The Gingerbread Extravaganza

When my family started planning for Christmas holidays this year, the topic of gingerbread houses came up.  In the past, my dad has helped make some really cool ones, like the hobbit hole that he made with our cousins.  What started as a joke about making Lonely Mountain (clearly, there's a theme here - we're big Hobbit fans), turned into an actual plan to make Lonely Mountain and the lake and Laketown with the dwarves coming down the river in barrels.  So not just any gingerbread house, but an extravagant gingerbread scene.  It wasn't a quick process - it took the better part of a week - and there were many people involved.  In the end though, it looked pretty awesome!!!

It started off with a big tabletop and rice krispies sculpted and molded into the shape of Lonely Mountain.  Also molded out of rice krispies were the rocky hills by the mouth of the river and the head of Smaug, which was then covered in chocolate.  The lake was made out of crushed jolly ranchers, which were melted in the oven and then sealed together with extra jolly rancher powder and a propane torch.

putting Smaug onto the pipe

After that, my mother made some marshmallow fondant to cover Lonely Mountain and the hills. Then we used Rolos and more fondant to make the dwarves in the barrels.

dwarves in progress!  The one in the back has its legs sticking out

Once all of the lake pieces were sealed together, we made Hollywood glass (sugar glass) to pour on top of it to make it even and less sticky.  At first, it was glassy and reflective, but it ended up becoming super sticky later on.  Humidity maybe?  We had to be really careful while pouring out the molten sugar since it could burn us badly.  It also hardened a lot fast than we anticipated, making the spreading difficult.  The Hollywood glass also turned the lake kind of green.  Not what we were expecting!

making the Hollywood glass

Then it was time to make the gingerbread houses!  We cut out the pieces, and then they were glued together with royal icing and set aside to be decorated.

Then, I got to decorate Lonely Mountain with gold coins (butterscotch wafers sprayed with metallic paint) and decorate the arch welcoming the dwarves into Laketown.

Next came the bridge into Laketown, which would also cover the wires and the battery pack for the LED lights we were putting beneath the houses.  Once the bridge was built, we laid out the position of the houses with toothpicks and set graham crackers on top of the lights to hold them in place until the houses were finished.

Then it was time for the houses!!!  My older sister had a couple of her fellow PhD students over to help decorate, and they did a great job!  My sister's house had a deck and a hot tub out back, one of the other houses had a big face on it, and a third house had a circular window cut out with a candy man sticking out of it.  My house was the last to go on, and it had a little porch and a ladder going down to a canoe molded out of a tootsie roll.  We laid a little floating path between the houses and cut up some Swedish fish to look like they were jumping out of the lake.

This is what it looked like in the end!!!

The final touch was to make smoke come out of Smaug's mouth.  This was done with some tubing, tupperware, and dry ice.  It looked really cool!  Of course, we couldn't just leave it at that...  Since we had a filmmaker staying with us, there had to be a video!  Sadly, I missed out on this last bit of fun (and on eating the thing!) since it happened just after we left for Texas.  Overall though, it was a really fun process!  An extravaganza for sure :)

2013 Smaug from Joe Winston on Vimeo.

A New Chapter

Last semester ended in stretch of insanity.  Over the final 3 weeks of the semester, I had over 60 pages of writing to turn in, in addition to finishing up classes and 5 final exams.  Once all the school craziness had finished, we immediately began packing up our apartment and selling off all of our furniture.  Somewhere in there Christmas shopping had to happen, and we spent most of the week around Christmas at my parents' house hanging out with family and friends and building an extravagant gingerbread scene (more on that later).  We then packed the rest of our belongings into our car and my sister-in-law's car, whose husband had driven out with Jeff's other brother-in-law to help us move our things across the country.  We drove to Nashville first, stayed the night, and then drove the rest of the way the next day, arriving just outside of Dallas just in time to watch the Eagles beat the Cowboys for the divisional title.  This Eagles fan was very excited!

So why all this craziness?  When we found out last summer that my father-in-law had cancer, I decided to load up on classes so I could take my final two classes in the spring online.  This would give us the freedom to go out to Texas and spend time with Jeff's family, helping out wherever we were needed.   Thankfully, my father-in-law is doing much better now, and is c recovering from a bone marrow transplant.  A lot of things just fell into place once we decided to move forward with this plan, for instance, Jeff found a replacement at work and had several months to train him, and our lease would run out right when we were planning on leaving.  The only major thing that could derail the plan at that point was if I didn't pass all of my classes.  Taking 6 was a huge stretch for me.  My migraines got worse with all the extra work, but it somehow all got done.  My final semester of college would be two online classes, Fundamentals of Music and Introduction to American Art History.   These two classes are all that stand between me and graduation in May!

So now we're in Texas.  We don't know how long for, but right now we're just enjoying the time we have with family and settling in to a new chapter of life.  With such a small load, I have more time to do the things I enjoy, like reading books for fun and working on hand-lettering.  I'm really excited about the time I have to spend with my adorable nieces and nephews too!  I never thought I'd live in Texas, especially just outside of Dallas, but it's shaping up to be quite the adventure.

farewell to Carrboro!

