new furniture

tyson and i spent a wonderful week and a half in alabama with my family over christmas. like last year my very talented father helped me build some furniture for our very bare apartment. we tried to copy the following west elm consol table.



here is our version:





and here is how it fits into our apartment:

the Christmas card

Here is the Christmas card we sent out this year. It was a last minute thing so I apologize if we didn't sent one to you. Especially if you were on Tyson's list. Which means yours is still sitting on his desk waiting to be addressed. Between you and me I think he was worried you wouldn't know it was joke.

Guatemala

I know this is way over due, but it is about time that I give a brief update on our 2 week trip to Guatemala.

As most of you already know we were robbed at gunpoint within our first hour of being there. A nice little welcome present. Because we were carrying everything we had on us at the time our camera was also stolen. So the following pictures will primarily be from flickr and other peoples blogs.
After our little "incident" we went straight to Antigua which is filled with great architecture, good shopping, and lots of tourists.


Some of the highlights of our trip included hiking the volcano. It was really amazing and really hot. The volcano is active so we were able to stick our walking sticks in the flowing lava.

A lot of our time was spent traveling in chicken buses. It is always amazing to play the game of how many people you can fit into a moving vehicle.

Lake Attitlan (gorgeous lake - if not a little on the dirty side - nestled between two volcanoes)

The following pictures are from Tikal - the Mayan ruins. Probably the coolest thing Ive ever seen in my life. Luckily our friends let us borrow their camera for the day so we do have some pics.



It was some kind of religious day for the Guatemalians of this area. As we were on the temple a large group came to do sacrifices in front of it. It was amazing to watch. The people made circles around the fire as they shouted at it and threw alcohol in it. Later that day everyone gathered in the main area for dance. Here is a pic of them behind us on the ground.

This is Tyson climbing back down the temple - about 10 stories up and extremely steep.
All in all we had a fantastic time. I think we both agree that we would go back again. Next time I would be a little more cautious for sure. Also, I would spend some time there learning Spanish in one of the homestays. I think the biggest thing that we missed out on was being able to just talk to people and make friends with those who were local. But we still had many cultural and very memorable experiences.

white skirt done

after a busy photo weekend and catching up on my project runway episodes i felt inspired to dive into my pile of half finished sewing projects. first on the list was this white linen skirt that i was supposed to have made for my sister-in-laws wedding in july. obviously that didnt happen. the skirt of loosely designed around the following jcrew skirt. i wanted something cool for summer that i could dress up for church or dress down with flip flops for shopping. now that the summer is on its way out i have finished it. oh well.

jcrew version:



my version:




i used this pattern for the main pieces and made the following changes:
added pockets
lowered waistline to hips
added waistband
added band at the bottom

next on the list: ruffle jacket and messenger bag

Neopolitan Manthigh

So I went rafting in California last weekend on the American River with a number of my coworkers. It was my first time rafting -- an absolute blast. We had around 10 Class 4 rapids and dozens of class 3s. Loved it.

Just before setting off I made a quick decision not to wear my boy scout pants as I'd planned, and I forgot to put sunscreen on my exposed white manthigh. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a manthigh is the less attractive, slightly less well-formed, hairier counterpart to the woman thigh.



In the picture you can clearly see three distinct sections. My brown knees had a nice tan from my cycling shorts, the strawberry red section is the exposed, sunburnt portion of the manthigh. Finally (sorry about this) we have the yet unexposed white portion of the manthigh.