Going retro for Christmas cards

Here is the "Excelsior", the 5x8 table-top letterpress that was used to make the Christmas cards this year. Finally putting together rollers from the UK and springs/hooks from a press restoration store we got this little beast working!

Here is the vintage 1950s press die locked up in the "chase" and ready to go into the press.

This picture below is an action shot of Donna using the press, making sure it is ready and functioning before adding ink.

Below is the press all inked up and ready to print! (fact: we were able to dig up the ink we used for our wedding invitations back five years ago.)

We had to bolt the press down to the table and reinforce the table to make this guy work efficiently.

It took a little "make ready" time to get the press making the correct impression, but we eventually got it dialed in. Corey and all his 170lbs were used in making the deep impression that Donna demanded. (Donna didn't have the strength/weight to crank that little press down enough) If you received one of the Christmas cards, make sure to feel the lettering on the front and notice the impression (it came with blood, bruises, sweat, and tears!). He had a bruise going across the palm of his hand and thought he might have a stress fracture in his forearm, but seems to be just fine now (and Donna said that the sacrifice was worth it...easy for her to say)!

Donna "the riveter" flexing her arm and showing off her baby bump under her press coat. The cards turned out wonderfully for a small table-top press with not much psi but lots of heart (from the press operator, Corey)! Hopefully not much dust will collect on this press and it will be used again for future cards...

Coming soon: May 2010

So most of you know we are expecting by now... but if you missed it, here is a recap. Back on Donna's birthday we decided to announce the coming of baby Templeton. The picture below is what we used--Corey decorated a birthday cake with "the whole family", represented by the Incredibles. The Mr. and Mrs. Incredible adorned the top of our wedding cake back in July 05. Our due date for baby T is May 4th, 2010! Just a couple weeks ago we had a long-awaited ultrasound appointment when Donna was just over 19 weeks. We were excited to find out whether we were going to have a boy or girl. Below is Donna waiting to have the ultrasound. Here is our baby's first picture! Beautiful! It was amazing to see an image of the miracle growing inside of Donna! The technician was doing all the measurements to see how baby T is developing. All is great, and we have a healthy baby! Below you can see she was measuring the heartbeat. The original due date still stands, May 4th...only time will tell whether baby T decides to come into the world on that date or pick another! We decided that we did indeed want to know whether we were having a boy or girl - AND we are having a girl! Little baby T is now named little Faye (middle name TBD). The 4D ultrasounds are crazy...so amazing to see little Faye's hands up in front of her face (I wonder if she is going to stay that shy...living with us, we will see)! After MANY requests for "belly shots" here are a couple...and we will do our best to update as the weeks continue. At this point we are actually half-way through the pregnancy! It has taken awhile for the bump to show, but there is a little one (taken a week ago).Christmas shot with Donna and the bump! Recently we have been able to feel baby Faye move! Of course it is Donna that has been feeling the little kicks, what a crazy feeling! But Corey, desperately wanting to feel the baby as well continued to put his hands on the belly anytime it was mentioned that the baby was moving. One night he was actually able to feel the movements. It was like little Faye heard that her daddy wanted to feel her kick and she put on a show. Corey JUST NOW felt baby Faye kick again! We are sure there will be much more of that to come. Like we mentioned above, we will be updating belly shots, just keep checking back!

The Little Fluff Ball: Psapp

So we have mentioned that we got a new kitten but have not blogged about it. We are ashamed! Here is the blog on the little crazy kitten.

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The story of how we ended up with a third cat (we were not intending to get a third...it is then that you seem like you are those crazy cat people... I guess we are now). Donna met her friend Teagan at a cute bakery in Eugene and while enjoying great company, Donna was somewhat distracted with the wild kittens that were running around. These kittens pulled at her heart-strings—especially when she saw that they had a "teenage" mom who didn't seem very motherly. Toward the end of the discussion, Donna was quite sure she would be taking one home. Teagan—being the good reasonable friend, questioned this decision saying, "what will Corey say?" to which Donna's response was, "how could he resist this little kitten?" (even though the fleeting thought of being the "crazy cat lady" did pop into her mind—it was pushed away, reason being: you aren't crazy with three, it is four or more—as shown in this crazy cat lady action figure)Just as they were getting up, Donna saw a young girl carrying over the most precious wild kitten, and from that moment on she was determined to take THAT one home. Yes, she snatched a little kitten out of the girl's hands and said, "this one is mine" (Donna is not normally one to use her adult powers over a child, but here it paid off). The little girl was not going to take it home, she was just holding it (or so Donna would like you to think). SO, off to show Corey the new little addition to the family, Donna let this wild critter roam in the car. Psapp (she was named from the moment she was snatched) liked hanging out on Donna's shoulder and seeing the cars go by. Once Corey met this new little surprise, he too was captivated and there was never a question as to whether we would keep Psapp! So now that you know the story, here are some pictures of her!

