being creative

This weekend I headed up a 3 person crew to make the boutonieres and corsages for my friend Amy's wedding. I also created the bridesmaids' bouquets. I have to say, I'm very proud of the end result.
Congratulations to Amy & Brett on their marriage!

Lessons learned

Things I’ve learned gardening:
1- I shouldn’t wear the world’s best Australian sheep skin slippers when I water the plants.*
2- Watering the plants increases the chances of rain the next day
3- It’s a never ending battle against sticks & branches falling from my trees.
4- It will always take longer than expected to tend the garden.
5- Forget cilantro, but the other herbs grow well.
6- The backyard lawn may be 2/3 weeds, but it looks decent when it’s mowed.
7- Though I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, I kind of enjoy it.

* Most members of my family will highly recommend the Clobber Leather slippers. I am particularly fond of my Canberra Ladies Scuffs. Fabulous!
http://www.clobberleather.com.au

NYC in summer

It’s been a few weeks since I posted. It’s taken a bit to get caught up. But I have meant to post some pictures about the NYC trip. I flew from Toulouse to NYC for a planned weekend with my sister Hannah and two of her friends. This was different from my last two NYC trips which were tourist attraction focused. This time it was all about shopping. I got in a few hours after they did so after dropping everything off at the hotel, I met up with them in SoHo. We did a little shopping. It was a lot of fun and we especially enjoyed a great little boutique called Olive Bette’s. After dinner at Rosa Mexicano, we had ice cream at Serendipity. Yum! Saturday Hannah & I took a walk along 5th Avenue and into Central Park. I took her to my favorite spot in Central Park – the Bethesda Fountain.
Susan & Jenny joined us outside of Carnegie Hall in order to catch a double decker bus tour. That was an experience as our first bus ran a red light in Times Square and the driver got ticketed. Our guide had to beg the driver to stop and let us off. Then 2nd bus had a great guide on it but we got off at Macy’s for lunch & some shopping. I love H&M! Our 3rd tour guide was an inane babbler. She told depressing stories and babbled non-stop even in the areas she told us she wasn’t supposed to be talking. It was neat to see parts of the city I would never go on my own. That night we went for dinner and then to see Mary Poppins at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Jet lag was setting in hard for me, I could hardly stay awake, and Hannah didn’t feel good – so the two of us left at intermission. Sunday Hannah and I went to the Cates for breakfast. Cory & Kari Jo are friends from Youth For Christ in high school. It was wonderful to hang out with them and their 4 kids for a few hours and catch up.
Then a little fabric shopping near Times Square and it was off to the airport. Storms caused a ton of delays and I was lucky to get out and make it home only an hour later than scheduled. Hannah & her friends’ flight was cancelled and they finally got home Monday afternoon.

The below picture was the whole reason for the trip to NYC. I have been in spring, fall & winter. I have a picture of this bridge in Central Park in each season and needed one in summer to complete the collection.

Toulouse & beyond

Well, I knew it would be a whirlwind, I just didn’t quite expect it to be this way. Spirit AeroSystems, Inc. won a work package on the Airbus A350XWB passenger airplane in May. That was the proposal team I worked on last year. I was able to rejoin the team at the beginning of June. Travel plans changed sometimes on an hourly basis. I received my finalized itinerary 5 minutes before I left work for Colorado. When we got back from Colorado Sunday night, I unpacked, did laundry and repacked and hopped on a plane Monday morning to head for Toulouse, France for two weeks.
On the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt I was upgraded to first class because they oversold business class. Nice! My program director was on the flight from Frankfurt to Toulouse, so I hitched a ride to work with him. We arrived in Toulouse about 3 pm local time Tuesday. It typically takes about 24 hours of travel time due to unavoidable layovers to get from Wichita to Toulouse. The rest of the team had arrived on Sunday (Spirit was gracious enough to work with my vacation plans). We went straight into a meeting. Then Airbus took us go-karting and to dinner. We were done about midnight and got back to the hotel about 1 AM. I was exhausted. They let me sleep in and picked me up at lunchtime. I had been up for about 35 hours.
We work long hours during the week so there’s not much to tell. A run to the marche for groceries, make dinner, and a few minutes to relax before bed. I did go out to eat one night and had grilled duck breast (magret de carnard) & crème brulee.
On Saturday, the 7 of us decided to head south to Banyuls-sur-Mer. It is a little town on the Mediterranean near Spain. Once we got south of Perpignon, we headed to the coast and drove through several small towns on set right on the sea. It is a rocky coast with cliffs and it was very windy. Beautiful views. We ate lunch in Cerbere at a café by the sea. If you look closely in the last picture you can see the blue awning of the café. We had a very animated waiter. A shellfish appetizer and paella for lunch – yum! We drove to the Spanish border a few kilometers away. Then back to a cove near Banyuls where two of the guys went swimming in the cold water. The beaches here are not sand – they are coarse & rocky. It was nice to go somewhere new since most of us where here for the 3 months last year.

