board games and a big birthday

Things we've been up to since Easter:

• Celebrating Dan's 30th(!!) birthday with a weekend visit from his parents. I baked a chocolate cake with white frosting, as usual, and decorated it badly, as usual. But it still tasted great (as usual)! We had tickets to a baseball game on Saturday, which unfortunately was cancelled after a 4+ hour rain delay. Other than watching less baseball, it wasn't much different than going to an actual game. We still got to eat ballpark food and hang out for a few hours, which is my favorite part anyways!

• Curing diseases with Pandemic and building cities with Carcassonne, the new board games that Dan got for Easter and his birthday. I particularly like Pandemic since the players work together to beat the board instead of competing against each other. It's a nice change from always losing to Dan who is super good at board game strategy.

• Playing Rock Band with Kathy, Jason, Elena, and Darown. This game may have fallen in popularity since its initial surge, but it is still so, so fun. We also enjoyed a delicious smoked turkey, courtesy of chef Jason.

• Finishing the installation of our new closet shelving. This closet is wide but has a narrow door, so it was difficult to retrieve anything from deep into the left side. I removed the original shelf several weeks ago, accidentally knocking out a fair bit of plaster in the process. After a crash course in replastering, a few coats of paint and primer, and a few hours of shelf-hanging, we have a much more functional closet.

• Sewing this bench cushion for Dan's parents' beach house. I followed a tutorial from Pretty Handy Girl, but this project was still a nightmare resulting in multiple puddles of tears. It's done and looks decent, but I'm so glad to be finished with it!

• Making this little potholder for Kathy's birthday gift. I had been wanting to try this cute tutorial from Nana Company, and the fabric was perfect for Kathy who makes such delicious cupcakes! My stitching is a little wiggly in some parts, but I'm still happy with it.

We're all booked up for the next few weekend with lots of fun activities. I just need to find some time to plant my flowers and garden soon!

easter weekend

Dan and I drove to my parents house for Easter weekend. My hometown happened to be hosting the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final Four, so there were lots of festivities around the city. A free music festival downtown on Friday and Saturday featured a few popular artists including Rihanna and Imagine Dragons. We went to see Bleachers on Saturday afternoon and had fun dancing to their hit "I Wanna Get Better."

As soon as we walked out onto the lawn before the concert, we ran into my aunt and uncle and my friend Laura and her husband! Too bad Dan stayed home sick (stupid spring colds) because we had lots of fun hanging out and listening to great music! Laura took this awesome panorama... I was tempted to jump up and put my face in it while she was scanning the crowd, but I restrained myself.

Saturday evening, the family gathered at my parents house for a delicious ham and turkey dinner. Afterwards (while the Final Four games were on), we dyed a bunch of Easter eggs. So many pretty pastels!

I had fun arranging them by color. We got creative with dipping the eggs in multiple dyes, which created a wide spectrum of colors. Dan and I took the little six-pack of blue eggs and had some weird colored egg salad for dinner this week.

In addition to pretty eggs, signs of spring were all around. There is a small window well next to my parents house which lets light into the basement. Every summer, a small population of toads appears among the leaf litter. They probably fell down into the hole at some point and have continued to live there, protected from most predators. I hope that they will slowly evolve into some completely new toad species since they are so isolated from the outside world.

Christopher and Emily's puppy Winston has gotten bigger (and blonder) since Christmas. Eventually he will be almost white! Doesn't he have the most adorable little teddy bear face??

On Easter Sunday we went to mass and then to brunch at a restaurant that is attached to a driving range. We brought golf clubs and comfortable shoes and had fun hitting (or completely missing) a few golf balls before heading home. Christopher out-classed us all, golfing in his bow-tie.

I'm looking forward to more pretty spring days, just like this weekend!

little knit easter eggs

Happy Easter! I'm celebrating with cute knitted Easter decorations from a free pattern by Little Cotton Rabbits. I knit three eggs last March but wasn't very motivated to finish the rest after Easter. Then the urge to knit spring things struck again when the weather started to warm up this year! When I found my supplies in a large ziploc bag, I remember that I had worked on this project while traveling to New York for businesss. That trip prompted my first blog post ever!

These eggs are knit flat and then seamed around a wooden egg to give them shape. More details are available on my Ravelry page.

I made this basket in grade school during art class in preparation for Pioneer Day. Usually it holds decks of cards on a shelf in our family room, but it looks especially pretty with knitted eggs! Incidentally, this is the first photo I've had featured on a Ravelry pattern page. I was pretty excited when I received the request to feature it on Thursday night.

I had fun taking pictures of the eggs around the yard. Here's a little Easter Egg Hunt! (It's not very difficult)

Have a wonderful Easter!