It's Official....

I'm 70 years old.  That's right.  If you were to listen of a description of my current life you would probably think I was a 70 year old woman.  I go to "coffee mornings", play cards, cook, walk my dog, and now I can add quilting to the list.  Yep, quilting.  In general, I have no desire to be a quilter.  However I do have the desire to learn how to use my sewing machine and just generally know how to sew.  There is a Saudi lady, Nora, that lives here in Jubail and is an excellent quilter.  She occasionally teaches beginner quilting classes and some of the other ladies here were nice enough to invite me along for the class.  I was the only one in the class who was a true beginner.  I couldn't even get my machine out of the case the first day.  The class was 2 days a week for 3 weeks.  We would work from 9:00am- 1:00pm.   In the class we learned how to pick fabric, cut fabric accurately (hopefully), and sew things together.
I was lucky and had a fun group of ladies to take the class with.  There were 7 ladies in the class, 5 of whom are Chevron wives like me.  Of course I was the youngest in the class.  I am the youngest with most things that I do during the day.  All of these ladies are so much fun to be around and the helped make my frustrations with sewing more enjoyable.  Here are some pictures of our class.

Judy and Lori

Cindy and Lonna

Me pretending to sew 

Lonna

 One evening I received a "Flat Stanley" from a relative in the States.  I decided he needed to go to quilting class with me and get a picture with a real Saudi lady.  Nora was so nice to agree to put her full covering on and take a picture with "Flat Stanley".

3.5 weeks later and many hours of cutting and sewing I had my first quilt (almost) finished.  I really liked the end result.  Since we had worked so hard in class Nora decided our last class would just be a party time.  Cindy hired Lindsey to bake us a really cute cake and other ladies brought some snacks.  We were also able to show off our finished projects. 

Lindsey's cake

My 1st quilt

Our class: Lori, Nora, Christianne (?), Lonna, Cindy, Else (?), Me, Judy

Happy Quilting!

Who done it?

A few years ago on  a whim I bought a Mardi Gras themed murder mystery game.  I haven't ever had the opportunity or inspiration to actually play it until recently.  Now for the making of a Mardi Gras party in the Magic Kingdom....


First of course, I started with the game. 

Then I had to pick a date that didn't fall during our vacation, Micah's birthday, Brooks and Lindsey being gone, etc.  So we ended up with February 17.  After picking the date I carefully chose characters for everyone and sent out the invitations. 

Over the next couple of weeks I started shopping for Mardi Gras decorations....in Saudi Arabia.  It wasn't as difficult as I had expected.  We have a large craft store in Khobar that actually had masks, and mardi gras colored tinsely garland stuff (not sure what to call it).   We also have a store called "Party Land" that has all the normal party store type things where I found table clothes and other fun items.  

A typical Mardi Gras item is a "King Cake".   I absolutely love king cakes but there is no way I was going to get one here.  So I decided to try to make my own.  Maybe not the best decision ever but I learned a lot about making bread and baking.  I learned so much that I was fortunate enough to make two different cakes (enter sarcasm here).  Here are some of my cake making adventures:

As you can see, the second one turned out much prettier.  So I decided to proceed with that cake. Now to poor on the icing and add the sprinkles.  I had to make my own colored sprinkles so my purple didn't turn out very purply but you get the idea. I would say in the end it tasted....ok. 

The morning of the party it was time to decorate.  Instead of explaining I will just show some fun pictures. 

While I was decorating my wonderful husband was cooking his fabulous gumbo.  I helped with the occasional steps such as deboning chicken and chopping up onions but other than that dinner was all Micah. I would have taken a picture but he was cooking shirtless... ;)

Now for the best step of all.  Having amazing friends who completely played along and played their parts very well.  I can't even explain how grateful I am for these people.  We had a great time trying to figure out "Who done it?"

Cherie- Gothic writer Connika Gothika, Heather-Queen of the ball Alexis, Me- Las Vegas cocktail waitress Mrs. Dupree, Laura- Bourbon DuPre's wife, Lindsey- French maid Elise 

Matt- Lawyer of the deceased Mr. Peek, Dan- Law school student/cajun "Gator", Micah- didn't really have a part so I made him Hugh Hefner, Brent- jazz musician Bourbon Dupree, Brooks- chef Cayenne Pepper

Playing through our parts over a wonderful dinner of Gumbo

Just to be clear, all drinks served were alcohol free ;)

Me and Hef 

Thanks everyone for making the party so much fun!