St. Patty's Day (aka, hubby's b-day!)

So, one of the blogs I follow, Young House Love, has invited everyone to take part in their 'Pinterest Challenge" by posting a blog showcasing something we've made from Pinterest.  I figured with St. Patrick's Day coming up (which also happens to be my hubby's b-day!) I'd do something related to that, especially since my St. Patrick's Day board on Pinterest has been filling up and I've been itching for a fun little craft project :)  We don't go all out for St. Patty's Day like one might for Christmas, but I do like to put a little green up, especially since the hubs is so fond of this particular day ;)  Before we met I never really did much for this holiday other than the annual McGuire's St. Patrick's Day 5k.  That was about it- no decorating, no little green shamrocks everywhere, no leprechauns running around, nada...

 

 

Cute little sign I scored at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago (50% off, after season, ofcourse) :)

I had originally seen some red felt covered styrofoam balls on Pinterest (originally created by Jessica over at Craftily Ever After) and made them for Valentine's Day (albeit, they didn't actually get finished until AFTER Valentine's day, but hey- there's always next year!)  I loved them so much I think I'm going to keep the trend going and just make new ones for each season/holiday with different colors (I'm thinking maybe some pastels for Easter next.) 

These are my green versions- I really do love the way they came out (although, looking at these pics I can now see my top one desperately needs a few more ruffles! don't judge...)




Now, were they a pain to make?  Um, I would say maybe just a little, but I love them enough that I didn't care.  By the third one, I was getting pretty bored.  We've been on a bit of a Prison Break kick lately, so I made these during a couple episodes and the time went by pretty quickly. (I've also, since this pic, spraypainted the candlesticks white- looks WAY better than the black.)

I bought one yard of green felt from Joann's earlier in the week (4.99/yd + 40% off coupon).  Each little ruffle is actually one 3 inch round little green circle.  I didn't take any pics of the making process, because I wasn't planning on blogging on it at the time.  I grabbed one of my plentiful spray paint cans and used that as my template for each circle, then drew lots and lots and LOTS of little circles on my felt.  Next I cut them out and started pinning to my small styrofoam balls.  To pin them you simply fold each circle in half twice and then take a plain straight pin and poke it through the pointed end of your now folded circle.  Put enough of them on the styrofoam ball and you have a cute felt ruffle ball!

Here are a few of my other decorations- don't mind how awesomely my camera decided to pick up the smudges on our table.  We kept my niece this past weekend and apparently we missed a spot on the table after we cleaned after she left, lol

 

 

I love these little felt shamrock placemats.  I bought them a few years ago (probably Dollar Store?)- they're super cute, but because they're more on the cheap side, they're starting to show that.  May need to update them in the next year or two.

 

Lightweight felt doorknockers- also from Dollar Store

 

 

I've also gotten into printing off some of the cute printables that I see all over Pinterst world.  This one was very fitting for St. Patty's day and I decorated the frame with a little foam shamrock- too cute!

 

 

 

Here's another adorable printable I found- framed in one of my recent yard sale frames I found at a random yard sale on my way home from work one day.  I had some cute green polka dotted ribbon left from a previous project and added a little to the frame.

 



 

 Here's how the whole display looks:

It's still a little bare looking, so I've got a few things I'm working on to add, but they haven't made their debut yet.  Also, since I don't have a fireplace (boo!) I've been using my piano as my faux mantle :)

A little shamrock action on the plate-hanger-turned-photo-book-display

Found these at the Dollar Tree and working on adding them to the piano display- cute green table scatter!

 

 

And, since I'm a bit of a ribbon hoarder, I couldn't pass up the 50% off St. Patty's Day ribbon!

This is pretty much one of my favorite things in my house right now- my Happy Everything platter.  It's pretty much me to a tee- I absolutely love colorful things (as you can also see from my yellow kitchen walls below) and they have a place on the top that you can put interchangable pieces for each season- I love my leprechaun hat!

And lastly, I found these cute green fluffy floral type things that somehow remind me of Dr. Seuss.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them, but maybe someone has some suggestions?  For $2 I figured certainly I could find someplace for them to go!

Hope everyone has a fun and happy St. Patty's day in a few weeks.  As for us, we'll be celebrating my hubby's 26th bday!

Katie :)

African Adventures

I hate that it's taken me this long to get a blog up since arriving back from Africa, but alas....life happens. It's hard to know where to actually start- there's so much I'd love to tell everyone about, but let's face it- unless you've actually been there, most people don't actually care to know every nitty gritty detail. I've never actually been to Africa, so this was a first for me.

I drove up to Wetumpka, Al to meet half of my team (that's me, second from the right!)



 The other half had already flown in the day before because that's the way the airlines booked our tickets. Anyways, our team leader attends church in Wetumpka (first on the left, above) and a church member had volunteered to drive us to the ATL airport (a two hour drive from Wetumpka) and pick us up upon returning.

We had to weigh each and every bag because we were only allowed 50 lbs per bag and we were taking several things over to the missionaries that live permanently in Uganda (seeds, supplies, medical stuff, etc). There was a lot of sorting and switching things around to get every bag under the max weight limit.