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These next few shots were taken the first day we got her. We took countless pictures (love digital cameras) and here are the cutest of cute pics below. She likes climbing. I think it makes her feel like she has conquered something in her little state. Since she was a wild cat, there are a lot of "wild" tendencies that we are trying to rid her of—one being the claws that come out! Doesn't the one below just melt your heart? See why Donna couldn't resist her? She put up with a lot in these first few days. We felt that when Feist and Frou-Frou were young we didn't take enough pictures—so we are making up for it with Psapp's! (By the way, "Psapp" is another band with a girl lead singer...just like Feist and Frou-Frou. You should check the band out—very funky music called "toy-tronica" I think) Also going along with being wild—she had severe ear mites, flees, and worms—eeekk! So we had to quarantine her in our little downstairs bathroom. (so sad!) Donna took her to the vet immediately and though not in the room with Psapp, she heard her yelps and little cries all the way down the hall as they gave her shots, flee treatments and tried to rid her of all the ear mites. When we would come in and check on her, she would be curled up in the little window as shown below. She works as a great accessory—and already loves purses almost as much as Donna does! This shot has captured an expression showing that she is still getting used to people bombarding her with hugs, kisses and putting cameras in her face. We wanted to get a perspective shot so that we could take a picture of her later and see how much she has grown. Here she is about the size of Donna's spin shoe! As any cat, she LOVES to nap! We would prefer that she run around more in the day so that it would calm her down by our bedtime. The first few nights she just didn't know what to do on our large bed except bounce around on us and nibble at our fingers to get our attention. (she didn't last very long in the room before we shut her out until she settled down as she got older) Here Corey and Psapp are found taking a nap together. Awww, what great pals. (Corey does pretty well with 4 females in the house now! Maybe when we get a dog—not for a long while—we will get a male...) Psapp has quite a playful side. One in which the other cats will probably never get used to. Her favorite pastime is to torment the cats by chasing them all around the house. I don't think there is a day that goes by that there is not hissing going on. (Psapp never hisses, I think the hissing just entices her to continue the torment) It is pretty funny watching a kitten 1/3 of the girls size chase them around. She does also enjoy little toys. The other girls like watching her play (from a safe distance) with the toys. She is a bundle of energy, I think the girls get exhausted just watching her play. Look at how fearless little Psapp is! She will place her life in danger of being eaten by these large beasts called "humans". She gets quite curious when we eat food and if we let her, she would probably eat our half-chewed food in our mouth. Here Corey soothes the little savage beast with his guitar-playing. (I think she was content in the fact that she was sleeping directly on the sheet music) I forgot to mention that Psapp—like the other cats is a Siamese-tabby mix. Feist and Frou-Frou are "Flame-Point Siamese" because they have a mix of orange tabby and Siamese, leaving them with orange/brown tipped ears, striped tales, and faintly striped feet. Psapp is "Lynx-Point Siamese"—a mix of grey tabby and Siamese—which is why she has grey ears, striped tail, striped face, and striped feet. They go so well together! As rainy season comes, we get to see Psapp almost double in size. Instead of being the size of Donna's spin shoe, she is now big enough to fit in Donna's large rain boots. We did our duty as responsible cat-owners and had her "fixed" (even though she is an indoor cat like the others). They said to keep her from jumping and playing for 5 days and keep her limited in running for up to two weeks. Yeah right! She lasted 5 minutes before she was back to terrorizing the girls and jumping everywhere! Here she is jumping up for a toy (you can see her shaved belly). Psapp has definitely become part of the family. She loves being right in the middle of the activity—even if it means sleeping on your computer to get your attention! That is it. Our cat-obsessed blog is complete. Next blog will be focused on humans—we promise. And we can promise you we will NOT be getting any more cats! Three is quite enough for us.

