What Chris has been up to... and other exciting topics

What haven't I been up to? I guess it's been a while since I made any posts, so now it's make up time. We'll start with the state of the art chicken coup I built.

I didn't build the actual coup, it was a playhouse given to us by a friend several years back. I did all the modifications and chicken yard construction.

This is Easter sitting in one of the nesting boxes, which is easily accessible through a hatch on the side of the coup.

This is the feeding area. It rains a lot here, and it isn't much fun to clean out the food when it is soaking wet. So the chickens have a nice covered area in which they can eat.

The black and white chicken is Wanda the Wyandotte. She's my personal favorite. I saw wyandottes at the Puyallup fair last year and thought they looked really cool. So I had to get one.

Knitting, a very addicting hobby

I have a cousin that knits and I was always in wonder at the things she made. I finally had a chance to learn from Chris' grandma. Chris also picked it up as she taught me so we both started knitting. Ever since then we have been adamantly supporting our local knitting shop.

Chris was the first conqueror of knitting hats. This one is for his mom with Alpaca/wool mixed yarn.

It turned out great and she loves it!

We got a small Japanese book with cap patterns and Chris whipped this one up for me using Alpaca/Peruvian wool. He's still going to add a flower on the top. It's super warm!

One of our cats Yumi has also taken to knitting. If anyone is knitting in the house she will sit in their lap. Actually right now as I am writing this she is sitting in Chris' lap watching him knit a scarf.

This is my second project, my second scarf. It's simple with just knit and purl stitches, but I like the way the texture turned out. It made it for Chris!

So Chris and I are cautious with knitting. There have been times when we thought to ourselves, "I'll just knit a row or two" and end up spending hours upon hours working on a project. It feels sooo good to create and finish something!

Wild Wet Adverntures in the Northwest

It's been forever since we last posted but I thought I might include this interesting story:
Around November it had been raining non-stop, Chris and I barely came back from a night out. I was walking across the laundry room in my socks and I noticed my feet were very cold and soaking wet. Worried, Chris checked out the storage room which is in our apartment and this is what we saw:

Water was seeping through the walls in our basement apartment quickly. Our landlord (Grandma) Kevin and Dad came over and we started battling the flood waters with towels, a water pump and the boys digging a little ditch with a pump for the water under the house to drain.

We worked until midnight and finally beat the water. Chris and I were still able to sleep in our apartment that night, but in the living room since the carpet in the main bedroom was damp.

Woo hoo for adventurous times!

Merry Christmas, happy holidays!

Ok it's been forever since we've updated. Christmas was great. Chris and I were spoiled silly. We got gift cards galore, awesome cookbooks, games, money and DVD's. Chris also made me a kitty scarf and adopted a polar bear in my name through WWF. I made him some artwork, a Wii game and Threadless t-shirts. New Years was easy going and quiet. Anyway, happy belated holidays!

International Cinema to DA MAX!!

I've been frustrated that Facebook doesn't have an application where you can list all the movies you've seen. Sort of like how in Visual bookshelf you can list all the books you've read....anyway...

Movie: Jodhaa Akbar
Language: Hindi
2008

My co-worker is from Nepal and she knows I'm a Bollywood fan so she passed this recommendation along, I'm so glad she did! In addition to being a visual spectacle this movie has a cute love story, an interesting plot and enough fighting and blood to satisfy the menfolk. I really loved this movie and the music was good in it too! For those of you who are unfamilar with Bollywood films, this one would be a good one to start with. Make sure you have enough time to enjoy all four hours of it. Also, most people aren't used to the musical structure of dancing and singing in all Indian movies but in this one it fits well with the overall tone of the film. It won the Audience award at the 32nd film festival in Sao Paulo.

Stars: Aishwarya Rai & Hrithik Roshan

Halloween Pumpkins

This year we carved pumpkins that Chris grew out of his garden. I have to brag that he's a pretty good gardener! He ended up with about 169 total pounds of pumpkins. He had a couple of giant ones and then about 29 small sugar pumpkins.

Chris also went all out with his carving skills! He took lots of time and care to do this one. His pumpkin inspiration is Ichigo, a character from the anime Bleach. As much as it is cool looking I think it's rather scary.

This is my pumpkin. It is much simpler in design and carving requirements, but I think it's just as twisted. My pumpkin inspiration came from my brain.

Katrina's Recommendations for November

Movie: Persepolis

It has already gathered a lot of attention since being released last year 2007. It was the official jury selection at the Cannes Festival and was nominated for an Oscar. It is a French film animated in primarily black and white. It follows the life of a young girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution. She travels abroad to France but is trying to make sense of her life and identity. It's is based on the life of one of the directors. It does deal with more adult themes of war, rebellion and the people she interacts with. It is funny as it is poignant.

Book: The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin

I picked this one up at a school book fair I was volunteering at. (I'm such a sucker for book fairs!) I wish I had this book while growing up. Pacy or better known by her American name Grace, is an Asian American growing up being the only Asian in her school of New Hartford, NY until Melody moves in. They quickly become friends and together try to figure out how they are so Chinese at school but then are so Americanized with family. It also has neat tidbits of culture in there. I related to many situations in there and I think everyone will appreciate the charm of it all. It's for 5th-6th graders and up.

Movie: On a Clear Day 

Jury prize winner at the Sundance film festival in 2005. It's a Scottish film about Frank, who after decades of dedicated work is laid off. He finds himself unhappy with not only dealing with unemployment but his estrangement to his son and distance between him and his wife. With nothing left he decides he wants to swim the English Channel with the help of his off beat friends. This film was just plain funny. Chris and I enjoyed the quirky humor and Scottish accents.