My poor bag had finally worn itself out and is the one with the duck tape around the top corner. Needless to say, that one didn't come home with me- hopefully someone in Uganda has made good use of it :)



So, the flights were unlike any I've ever been on. I've flown quite a bit in my lifetime, but never have I been on flights anywhere that long! The flight from ATL to Amsterdam was about 8 hours, then we had a couple hour layover there before we boarded our second 8 hour flight to Entebbe, Africa. We actually had to stop in Kigali, Rwanda to let some passengers off there first and then finished out trip to Entebbe. From there we had about an hour bus drive to Kampala, Uganda, which is the capital city of Uganda. It was nighttime at this point, so it was interesting to see sooo many people out walking about at midnight, or later (I can't quite remember what time it was exactly). Apparently they do a lot of stuff late at night when it's much cooler. There were barber shops open and people getting their hair trimmed, people just hanging out, eating dinner, etc. Our hotel was actually quite nice and I got a very good nights rest after the long back to back flights.

The next morning we loaded up on a bus and headed to the Old Kampala Slums. Imagine the most poverty laden situation/area/people group you've seen and then multiply that by about 10 fold. I've been to Haiti and the not so great areas of Brazil and this is by far some of the worst poverty I've seen. Obviously the slums are likely going to be the worst area in town, but I'm not quite sure what I expected. I worked alongside 2 local Ugandan physicians who were wonderful.



They were very bright and knew their stuff. I, ofcourse, had to work with an interpreter, which is difficult in its own right, but toss in medical stuff/jargon and it was even more difficult. We saw probably between 300-400 people that day.

 A few people had to be started on quinine drips as they were suffering with malaria, which we undoubtedly saw a ton of.



There were lots of cute attention-seeking children that we got to play with that afternoon after we finished clinic. They totally loved cameras and loved to both take pictures and have their picture taken!

Bus rides (well, really rides in any type of vehicle) are quite different from those here in the US. Roads are a wee bit bumpier (ok, there was a hint of sarcasm there- they're WAY bumpier) and travel is slow because of all the people and other cars in the way. This is the type of bus we were on most of the time:



Anyways, the following day we made our way to Gulu, which was about an 8 hour drive away. This is where we stayed with the missionaries, Matt and Jamie East and their 3 children. Through an awesome only-God-could-do kinda deal did they acquire the house that they currently live in. This is a shot of the whole team, along with the missionaries live-in maid and her daughter.

                                 

They were super sweet and actually host lots of interns and various mission teams that come throughout the year, so they're awesome hosts and have it down to a tee. While in Gulu we first held a medical clinic within walking distance of their house at some of the locals mud and thatch homes.




The local leader graciously gave up her home for the day for me and the two other Ugandan physicians to hold a make-shift clinic and see patients. That was easily another 300-500 patient day between the 3 of us.

We also held eye clinics, where we tested their eyes to approximately determine what strength of glasses was most appropriate for them.  We had hundreds of pairs of glasses donated to us by The Lions Club.






The next few days we actually drove out into the 'bush' each day (about 1 hour each way) and held a clinic in what will soon be Abaana's Hope (check out what Four Corners Ministries is doing here: http://www.fourcorners.org/abaanas-hope/ ) It was under construction while we were there, so we used benches and had plenty of cool air wafting through the wide open windows in the cement walls. Both days we were out there we saw hundreds of people and each day was utterly exhausting and rewarding at the same time.



Wondering how they hand make every single one of these bricks to build everything?  Here's your answer: a brick-maker.  Maybe this is common knowledge for some people, but I had never seen one before and had never really given it much thought, so I was just a tiny bit fascinated by it!  They work very hard for absolutely everything they have- most things we take for granted and don't give any thought to (like, how are bricks made?).



Gathering jerry cans to head out to the well to get fresh water:



They also have a large garden where they grow everything they eat- if they don't grow it, they don't eat it.  These are some awesome looking carrots that were just freshly pulled and will probably make for a yummy dinner :)





Our last day in Africa we got to go on a real African safari (through Murchison Falls National Park), which was pretty awesome (understatement of the year, right there).

                                     

We saw wild giraffes, water buffalo, elephants, gazelle, etc. We had to cross the Nile River along our tour and actually stopped and took a riverboat ride up the Nile and saw TONS of hippos and TONS of beautiful African birds (they live in those holes).





                                  







We were told before going that something invariably happens on every safari ride, and we were certainly no exception. No Iess than 5 minutes into our safari our bus got stuck in one of the largest potholes I had seen up to that point. Thankfully it did happen so close to the entrance that one of the park rangers came to our rescue in a range rover and surprisingly pulled the entire bus out with seemingly little effort.



We were all grateful that there were no more mishaps throughout the rest of the tour.  Our tour guide had his trusty AK-47 on his shoulder to be sure of that!

                                

This made me more than a little nervous when he stepped on the bus with it- although, I'm pretty sure he told us he's never had to use it! It was mainly for safety against any large cats that may threaten a safari tour. Although, speaking of cats, they are unfortunately nocturnal and don't typically come out too much during the day, so we didn't get to see any of those. I took more pictures on this one day than I did on the rest of the trip combined (mainly because I was so busy each day seeing patients I didn't get many opportunities to take pics). It was absolutely beautiful- everything about it.

