Candles and Jewelry...My Faves!!

So, here's the other things I've been busy with as of late....

My talented, beautiful, best buddy Candice makes the most amazing candles! They smell better than any others I've ever bought!! (That's right, better than Salt City, etc...)
Anywhoo, she and I decided to do some holiday boutiques featuring her candles and my jewelry. Making candles is a huge job, so she let me come and help her. It was like playin mad scientist! I knew her candle making was a tricky process and a lot of work, but I had no idea...I have a whole new respect!!

First there's the big hnk of wax you have to cut up and melt down...

...it's like being a butcher...



Then there's the melting and mixing of the secret potions...

then comes the pouring...which if you are doing different layers, is very time consuming....


but after working ALL DAY, we finish!!! 96 in all! 12 different fragrances, Whew!

Then it is the day of the party!

We set it up at Candice's house

The fruits of our labors...

My jewels...

These are my faves..yes. I made them all... :)

Me and Candice

It was lots of fun and we're planning on doing a couple more as we get closer to the holidays!!

More pics of new house construction

Please bear with me as I share yet more pictures from the new house we're building....it is for mainly my parents benefit because they keep asking, "When are you going to post some more pictures of your house?"...So, here they are :)

Here's Lancy Pants on our upstairs back patio

Here's what the backyard looks like off the upstairs back patio....

Here's Lances Garage...or half of it at least...

...and here we are looking into the kitchen--at the island from the adjoining family room, however, the island no longer looks like that because I had them tear it out and do a different shape instead....

Here's the view of the beautiful sunset out Madi's room window...that's my favorite thing about this house...the views...I can see out!!!

This is the back-ish part of the house on the garage side...you can see the covered upper and lower patios better from here...

...and here's the front-ish part of the house on the garage side

That's just the front...obviously...

Here's a shot of my corbels...I love them. :)

And there you have it.
Since I last took pictures, they have finished putting in all of the duct work for the A/C and Heating, and they have also finished the plumbing. Next is the Electrical. We are supposed to be meeting with the A/V guy tonight...I don't really care about all of that, but I'm going along because I think Lance needs a chaperone....otherwise we'll end up with surround sound in the bathrooms...Also, they have finished putting all of the black felt paper on the roof and are supposed to be starting shingles this week.! Which is good since it looks like we are going to finally get some rain around here!!! (I do appreciate it holding off until we got our roof on though.)


Until the next batch of pics....

MIA....Again.

I am such a slacker.

I was just looking at all if the pictures I've meant to put on my blog and realized that I am so behind, it's ridonculous....I decided I'm just going to keep moving forward, with posts interspersed with the posts I'm still behind on from summer....It should keep things nice and confusing.

SO.

Our most recent happenings....

I had foot surgery on Oct. 1st. I have Tailor's Bunions on both of my feet, so I had one removed, and then we'll do the surgery on the other foot in November....but I told my boys it was because I have stepped on one too many Lego Star Wars figures, so they better do a better job at keeping them picked up...


Actually, there's a bone that sticks out and they simply cut it off....voila!!Before

After

I have to say, it's gone much better than I anticipated. Not much pain, and instead of using my crutches for a week,...they lasted about 3 days with me...they hurt your pits man....as for the fashionable footwear,

I wore it for about a week, then that was it...flip flops work just fine thanks....however, my kids seem to be even more prone to stepping on my hurt foot more than ever these days...Anywhoo, there will be pictures of the boys soccer games, and our house, coming soon!


I just had to add these actual pictures...I need all the sympathy I can get... :)

New House Update

A few having been asking for a progress report on building of our new house. It's actually been very fun watching it go up. Steph still laughs at me because I stop by twice a day - especially now that the framing is going on and things are changing so quickly.

After securing money in June (or should I say a commitment to debt?):

1. Most (not all) of the lot leveling has completed allowing the house to start.

2. Foundation/slab was poured.

3. And Framing is in progress.






Things should continue to change quickly as the outside gets done and then slow down as the interior is completed. Very cool to see our ideas go from our original sketches to actual stuff.

Hurricane Ike

Quick update on Ike's impact here.

Ike turned north-northeast earlier than expected and completely missed Austin. We're very grateful - especially since our house is currently at the framing stage during which water is not good.
It's very impressive how well organized the church is down here. As with Hurricane Rita, evacuees from Stakes on the coast arrived in Austin at the Stake centers where they were assigned to families. We were assigned a family Wed. night.

As with Rita, the family assigned to us only spoke Spanish and we only speak English. However, in some strange way, Steph and my two girls always knew what was going on. In fact, they were frequently all laughing. I never could get it. Was it some weird girl thing? Normally at dinner, I have my own family pointing at me and laughing. Now I have two families pointing at me and laughing. In two languages. It's like I'm the international butt of all jokes.

I think Steph most liked telling the story of when we were in Mexico and I basically said "Bien" to every question.
Would you like to buy a pig shaped bank? "Bien".
What would you like to eat? "Bien".
OK if we charge you stupid Americans twice as much for the tour? "Bien".


In any case, we're having a lot of fun getting to know a new family and feeling very grateful we're safe and sound.