Colorado

I went to Breckenridge, Colorado with 7 friends for a long weekend. We stayed in Janel’s uncle’s cabin – it was beautiful. The first day I drove down to Colorado Springs to spend a few wonderful hours with Jennette Ross and the kids. Travis was at work so I didn’t get to see him, but I had a great time catching up with Jennette and playing with the kids.
The 2nd day we went white water rafting with The Adventure Company in Buena Vista. Early June is peak water. We rafted 20 miles on the Arkansas River from Buena Vista into Browns Canyon. Because the water was running so fast they added 4-5 miles on to their typical full day excursion. It was Class II & III rapids. We had an absolute blast. In my boat, we lost Jeremy on a big rapid after lunch but got him back quickly. The photographer was right there and caught a great sequence of pictures of him falling out of the raft while Steve & I look aghast and Jen looks on nonchalantly. Unfortunately I don’t have those pictures to post at the moment. It was a great day. The backs of my hands were sunburned from holding the paddle out in the sun all day.
The 3rd day Jen, Steve and I did biking while the rest went horseback riding. We rented bikes in Frisco and they drove us up to Vail Pass. From there we rode on a paved bike path back down to Frisco, about 12 miles. Most of the time we were next to the rushing Ten Mile Creek. At Officers Gulch we took a break to tool around the lake and take a nap next to the creek.
It was a fun trip. We were early in the summer season. Peak water for rafting, and some things were open in Breck & Frisco, but it was fairly quiet. It was nice to be there before the summer rush.

Backyard Movie Night

Fantastic! Heather and I hosted a Backyard Movie Night in my soggy, almost completed backyard on Saturday night. We had a large turn out - 40 people. It was a lot of fun (though I tend to be a "Martha" when I host and am constantly making sure everything is in order). It rained hard Saturday morning and there was some hail so we weren't sure if we were going to have to move the festivities inside. The yard was still a little wet but we decided to take a chance and do it outdoors anyway. There was some thunder and lightning in the distance during the movie but we stayed dry. The movie by popular demand was Caddy Shack. I must admit I had never seen it before - we only had to censor one scene. I was surprised that everyone sat down to quietly watch the movie. We hung a tarp on the back of the house and clothes-pinned a white sheet to it. Borrowed Andy's projector, the Nickels' speakers, and Rob did all the A/V set up. Thanks! Everyone brought chairs and we filled up half the backyard. It was a smashing success.















The backyard flower beds are almost complete. We've had so much rain the last 2 weeks that it's been hard to get it finished (it's raining as I'm typing this). But I'm down to just laying the last 4 bags of mulch the next time it is dry. So here are the flower beds in all their glory. Sorry, the pictures are at twilight so they're a little dark but you get the gist of things. Hydrangeas next to the shed. Lots of hostas, ferns, ornamental grasses, coleus, and impatiens in the big beds.

Party in Overdrive

The Wichita River Festival was this past week. This year's theme was "Party in Overdrive". The only event I attended was Saturday night's grand finale. It's definitely the best thing about RiverFest. Hundreds of thousands of people converge on the banks of the Arkansas River downtown. The Wichita Symphony plays a pops concert culminating in the 1812 Overture with cannons shot off the Douglas Street bridge. And then there is the best fireworks display of the year.

The weather was perfect this year. A warm day that cooled down as the evening progressed, clear skies, slight breeze. It was gorgeous. I went with a group of friends that had some tarps staked out on the river bank east of Exploration Place in view of the Keeper of the Plains with a great view of the fireworks. We got there early enough to converge with the masses at the food court at Century II and run into several familiar faces.

Exploration Place

The Keeper of the Plains. There's a Rich Mullins song that has a line "where the sacred rivers meet beneath the Keeper of the Plains." This is what he's talking about. The Keeper is on the pedestal above the fires. The bridge is made to look like an airplane with a comtrail to note Wichita's #1 industry.

I finally got to try out the fireworks setting on my camera.