Ikea Quilt

I saw this quilt on a blog a few months ago and totally fell in love with it. My quilting buddy/sister-in-law Jeanette loved it too - so this past weekend while Kenneth was fishing we started work on our own. 

I just finished piecing the top of mine and I love it! Hooray for Ikea fabric and fun blogs to copy :)

I don't know what I am going to do now that we're home from Utah.. No fun family weekends in Kamas, UT... no quilting buddies.. no fishing....   It's a good thing we have friends and fun times in Boston, this could be really depressing.

(just the border is from Ikea, the rest of the fabric is from Mormon Handicraft or my own stash)

Fishing

Kenneth and I have been married for 5  1/2 years now and I never knew until just last weekend that he loves fishing. 

Here he is with his brothers:
 

They didn't actually catch any fish, but they all claim that they got some big bites and just let them get away :)

Purple Houses

This is my July quilting project:

The family I work for went on vacation for a week in July, so I decided I needed a project. I made it for my cute sister-in-law Jeanette. What do you think?

(Does it seem like all I make are houses these days?)

Hogle Zoo

Last week, while Kenneth and I were in Utah, we went to the zoo! It was so much fun. We got to see the new baby giraffe and the new baby snow leopard - which, if you live in Utah, I highly recommend. They are super cute :)

Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Oh what do you do in the summer time.....

Kenneth and I have been having so much fun this summer! Even with all the rain, we have managed to find a few moments of sun :)

We have visited Walden Pond:

We have toured Boston with friends:

We have had fun camping:

We've had BBQ's with friends:

We've gone strawberry picking (I even learned how to make delicious strawberry pie):

We rocked with Neil Diamond on the Esplanade for the 4th of July!:

We visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum - something I recommend to anyone who has never been. It is pretty awesome: 

We have visited the Seamen's Chapel from the book Moby Dick:

We've partied at the beach with friends:

Boston is really awesome in the summer! So all of you that are saving your money to visit us in the fall should just call in sick to work and visit us now! The beach is waiting for you :)

Interior decorating

For the first time ever Kenneth and I collaborated on a project. We made this wall quilt together. He made the design and I made the quilt. I even dyed my own fabric for the colored sections. What do you think?

This is the finished project on our wall

These are the squares up close - the whole quilt is made up of small squares to resemble mosaic tiles.

This is Kenneth's original design. 

The Nanny Diaries

Kenneth is working today, so I checked out the movie The Nanny Diaries from the Library.  I'm a nanny so I thought it would be good times. I've even read the book a few years ago. I thought it was really funny and I felt lucky at the time that the family I worked for wasn't that extreme. 

That was before I worked for the Forresters. I only worked for them for 6 weeks. But I think it is safe to say that those were the hardest and worst 6 weeks of my life.  

I have a new family now that is so fantastic - I feel grateful every day that I work for them. In fact I could write several posts about how great I think they are. But, I actually still have nightmares about my 6 weeks with the Forresters. 

That was only 1 job out of many I have had working as a nanny. And it was so much shorter than the rest..

I put in the Nanny Diaries today thinking that I would laugh and have a good time watching. But I actually turned it off. That woman could actually be Courtney Forrester. Within the first 15 minutes there had already been almost a dozen reminders of my old job. The list of rules and notes, the crazy preschool with it's screaming spoiled children, the private school application, getting in trouble for using the wrong bathroom, the crazy organic soy food. Even their first lunch/interview. 

I called Kenneth freaking out and he suggested I watch something else. So, I turned it off. I really don't need anything else giving me nightmares. 

I'm just going to focus on my current job with this fantastic family and their incredibly fantastic kids. And I will be grateful every day that they hired me and that I don't have to step into the Back Bay again unless I want to go sightseeing. 

(If you haven't seen the Nanny Diaries, here is the trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1358364953/. - you can watch it and think about the fact that you should never take a job as a nanny for someone like this).