The ride home was super long, and I was definitely pretty homesick by the time the trip was over. I called my hubby as soon as our plane landed on American soil. We texted back and forth since I still had about a 2 hour bus drive from the ATL airport back to Wetumpka, which is where my car was. My sneaky little hubby had told me he was at home cleaning and had just gotten back from taking the dog for a walk. I so wanted to see him and was seriously dreading the 4 hour drive I had from Wetumpka back to Navarre because I was a whole new kind of tired by that point and REALLY didn't want to have to stay over the night because I was too tired to drive home. Little did I know, he had talked his younger brother, John, into driving up to Wetumpka with him and surprising me when we got there! I had to do a double take when we pulled into the church parking lot! I knew I recognized the car when we pulled in, but I couldn't really believe he was there! I was soooo unbelievably happy to see him (and pretty darn happy I didn't have to drive the whole way back to Navarre!) He even brought me my bed pillows so I could snooze on the way home (which I absolutely did!) :) What a great guy- he's totally a keeper! lol

Anyways, props to any of you who actually read this whole thing, but I needed to put it all down, as I've told many people I would, and it's so much easier this way than to tell 50 people the same lengthy story (although I really already have)! lol

Love you guys! Thanks to everyone who supported me, both through prayer and by financial means! It was truly a life-changing experience and I'd love to go back someday!

Katie :)

 

 

 

Universal Adventures

I love to travel.  Anywhere, anytime, I'm pretty much always up for a road trip.  Unfortunately, most of the time work dictates when and where I get to go, but every now and then I get to get away for a fun time with the hubs and some friends.  This past weekend we were able to spend 3 fun-filled days in Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Fl.!  For some, this may sound like old news, but for us, it was an adventure! Both me and my husband had never been to either park before and were super excited to have the chance to go.  The trip was planned around a big Christian music series called 'Rock the Universe'.  If you follow Christian music at all you'll certainly recognize some of the artists there- they had Jeremy Camp, Skillet, Switchfoot, TobyMac, for King and Country, Group 1 Crew, Britt Nicole, Relient K, among others.  They all had amazing performances and I even learned of some new groups that I'd never heard of before that I now really love!  For example, for King and Country was one of those bands.  They are a couple of Australian brothers that really have a great sound, genuine love for God, and some awesome music!

 

Not sure who was playing here, but as you can see we were hot, sweaty, probably a little wet from the rain and pretty tired at this point, but still having a blast!

 

 

 

We finally got to see what all the hype was about with the new Harry Potter World!  The 'Dragon Challenge' (formerly Dueling Dragons) was definitely my favorite roller coaster between both parks!  And, the lines were so short when we first got there the first morning that we were able to ride it twice back to back!  We went on the indoor Harry Potter ride right after and that definitely made me feel a little queasy : /  I'm slowly learning it's no fun getting old!  I used to be able to ride anything I wanted as many times as I wanted and have no problem, and now one or two rides in and I'm feeling queasy and nauseous! lol  Oh well, it was fun anyways!

We also got to try the yummy butterbeer!  And, for those of you that know us, you know we don't drink, so these were completely non-alcoholic drinks, but are so named after the drink in the Harry Potter books!  This was one of my favorite pics from the trip, with the random security guard photobombing our picture!

 



My hubby is a huge Grinch fan, so this was a favorite area :)

 

As you can see, he had fun with the many hats and plentiful Grinch paraphernalia :)

 

 

And look who even came out to visit on our last day there!  Ofcourse, Kaleb had to have a picture with The Grinch! :)

 

 

 

There were so many great thought bubbles all over comic land and we had to get a picture with almost every one of them!  This was one of my favs ;)

 

 

 

We got to spend the day with 2 of our good friends' parents on our last day there!  Their parents are super sweet and let us stay at their house in Tampa our first and last nights of our trip.  We stayed in Orlando the rest of the time we were there so we'd be close to the parks!  As you can see, it rained most of the last day there, but we didn't let that stop us!  Nothing a little poncho action couldn't take care of, and besides, rainy days are great days to go to theme parks because there's hardly anyone else there and the lines are non-existent!

 

 

I love Jurassic Park, probably a little too much, so this was a necessary picture, and obviously I don't do 'scared face' very well :)

 

 

 

I had a caricature done of me when I was in high school on a band trip in San Antonio to Six Flags, but Kaleb had never had one done, so this was our first caricature done together :)  I think it turned out pretty darn cute!

 

 

Then, ofcourse, there's the obligatory picture with the giant spinning Universal Studios globe.  One to add to the collection :)

 

 

 

And this is probably my absolute most favorite picture from the whole trip.  We were going for the whole air guitar shot with the Rock the Universe sign above us, and this one just turned out fantastic!

 

 

 

Anyways, trips always make me happy, especially when there's awesome music and roller coasters involved.  I love getting to do fun things with my awesome hubby and friends and had a blast this past weekend and wanted to share with y'all our fun adventure!

 

 

Happy blogging and happy adventuring,

Katie :)