in June.















There's one more thing we have learned about Marlene. She loves Nutella. I think she even considers it one of the major food groups. We introduced her to Vermont Maple Syrup last week, but she wasn't impressed. So, on Sunday morning, I made pancakes and, instead of butter and syrup, we put Nutella on them. Oh, my God, they was good! I had five kids for breakfast that morning (due to sleepovers) and they all loved them. I will never eat pancakes the old fashion way again. I'm also sure that it is alot healthier. I mean Nutella is like peanut butter - made from nuts-right?

Jack's Birthday Party

We were invited to a party yesterday to help Jack (pictured here) celebrate his birthday. Parties at the DeSario's are always fun. They have a knack of making everyone feel relaxed and there is always alot of laughter. They also have a knack of making the best food and lots of it! In addition to a roast, many salads and side dishes, we had some great desserts.

They couldn't settle for one birthday cake. So, we were offered our choice of 3 amazing cakes.

Here we have the flourless chocolate cake - my personal favorite.






Here is the a layered white cake with fruit and whipped cream - I guess this is the healthy and light one.



















...and here is the kid oriented cake - Go Elmo! Katie Kelly's face also kind of looked like this after she finished eating her piece. It's OK though as she is only 4.

Despite the rain and an indoor barbeque, it was a great afternoon.

Skateboarding Dude

Jamie has really gotten into skateboarding. We got him a new board and helmet so that he would be better able to do tricks and his daily goal is to practice 1-2 hours a day for the rest of the summer.

It must be working because everytime I see him, he's looks better with his moves (of which I can never remember the names) .

Marlene Is Here

Our biggest news this week is that Marlene Wessel, our German Exchange Student, came last week. The poor thing had to travel on the day of the terrorist threat in London, but luckily it did not impact her trip. --just the weather did. She was delayed for several hours and didn't arrive into Albany until after midnight!

Marlene is from Brensbach, Germany (near Frankfurt). She is 16 years old and will be a junior at Long Trail School.

I need to get a new picture of her to post as this one is from her exchange student paperwork. She is much cuter in person. She also is a wonderful person and we are all so happy to have her be a part of our family.








































These two pictures of the bedroom that we decorated for Marlene. I wanted something that a teen would like, but something that we could also use as a guest room in the future. Found these comforters at Linens and Things for $25/each and that was the beginning. One of my favorite things about the room are her curtains. Actually, it's a curtain - it is a shower curtain, even attached to the curtain rod by cute shower hooks. I originally was going to cut it in half and shorten it to the lower sill. But, my creative Kinsey put it up as is and it looks adorable. As the craft magazines like to say, it was a great "no-sew" project. We don't have the dresser knobs on yet in these pictures, but we bought some wooden ball knobs, painted them the green wall color and then put on blue polka dots. They are a great finishing touch.

Marlene has also done a great job of making the room her own. She brought many pictures from Germany and wanted to put them on her walls. We bought some 12 x 12" cork tiles, glued them to the walls and she hung up all her pictures on them. I'll have to take a picture of the wall and picture art because it really looks good.

Lowell Quilt Festival

I just deleted my entire blog of this, so this second version will be much shorter.
I had an amazing time at the Quilt Festival and the town of Lowell, MA is definitely worth seeing. The New England Quilt Museum is housed there and they have an incredible library of quilting and surface design books and magazines. I could spend days in there.

The journal quilts (and several of the Hurrican Katrina inspired quilts) were the highlights of the show for me. There were hundreds of journal quilts hanging around the perimeter of the convention room. I loved the techniques, the humor, the inspiration and the designs. Many of my pictures were blurry, but here are some pictures of some of my favorites:




















I liked the design and shapes used in this one.











The woman who thread painted these faces was standing in front of them with a group of friends. They were so cute, taking pictures of the artist, hugging each other and very animated. It was infectious and I'm amazed at the detail and realistic features of these portraits.




















The green and purple rectangles on the above quilt are made of sponges. She had used unusual things in all her journal quilts - very imaginative (I don't think I would have thought of doing this)




















These are definitely my colors and I love the leaves. She even used a row of leaf beads below the pieced leaves. Many journal quilts used beads as embellishments. There were a couple that were completely covered in beads, charms, buttoms, etc.

