Quilt Ministry

At church I belong to the quilt ministry. Basically its just an excuse for us quilters to get together once a month and make quilts for African orphans. Its rewarding and we all know how much I love quilting! Here are two quilts I made. The first one was the first one I made. Theres only one place where my blocks didn't quite go together right (meaning the fabrics), but probably nobody notices except me.


The second one is the same "pattern" essentially, but neither time I put it together the way it was supposed to be put together. I just didn't really like it so I did my own thing. This is kind of how I roll. I like the second one the best. I think it turned out really cute.


Alli said my quilts made her want to be an orphan. :)

one year anniversary

Its official! We've been married for one year. Its kind of crazy. A year seems like a long time but it has flown by. Im a lucky girl. We went to Spokane for an anniversary trip this weekend. We stayed at the Oxford Suites and went shopping and ate at fabulous restaurants. It was a lot of fun. And a much needed vacation after Christmas with the entire Bowman family (36 for Christmas dinner). We drove back on Monday, our anniversary, and after 8.5 hours of driving through a snowstorm, we finally made it to butte and decided to stay with my Gram. I know that once you hit butte youre only like 77 miles from Bozo, but after 8.5 hours and lots of snow, we just couldn't do it. We got back to Bozo on Tuesday morning at 10. So last night we had our romantic dinner. I bought a replica of the top of our wedding cake, since we didn't get to save it. Get this. Wedding cakes are like $4/slice. We got the double top tier that serves at least 8 people (I think an 8" cake with two layers) for $12. By my calculations, I probably paid $32 for the top at the actual wedding. I know my next career: cake baker! J/K. But it was really nice, and Luke bought me a diamond wedding band to match my engagement ring. It is gorgeous!! I really wanted one but was having trouble finding one when we were ring shopping and I didnt' want to pay for one so I just got a plain band. Luke surprised me with the diamond band. I love it! It looks so good. I got him a pair of sweats, how lame am I? I definitely got the better end of the deal.

Happy Anniversary to us!

"Family Fun Night" @ FBC

Tonight, instead of regular activities, we had Family Fun Night at church. All the families decorate gingerbread houses (make from graham crackers), and they are judged in three categories. This year's categories were Most Montana, Best Gingerbread House Theme, and Most Creative. Our "Family" consisted of us, Alicia, and Holly. Alicia and Holly are our age and just fun girls to hang out with! I remember Alicia from growing up. She was from Superior, which isn't too far from Thompson Falls, and we used to play sports against eachother. By "we" I mean our schools, because we all know I dont have an athletic bone in my body. Here are a few pictures of our creation.



We were the unofficial winners. We were judges, so we didn't feel like we could win in good conscience. However, several people told us that we should have won, including one of the other judges. I think the elk antlers were what put us over the edge. However, the logs were also a high point. We were just graham cracker house building fools. Yay for our family!

Decorated for Christmas

This year we broke out the christmas decorations again,but it was more exciting because its our first christmas together as a married couple. And its the first year they were set up at the 310. The past two years the decorations were up at Luke's house with Okey and Dwayne and Lizzie. Heres some pictures of the tree, and my artistic use of $2 garland.

The Kindness of Strangers

Last night was a rough night. My car wouldn't start and Luke finally had to come rescue me. He does not get excited about coming to rescue me, mostly because he can alwasy start my car and I can't. I can understand how that would be annoying, having to drive across town to start my car. . .

Anyways, after he got the car started I went to get gas. This was not a good experience. I couldn't get the first pump to work (I think due to operator error) and this old lady in the van behind me was laughing at me. {this is not the "kindness of strangers" part} When its -10 and the person in front of you is obviously having problems, wouldn't it be better to help, rather than laugh? Thanks a lot lady! Then I went to another pump, figured out my operator error, but it was broken. It would only pump like .1 gallons per click. So I asked this guy at the pump next to me to help me. He couldn't figure it out either, so when he was done pumping, he pulled up so I could take his pump, since it worked. Then he waited to make sure it worked for me. Yay for nice strangers in black trucks who are helpful in the below freezing cold. Gold star for him.

Dont worry, my adventure continues to Wall-E world for an oil change. I waited for what seemed like forever, but I made friends with a nice girl in the waiting room. We exchanged cards and she's going to call me about some nutrition supplement thing she sells. Poor thing had been there even longer than I had.

Oh, and later I burnt my thumb making caramel corn and had to sit with my thumb in a bag of frozen peas for like an hour and a half before findnig the ice pack in the freezer and going to bed with it. Needless to say, I did not want to get up this morning. Staying in bed seemed like a much better option.

fricken (below) freezin!

As I type this it is -5 degrees in Bozeman. And that is a balmy -5 compared to like -20 this morning. I had a dentist appt at 7 am and I couldn't get my car to start so I ran the 2.5 blocks to the dentist. I ran not because I was late but because it was so cold out that I didn't want to freeze to the sidewalk if I went too slowly. Then I ran the 2.5 blocks home where luke was able to start my car. The suby doesn't like cold weather, so Im going to start parking her in the garage.

Speaking of the garage, We have new neighbors! Its exciting. Kenny and Katie are about our age and have two little kids. Emily and her friend live below them and are like 18 or 19. This is their first apartment. The amazing thing is that I have everyone trained that I get the spot under the carport. But now I'm going to park in the garage and let kenny and katie take the carport and then luke and emily and her friend can fight for the other three spots. With our old neighbors it was a free for all and if you were lucky you got home first and got to park in the carport. The garage was completely out of the question due to all the junk they had stored in there. Now that I'm the top dog I get to make some rules. Or else I'm just getting major respect. Either way, I dig it. I've lived there long enough for some perks.