Glassblowing

Yay! Last post for the night and I will be caught up too!

So one of the reasons we had to come back from CA is that we had this groupon scheduled. It was for an intro glassblowing course. We were all not really wanting to go as we were pretty worn out and tired from the day before. But we dragged our butts down there and of course, we had a great time!

So you get to pick your mold and colors for a flower. Then you get to get a glob of glass (all with help) and then you mush it in the color. Then you put that in the glory hole (probably the only term I actually remember). You sort of meld the colored glass with the other glob of glass. Then you take that to this bench and you use these tweezer things to pinch it. Then they would add another glob of hot glass to your existing glob and put it in the mold! That's all very technical, I know, but that is the best I can describe it. I have some pictures and video that might make it easier to understand.

They did give the option of paying to do a 2nd flower or a flower with a stem or a pumpkin. We had so much fun we decided to do the extras.

There was much discussion and debate about what mold and colors to use

This is the glory hole

This is putting the final glob in the mold.

This is right after you stamp the mold and then dump it out!

This is where you use the tweezers

This video is where they were stamping John's into the mold and then dumping it out.

Bart working the glory hole

Stephanie and the glory hole

This one is Stephanie making her pumpkin. This one we actually did blow.

This video is John using the tweezers on his flower with a stem

This video is Stephanie on the bench where they expand the pumpkin and score it.

California and back again...

So Stephanie got the idea when we were talking to Joe from Harvey's at Barrett Jackson that we should go to CA for one of their release parties. We already had some plans for this weekend but we figured we could do it if we went down Saturday and came back Saturday. So to get to Santa Ana by the start we decided we needed to leave about 2 am. This meant John and I got up about 1:15. It was not pretty.

The trip was a good time though. We got there about 8. We found a little cafe to eat at and then went and got in line. It was their Spring limited release so we had the chance to get one of the 250 purses they make. We got to check out the store and hang around for some of their giveaways. We met Dana and Melanie Harvey as well as saw Joe again (Joe's like the VP or something).

Melanie recommended a restaurant for us to have lunch at and then we headed back! We had decided to stop at some outlet stores on the way back, along with gas, food, etc. We made it home about 10 or so that night. So it was a very long day, but as I said we had a good time. We figured it was a good practice for how we'll do on the cruise.

Taken about 430 AM. No clue where we were, but I woke up to make sure Bart wasn't falling asleep.

We were trying to figure out what all the green with roads were. We decided it was probably a field and unlike AZ not everything green is a golf course.

Again, not sure where we were but we kept thinking it was smog, but there was definitely fog.

Here we are in line! We thought CA was supposed to be warmer....

One of the new bags I got. Not a limited one, but probably my favorite color they have!

As we headed out of town there was quite a bit of traffic.

We love these windmills.

Bart wanted a picture of this...I'm not sure why except that it looked really cool with the sun setting.

This is us being artistic. The Harvey's or Bust was on the back window, but we would see it in the rearview mirror.

Some weather, a play, and a doppelganger, oh my!

The rest of the month pretty much flew by. We had some crazy weather. It snowed in the valley. The next three pictures were all taken the same day within about 10 minutes of each other. Crazy valley!

An something I've been waiting for came right the end of the month!

Yay! Almost 1 year from when I first saw him in concert I'll get to see him again! His PBS special was also on in March and it was really good.

We'd had some really cold weather and I saw this one day and thought it was funny. It looks like a cup farm.

At the last minute I decided that Stephanie and I should go see a play that I'd heard about. So we bought tickets and went on a Friday night. It was at the Orpheum theater down in Phoenix and it was pretty cool.

It's like a 3 person play and we thought it was pretty funny.

This also happened:

Then a few other random things. I know one morning we got home from the gym and it's finally starting to get light a little earlier and I got this photo out in the back yard.

I am still doing the juicing. I'm liking it most days. My biggest complaint is the cleaning time of the juicer. So I pretty much do liquids only during the week and then I go alittle crazy on the weekends.

This is right after I've juiced whatever concoction I've put together

And my food for a day! The middle one is actually airborne. I thought I was getting sick but it's just allergies!

Last, I found John's doppelganger! It's a manager at work and I think he looks so much like John it's crazy!

It's the guy Adam is pointing too. We were trying to be sneaky.

The 'Cake'

So I had mentioned in January that I was going to make the kit kat rainbow cake. Well, the weekend came to make the cake. It was quite the project. Nothing was particularly hard it was just time consuming. The hardest part for me was getting the layers on each other. The thing weighed about 15 pounds (not really but it was heavy).

I figure the final product was 2 boxes of cake mix, 2 1/2 cans of frosting, 1 box of dye, 15 kit kat bars, and a large bag of peanut M&M's.

If I were to do this again I would do the frosting different and hope that made it easier

I thought it turned out pretty good

With the M&M's. It was a hit at work and disappeared quickly.

Random February

I didn't get any pictures from Superbowl but we went over to Teri and Daphne's for their Superbowl party. It was a good time with a lot of people and a lot of food. Another example of why we love it in Arizona and all the great people we've met.

In random going ons:

An update on the 100 mile challenge. Somewhere in early to mid-February I hit this:

I also got bored with my hair and did this:

That was fun and turned out pretty much exactly how I wanted it.

Last, was President's Day weekend. We had a groupon for the shooting range that we finally went and used. It was John and I, Jim and Chris, Stephanie and Bart, and Joe. Our afterthought was that we were really glad Joe was there because there were quite a few novices and it was a little comical.

But we got new decorations out of it!!

I was looking back at my blog and realized I forgot another important thing that's happened lately! One morning John was making our smoothie and my blender started on fire! I was not happy since it was my kitchenaid blender with the glass pitcher. Well... we decided to go big or go home and got:

A blendtec. If you aren't familiar with it, go to Youtube and search Blendtec and watch the videos.

Kim's Visit

Kim got to Phoenix the night before the Color Run but she was working the first few days and then spent a few days with John's mom. I took Friday off so we could hang out and then she spent the weekend with us. So Friday we went shopping, lunch, and painted some pottery. We hit some good sales and had a good time. Then it was nice to just sit and visit while we painted pottery.

Here's our finished product:

Saturday we had plans to go for a bike ride up in Scottsdale and then go to breakfast for the morning. We lucked out and had beautiful weather. I think we rode for about 9 miles and it was leisurely. We rode around the park and in our usual style we spiced it up a bit.

We also spent a good amount of time trying to decide what this guy was doing. We eventually got bored and left.

Then Kim and I went and got pedicures before heading to dinner with John, Stephanie, Bart, Jim, Chris, Joe, and Heidi for our anniversary at Oreganos!