More Journal Quilts

These two journal quilt sets show some of the more humorous ones at the show. There were quite a few self (or not so self) portraits.







I think I need to make some self portraits. It would certainly help me cut loose from the straight, geometric based style.













The next group of quilts are by Cynthia Hanson who uses a lot of computer images. I love the many layers of photos and images - I need more time so that I can play more with Photoshop.









I love these brown organic quilts. They are actually segments of a map. I'm going to look on Google Earth and see if I can find some good computer images of our world. It would make a nice series.

Bead embroidery

I can't find the bead embroidery that I did in Mattapoisett. It was a 3" heart in all different reds. I really liked it even though I had no idea what to do with it. If I find it, I'll post a picture.

Here are several other things I'm working on. I really like how the one on the bottom is coming out. I might make a barrette with it. As far as the one on the top, I have no idea- maybe some fringe around the edges.

Polymer Clay "Bump" Beads

A friend of mine is having a 10th anniversary for something. I am going to make her a fun, bright, polymer clay bead watch for a present. Here are the steps I took to make the beads.

After conditioning the clay, I put it through the pasta machine at 1.








Then I cut out pieces with the same cookie cutter so that all the beads would be the same ize. I came up with this idea and I think it works much better than making a snake and then cutting segments.
Next, I added dots to the beads. Each bead here has 5 dots/bead.
Here's what they looked like before cooking. I raised them off the tray with cardboard prior to baking.















After cooling, I put on two coats of gloss varnish. I didn't like this stuff in the picture and ended up using something else.

Here's the watch after it was completed. I ended up using elastic since it was too large with beading wire and the addition of a toggle clasp. I think I like the continual flow of this way better anyhow. I put Bali spacers between the clay beads and small silver circles next to the watch.















I like the watch, but also think that an elastic bracelet like this would be awesome. Let me know if anyone is interested in making some of these beads and doing a bracelet.

Mattapoisett Vacation

We got back this past weekend from a two week vacation in Mattapoisett, MA. Each summer, David's parents rent a huge (9 bedroom) home on the beach for a two week family vacation. When everyone is there, we total 17. Ten adults and 7 kids with ages from 5-16. In addition to going to the beach, I read three books, completed one jigsaw puzzle, worked on some bead embroidery, ran, biked, and slept in. It was also great to catch up with inlaws and nieces and nephews, especially since Susie, Michael and their three kids are now living in Monterey, Mexico.

The highlight of the trip was renting a 65 foot sailboat for a two hour cruise (sounds like Gilligan's Island) to celebrate Poppy's 80th birthday. After several rainy days, the evening was perfect. It was so much more wonderful than I anticipated and everyone had a blast! The younger kids may disagree as they were a bit seasick, but I was psyched that our two kids weren't quessy at all.





Here we are getting ready to board. We had been told that the boat would only hold 10 people so it was to be an "adult only" trip. Then, the captain said everyone could come. There was much celebration from the kids and we all climbed aboard.




Everyone loved a chance to steer the boat - especially the kids and Uncle Bill. The Captain was also enjoying himself as he didn't have to do much except chat with us and occassionally say, "Turn a bit toward port".



Here is Uncle Beaver Bill with Sam.


















Here's the birthday boy waving to his fans.

More Mattapoisett Pictures

Here's another sailboat we passed on our voyage. I guess this is a "at sail" school with lots of boys on board.




Poor Emma wasn't feeling very well during the trip. After some dramamine, she fell right asleep on Uncle Tom's lap.
















Kinsey and I doing some mother-daughter bonding.












Sunset...

This is what we saw as we were coming back to dock. It was so beautiful.

Sheridan watching her course setting...




















Jamie at the helm...



















Audie and Poppy - We wouldn't be our big family or have this annual vacation without them. Many thanks from us all!

First Post

I've never been very good at keeping in touch with family and friends (due to my critical case of phone phobia) and I haven't been very consistent with documenting our family's life events. The same applies in my profession. I rarely take pictures of what I make and I do a lousy job of marketing my services. So, I'm hoping that by doing a blog, all these issues will magically disappear and life will be good. So, for anyone who cares, here goes - a glimpse of Stacy's life.