If you are my sister do not read this yet, wait until you get home otherwise the surprise will be ruined for you…

This past week has been fairly busy since my parents were down visiting. On Saturday we took a trip to the zoo, which as you can imagine I love to go to. Ben & I have gone to this zoo once before when we were still dating, so it was fun to go back again. We paid a little extra money to see the dolphin show and a couple other things also. I don’t think I have ever seen a dolphin show before, and it was totally worth it. Dolphins really are amazing creatures! My other favorite part of the zoo was all the big cats of course and the wolves. We actually didn’t take our camera along because we didn’t want to have to think about taking pictures, which was nice since we got to just enjoy seeing the animals.

Other highlights of the week included just hanging out with my parents, having a picnic dinner at their camper (they stayed at a campground near us), watching Pounce & Axel soak up all the attention that they were getting from my dad especially, having my mom around to give my sewing tips & spending time sewing with her, playing a game of uno (which I won of course, oh yeah I am VERY competitive when it comes to card/board games:), pizza for dinner at least 3 times (maybe more than that?), and going out to eat at Famous Dave’s (if you know me well, you are probably like huh, I thought she didn’t eat meat? yep, I had mac & cheese off the kids menu thanks to the recommendation from my vegetarian sister! How my parents managed to have two kids who became vegetarians I will never know:)

Other things I have been up to include making a dress and two purses. The dress I made out of the Paris print fabric that I bought a while back. I used a pattern that I slightly adjusted to fit me better, and I absolutely love the results! I think I may wear it to my brother-in-law and his fiancee’s wedding with a cardigan over top (since I am almost always cold!). It really is better than any dress I could find in a store since it is unique and custom fitted to me. (Have I mentioned yet that I love being able to sew?!) Here are pics of the dress (now I just need some shoes to go with it… I know honey I already have a lot of shoes, but don’t you think I need some new ones to go with my new dress? :)

I have also made two new purses, but neither are for me since I have enough purses to last me awhile (or at least until I find some more fabric that I can’t live without). The first purse I made was for my sister. She commented that she liked the bags I made previously so I thought I would make her one for her very own. I used a tan fabric with palm trees on the outside and a contrasting blue fabric on the inside. I also experimented by making her a matching little pouch to put things in and a matching wallet. The pouch and wallet were my first attempts at making such things so hopefully they will work for her. I just made them up as I went along so I didn’t quite know what to expect until I finished. Here are pics of her new purse…

This summer my parents have a girl from Bulgaria staying with them, so I also wanted to make her a purse. It was a little trickier making a bag for someone I have never met, but my mom went to the fabric store with me and helped pick out some fabric. The outside is a solid black, but the inside has a pink floral print. I was pretty happy with the results and might have to make myself a smaller bag using this same fabric. Hopefully she will like it too!

As you can tell I have been pretty busy although all of it has been pretty fun! Next on my list of things to do is make myself some wrap headbands. I have been really into wearing them lately (yesterday I bought another one from Ann Taylor) and figure I can just use fabric scraps to make myself some more. Oh and I have another dress I want to make and some cropped pants that I have material for, and at some point I would like to make myself a messenger bag to carry my books in… I guess I am going to be busy!

Yesterday it was almost like Pounce was a kitten again. All he wanted to do all day was plop down in someone’s lap (which meant mine since I was the one home) and cuddle. It meant I didn’t get as much done as I wanted (although I did still get stuff done), but it was worth it. It used to be that you could not sit on the floor or sit down hardly anywhere without him crawling up and sitting on you. He doesn’t do that much anymore, but yesterday when I would sit down he would come find me and sit on my lap.

When Pounce and Axel haven’t been taking up my attention, I have been getting stuff done so that when school starts I won’t have too much to do. I got my coveralls and boots yesterday and tried them on. They fit! Well for the most part anyway, which is a good thing. The boots are really weird to walk in and almost feel too big, but I think that just might be because they are weird:) The coveralls are plenty roomy and should make it so that I can layer sweatshirt & such underneath so I don’t freeze in the winter outside. I would take a picture, but I think you should just believe me that I look pretty funny and a little out of my element in them.

Here is a pic of a top I made the other day. The bummer is that even though it turned out super cute hanging on a hanger, I don’t really like at all how it fits me.

I think though that I can probably make some adjustments to it and salvage it so that it does fit me better. Luckily it is too big, rather than too small. Besides purses/curtains/pillows (which all don’t really count since those things are easy to make without a pattern), it was the first thing I made without a pattern. I got some basic tutorial directions online that gave me the idea of how to make the top, but I actually didn’t even follow them that closely as I wanted my top to be a little different. If I can manage to salvage it, I may even make one or two similar tops (with totally different fabric of course) since it does make a pretty nice summery top.

It has been so hot lately that I don’t venture outside very often. However, when I do go out to my car or walk outside this is what I see.

It helps a little to block the neighbors yard and brighten up the parking area. I don’t know if someone purposely planted them (I would assume so), but they were there last year and grew back this year. Anyways I think they are very pretty flowers, and I wish I knew what they were called. It makes me look forward to hopefully having a yard someday, I think if I did I would definitely try to add some pretty stuff like this.

I cannot believe how quickly fall and school is approaching. While I am somewhat looking forward to school starting, I am not so looking forward to summer ending. It is by far my favorite season!