Stained Glass



After thinking about adding a stained glass window to our entry for 25 years, I finally designed this window.  The window took weeks to cut out and then time to solder it together and paint the patina onto the solder. Last night I got two of the panels in place and then had to ask for help from Mike to get the other three to stay. This morning when I looked into the entry, I saw the colored glass illuminated from the natural light.  I'm glad I took the time to make this. I can see things I'd change but for now, this project is done once I add a little more silicone to the edges of the glass. (The silicone is holding the glass in place).

WARNING...If you come visit, please don't slam my front door! I'm not sure how secure the glass truely is.
Opps, I just noticed that one of my ship plates is crooked...I must fix that tonight.

Sigtuna; second oldest town in Sweden

Grandpa carried me all over the place.

In front of Saint Mary's, a really, really old church...

Grandpa found a feather for me. It tickled me.

Viking inscriptions, this little guy seems to know what they are saying, too bad he can't say the words...yet.

Stockholm Half Marathon

Mike at 22k notice the palace in the background.

Entertaining our grandson while Grandpa runs the half marathon...at a swan fountain.

Grandpa proudly holding his grandson after the race..."hum, let me taste that metal Grandpa".

The bridge packed with runners...13,560 runners participated in this race. WOW!

Traditional Felt Christmas Stockings

In my spare time and while traveling, I listened to Amy's suggestion to make extra Christmas stockings for future family members...hopefully, they'll each like their special, one of a kind CANDRIAN traditional felt stocking.

Sock Puppets

Sock puppets and Sunbeams are a perfect match. Sunday's lesson was on birds and insects. I made a sock puppet for each child and let the children act out the story of the pioneers and how the seagulls ate the crickets (the white and grey socks became seagulls). I also told the story of wicked King Ahab and how the prophet Elijah was told to hide and the ravens feed Elijah bread and meat by the brook day and night (the black socks were the ravens). The stripped socks became caterpillers with a lot of little pom pom legs!  For directions on making these sock puppets go to http://mikejoycandrian.blogspot.com/2013/04/sew-busy-puppet-making.html

So, whenever you have mismatched socks, or socks that no one will wear anymore and your children are not living at home and you decide to clean out their drawers... why not make sock puppets? My Mom use to make these for her little children a long time ago. For more tips on making these go to: http://www.daniellesplace.com/HTML/puppets.html

(Mike modeling the raven puppet).

Yes, birds have tongues. Did you know that they have 5 bones in their tongues to crunch nuts, seeds and insects?

Some birds have a tongue like a straw...guess which kind of bird has that kind of tongue.

Lorene Park, Portland, Oregon

Last Sunday, before we boarded our plane to fly back home to Utah, Mike drove me by my old neighborhood. The brick pillar is the first sign which indicated where to turn into my old childhood neighborhood; off of Glisan onto 108th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. This pillar is where the children from my neighborhood lined-up to catch the bus for school, we'd have races to the pillars and other games were played around the pillar. The neighborhood looked like it had shrunk. Is that possible or are my memories bigger than life? The old house had changed so much, it didn't look like my home. I shed a few tears. Good thing Mike understood how I was feeling. What are the signs you think of when you think about the home you grew-up in?

My parents moved into Lorene Park in 1954, the year my older sister was born. I remember Mom stating that the neighborhood use to be a peach orchard.  

SIGNS

"SIGN SIGN EVERYWHERE A SIGN..." Andrea commented on her memories of the "fish" sign....

...so I decided to take a few pictures of signs. It's interesting how signs

can bring back memories. . .

SIGNS can also provide Warnings...

On Sunday, we saw this sign and watched as a couple totally ignored the sign and walked up the side of this mountain...maybe they couldn't read English or figure out what the symbol on the sign stood for...hum? Do we do this in our lives, totally ignore warning signs?