Crocheted Elmo

My other little neighbor, Olivia, has a birthday the day after TJ.  She loves Elmo, so I made her one from this pattern by Maggie Vassie that I found on Ravelry.  I was beyond pleased with how he turned out!

I had to do a little editing of this pattern in Word since I find it easier to crochet when patterns are in a certain notation.  I also made a few adjustments suggested by others on Ravelry(mostly for the mouth).  All my notes can be found in my Elmo project there.

Hello Kitty!

Get ready folks, I'm heading back off into crochet land!  My most recent creation is a Hello Kitty for my little neighbor TJ's birthday.  I think she turned out adorably.

I found the English translation of this Spanish pattern by Esperanza Rosas on Ravelry, though the English translation has a few mistakes.  I figured everything out by watching the Youtube videos accompanying the pattern on the website.  They're great even if you don't speak Spanish!

Honeymoon Part 2: Oahu

As I said in my last post, Oahu was like a whole different world.  Things didn't feel as relaxed.  Instead, it felt more like a slower version of the hustle and bustle of a city.  Maybe it's because we stayed in Waikiki.  There were a ton of shopping options everywhere and it felt like there were a lot more tourists as well.  We spent most of our time eating since we had such a long list of places we wanted to try.

Day 5:

We arrived in Oahu in the afternoon and went to pick up our rental car from the airport rentals area(which seemed extremely outdated and way too small for the number of visitors).  We immediately headed to our hotel, Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach.  It was a very nice hotel, but it was no Andaz.  Perhaps we did ourselves a disservice by staying at such a fancy place first.

Honeymoon Part 1: Maui

After taking the last year and a half to prepare for the wedding, it's weird to be back to normal life without anything to plan.  Everything came off as close to perfectly as possible and the honeymoon was exactly the relaxing time we needed.  We started off with a weekend road trip to Portland with a few friends who were in town for the wedding.  To sum that up:  we ate a lot of food(surprise!), visited the Tillamook factory, and took a drive up the coast.

Next, Jeff and I were off to Hawaii for a week and a half.  We started out the trip with 4 nights in Maui followed by 5 nights in Oahu.  It was an amazing trip, to say the least.

Jeff and his Birthday Cake

Jeff had been wanting a fruit cake from a local Asian bakery for quite a while, so he finally got one for his birthday this week.  Unfortunately, he didn't want his picture taken so he made every silly face in the book.

The cake was pretty, but just ok in taste in my opinion(I'm generally a less fruit more chocolate person).  Jeff said it was pretty good, but I bet he would have preferred something lemon.  Maybe I'll try for that next year.