Campfire Worship

If you look up the Rend Collective Experiment on YouTube, you'll find a lot of pretty fun folk rock worship music.  Their music and vision inspired our college ministry's leadership team to put on a night of worship for the local college ministries. One of our church members has this fantastic property (often used for weddings) and generously allowed us to use it for our event.  It was a cold night, so we had a big fire going, outdoor heaters, and lots of hot apple cider.  It was such a fun night!! The music was great, the atmosphere was beautiful, it could not have gone better.

the inside of the pavilion

some of my sweet friends in the college ministry, Shelby, Keely, Grace, and Liz

my dear friend Alace

with Gemma and my younger sister

Fall Break

Jeff and I had lofty plans for fall break this year - we were going to go to the State Fair on that Thursday, and then we were going to head towards the coast to spend a few days camping.  Unfortunately, two days before break I found myself on the floor, unable to get up without Jeff picking me up.  I had somehow strained the muscles in my back, and I was in a whole lot of pain.  So we decided that since I couldn't carry a pack, we would postpone the camping until another weekend.  Instead, we hung out with my family, went to the State Fair on Friday, and I got to go to a fantastic  conference with a good friend of mine on Paul Miller's book A Praying Life.  It wasn't the break  I had expected, but it was fun and relaxing.  Given my school schedule over the next month, I especially needed that.

Jeff got to hang out in an old helicopter

An ent! Climbing over a power scooter too...

Deep fried pumpkin pie.  Yes.  It was delicious.

One of the sweet college ministry girls decorated this cake and won honorable mention for the amateur cake decorator division! 

This is Mary.  She's our college minister's wife.  She also has a PhD and teaches chemistry. She is one of the coolest people EVER.  Here, she's demonstrating what happens to a balloon when you put it in liquid nitrogen at a chemistry booth at the State Fair.

our view from the Ferris Wheel

And of course, gotta have a picture to celebrate two years since Jeff proposed!  Love my husband :)

A Busy Semester

Most semesters, I get to the halfway point and feel like it's going so slowly.  This semester is different.  I don't think I've ever had a semester go by so quickly.  We just finished week 8, and there are only 7 weeks worth of classes left.  It's been really busy - almost every weekend since the start of school, we've been doing something, frequently out of town.  I'm taking extra classes this semester, and I'm still involved in a lot of church things.  All this means that I wake up on Friday morning and I have no idea what happened to the week.  I like it!

it's been a really fun semester over all.  Some of the highlights so far: weddings, a beach trip with the college group, two awesome friends coming to visit, arts and crafts, the farmers market, an outdoor worship service, and pumpkin spice lattes.  I love fall.  The colors, the smells, and especially anything/everything pumpkin.

enjoying an early morning walk on the beach

I caught a crab!

hey, Macy!

my dearest friend, Anna Lisa, who was also one of my fabulous bridesmaids

sketching out some hand lettering for my Grammie Esther's 90th birthday

the finished card

learning to tie bows, wrapping with fabric, and hand lettering on the card... this was one crafty wedding gift!

got some fantastic fresh locally made mozzarella cheese at the farmers market!

new favorite. Chai Spice peanut almond butter.  freshly milled, from Big Spoon Roasters in Durham.  perfect with Gala apples!

outdoor worship service, complete with a proper bagpiper! 

a great night.  my sister was singing! (she's on the right)

might be my favorite thing about fall. I love love love pumpkin spice lattes...

Bring on the next half! Next week is fall break, which means state fair and (hopefully) some camping.  Once November rolls around, I'll be registering for classes for THE LAST TIME HALLELUJAH.  It's the homestretch.  Next thing I know, it'll be Thanksgiving and time for cramming and exams.  As excited as I am for what's coming, I'm also just really enjoying my day to day.  It's a good feeling.

Weddings

Clearly, I have hit that point in life when a lot of my friends are getting married.  We got to celebrate Ruth's wedding over the summer, and once school started, my sweet cousin got married.  This past weekend, one of my closest friends from high school got married, and in a little over a month, another one of our good friends from Jordan is getting married.  What joy!  So here are some pictures from the last two that I enjoyed so much:

we got to hang out on a beautiful private beach in NY

a little fuzzy, but you can still see that big smile!

making their vows

my sister was a bridesmaid! and she made that dress by herself! crafty runs in the family :)

me and my sweet cousin, Kayla

we have a completely normal relationship.

This past weekend was Macy's wedding. Macy's name isn't Macy, it's Ben, but when he introduced himself at YoungLife camp in 2007, he said "I'm amazing" and we heard "I'm Macy."  We've called him that ever since.  Macy and I became really good friends throughout that week, and we kept in touch after we left.  We would take turns making road trips to hang out with each other.  When I got married, Macy had arrived in the US that morning from a trip to Israel, got straight on another plane to Texas, and showed up at the church just in time.  He also came by to visit a few weeks ago at the tail end of a fundraising trip (he's going to be an area director for YoungLife in PA), which was fantastic.  This time, it was my turn to hit the road and see him marry a beautiful, fun woman in upstate Virginia.  It was an outdoor wedding - on his grandparents' property right on the Shenandoah River.  I was so caught up in the ceremony that I forgot to take pictures - it was that beautiful. I was so excited to celebrate his marriage with his friends and family.  I did manage to get a couple photos after the ceremony:

my ridiculously tall date / younger sister... (I was cheating with 3 inch wedges)

marriage: the great adventure!

the party tent!

his wedding...

my wedding... Sharptop Cove buddies since '07!