Friday, December 26, 2008

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

New painting/Drawing coming up!! Need your help.

Ok people i need your help please. I am about to do a new painting/drawing, i will give credit for inspiration to Amanda McCoy. We were out on the ministry and popped into a shop that has the cutest pottery garden in the back complete with water feature and cool bits and pieces for your garden,, ill take pics so you will know what im talking about.. anyway Amanda found these cute little round pottery birds. A Robin and a Owl, so i thought id like to be able do a picture based on those and Amanda. When i say Amanda it will be colour scheme that will reflect her..When i finish i intend to get a print done and gift it to her.


The picture is going to be 2 birds sitting on a branch, the birds will be decorative and one will be an Owl and the other a robin.. i need you to choose the robin bird i will number the sketches and can you choose the one you think will look better.. by leaving the sketch number as a comment.. thanks guys
below are some sketches and hopefully ill be able to upload the colour schemes for you too.


sketch..1


Sketch..2


Sketch..3


Sketch..4


Sketch...5


The owl close up..


The colour scheme.. it might change a bit !!



Look forward to your suggestions XXX

Snow and Hail ... woohooo

we had our first snow on Saturday... then on sunday it snowed more and yesterday there was snow and hail storms, its soo cool. It comes down in sheets and stops..

Apparently we dont get huge snow here, but a few minutes up the road and the change in elevation and you have thick snow that stays on the ground.. So unless you have 4Wheel drive or chains on your tires you dont go up the mountain this time of year..

It finally getting cold and im going to go buy a warmer coat and some boots in the winter sale next week. It still gets me that into December we have mild weather with occasional rain.. this is what i love about being here. I found out the other day that we have a Mediterranean climate... lots of sun and blue skys.. which is why everyone here is so happy.. here are some pics of the hail our front garden.

A shout out to FENELLA a student nurse with my sister charlotte, and a avid reader of my blog i hear... she is a fellow traveler to the usa, CHICAGO RULES!! One of my fav cities here. LEAVE A COMMENT NXT TIME YOUR HERE FENELLA SAY HI.!!




Tuesday, December 2, 2008

strange store names!!

funny store names that just are not right!!







Reno a Gun show and a Casino!!

A few weeks ago Jerry (Aaron's dad) wanted to go to a gun show..!! ummm i hear you say! well here is some back ground info on Guns in the Dinsdale family. Most of the rifles the men in the family own have been passed down generations. They used to have them for hunting and even still do use them for elk hunting. We ate the Elk that Jerry recently hunt and brought back. The show was mainly antique guns and cowboy stuff.. There were modern hand guns available but they were limited. So it was a bunch of old guys swapping stories and collecting bits for old army rifles WW1 and WW2 stuff. Luger's, Smith and Weston's and Colts.

To go to the show we had to drive to Reno. How can i describe Nevada to you, which is the state that Reno is in?! Well Mark Twain put it best "singed cat" is what he said and its a perfect description. Lots of rock and dessert and the occasional bush brown and gnarly. The gun show was in a huge casino/Hotel like the ones you see on telly in Las Vagas. It was stunning and was like a town in a hotel, there would be no reason to ever leave the hotel, it had its own mall and spa and several restaurants, Bars all over the place. They make it feel special so you want to stay.. I wanted to stay.. well until it started filling up and then you see the kinda people that are drawn to this place and all you wanna do is leave.

So below are some pics of a bar in the casino .. the canino itself. Jerry stood by a sign asking you to not take live arms into the casino. Aaron by the gun he want to buy and that's only gonna happen if he leaves me and becomes and assassin LOL.














OLD GUNS

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Cabin and a twisted ankle

Thanks giving means lots of Turkey dinners and food, so in reality people over here get 2 Christmases. !!! no gift giving at thanks giving but lots of food. Its a big holiday and aaron had the best part of a week off.. So we went to the cabin, its Grandmas cabin, Granddad and Grandma built it and its been a family thing since then Granddad Fran passed away in 97 i believe so its a very special place for the family now. Its actually 2 cabins one small one that looks like a typical cabin not wooden tho its like a red house with a tall pointy roof. Cabin 2 the big one its more like a house.
Aaron and i invited another couple . Robert and Nina with their girls, Megan10 and the twins Courtney and Gabby. Robert and Aaron grew up together and they are very funny together.. Well Robert like to wind Aaron up and its funny! Nina is super cool to she is on Body4life too.. i still have to write a blog about that for you so you understand when i refer to it. This is Robert below Nina's Husband and Aaron's childhood buddy, can you see the mischievousness written all over this face?


We got to the cabin on Thursday eve.. This was a working weekend for Aaron and i really. the cabin has water pipe line that needed to be laid we had already been up the Monday to measure how much to buy.. it was then scrambling up this mountainside that i injured my healing ankle and the rest of the week i was limping.
We arrived to hot steaming soup thanks to Wendy (A's mum) and then made our way to cabin one is a 2 min drive up hill. We all crowded in to the cabin found our beds and settled in. It was around this time i decided to go to the truck to get my bag. Did i mention that there is no electricity at the cabin, we have gas lights and otherwise it torches or flashlights. no one responds when i ask for a torch! the road is paved but there is a steep curve and th forest floor well in the dark this is recipe for me to have some kind of accident and sure enough im walking confidently to the truck and suddenly i loose my footing and my ankle rolls over onits self and i hear a CRUNCH!!! the pain is so intense everything goes black and i see shafts of white lightning in my eyes. Im lying on the ground rolling around in pain and Tootsie jumps on my chest and Sherman starts to lick my face. All i can think is were is Lassie when you need him.. After a few minutes Aaron appears followed by Nina apparently they could hear my dainty calls for help.. !!! I thought i sounded like distressed animal but ill stick with dainty thanks.
Aaron and Robert pulling faces.


The rest of the weekend i spend feet up while everyone works..! Great impression to be made on the inlaws right!! thankfully i had the girls and Nina to keep me company. The weekend was full of great food. I had my first Pumpkin Pie.. OH my gosh its like heaven in a pie..nto to be confused with crumble thats mushy this is more like a cheese cake consistency but not.. which is good as i hate cheese cake but its the best way to describe it to you.. i also has pear crunch which is like a crumble but with granola and oats on top. I also had polish sausage and sourkrote which is ok, even better with mustard, its like a huge hotdog and instead of onions you get the shredded cabbage that looks like onion..
i spent the rest of the weekend playing card games and hobbling around the cabins.. it was a really nice weekend we watched WALL-E you have to see it if you havent its so cute!! we also made smores, which are marshmallows and melted chocolate between gram crackers. I didnt like the crackers they are like digestive biscuits but square and were to thick, they over powered the yummy gooey chocolate and marshmallow .. below is one of the twin perfecting her cooking technique LOL


well thats a quick upadte ill add pics later hope you are all well... miss you