The Visit in July...(two months later)

Finally we are updating our blog...apologies for the late entry!

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In July our dear SLO, CA friends, the Carters, came to see our new digs up here in Eugene. It was crunch time for Corey, as he was nearing the end of his quarter (which meant many close to all-nighters building models). Donna was able to entertain when Corey had to slip away to do work. We were able to go to something that we really enjoyed the entire summer up here in Eugene, Friday movies in the park. This one was the movie, Big... so much fun, love the chopsticks part! They play the movies on a big inflatable screen, bring your own chairs, they provide the popcorn—perfect!

Donna made sure that the Carters got to go to one of Donna’s favorite clothing stores, Buffalo Exchange. All left happy with “new” old clothes.

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So after an almost all night of building a model, we took Joel and Sarah to Eugene’s Saturday market—because everyone here in Eugene knows that the best way to understand Eugene to its fullest is to witness this event! Below is one of the performers at the market. (we have seen unique performers bang on the neck of a guitar—or what was left of a guitar—with a spoon, so this performer was impressive in comparison).

After we had our fill of the market, we headed on up to Portland for a day trip. Especially for Sarah, we went to the Rose Gardens as the first stop. Founded in 1917, Portland’s International Rose Test Garden is the oldest official, continuously operated public rose test garden in the United States...and Portland is called the “Rose city”, so it was fitting to visit! We got quite carried away with all of the photo ops. Here Joel, Sarah, and Donna all take time smelling the roses (while Corey plays paparazzi as he does so well). There were different sections of the garden, and many interesting rose-names, we just could not help but take pictures at many of them. Below Donna is doing her best attempt at a dainty royal wave, if she had tripped over the roses in front of her I think it would have become a royal flush! (waah wahh) The romantic rosey atmosphere brought out the best in the couples.

For all of the shots in this rose garden, you can thank Corey and Sarah, caught in the act. Awww, here is more of the romance that we were looking for in this beautiful garden. These roses were called “Dream Come True”. And not to be outdone, Corey and Donna show their take at romance... well the roses were called “Passionate Kisses”. Do not worry, this is an exaggeration of their kisses... or so you hope! Donna showing the excitement of golden petals at the flowers named “Strike it Rich”. Sarah and Donna were attempting at...“Voluptuous” as these roses were named. Sarah is doing well with her hand on the hip but Donna... not so sure about that pose. Yay, frolicking in the roses. (it is fun aside from the things called thorns reaching out for us) Sarah is in her element here among the beautiful roses. Around the rose garden and Washington park, the guys just happened to find prime examples of Dr. Evil, with the help of their pinkie. None of us could remember the last time we were on seesaws! Corey and Joel’s goal was to balance on the seesaw. Ahhh, very calming guys. Sarah and Donna’s goal was to fly as high as possible. So fun! Each one of us had different ways of expressing how we liked the garden.

An amazing event happened while at the garden... and it was caught on film...

(So what did you think of the video? Pretty amazing huh? Well, we thought it was.) • Sarah was excited about going to the Shakespeare section of the rose garden. In this portion they have all of the herbs, trees, foliage that are mentioned in his plays. She is teaching Hamlet and was looking forward to finding some Hemlock to take a picture for her students. We searched and searched and could not find any. Donna even tried to ask the trumpet flowers... they hadn’t a clue. Little did Sarah know that she had seen hemlock the ENTIRE visit with us. Right before they arrived Donna went and picked some beautiful wildflowers to have on display in the house for the guests. She even went so far as to say that if she could do it again, she would just pick wildflowers like these for wedding flowers! Well, no one knew that it was the poisonous HEMLOCK that Donna picked! So here is the beautiful deadly bouquet that was used to welcome guests:

Most evenings we got to have dinner together and make homemade ravioli, yummy salads, and—as shown below—a new pesto pizza...YUM! Sunday afternoon while the boys went to play golf, the girls went to get manicures. Sarah, Teagan (friend from Ekklesia), and Donna had to do a little hunting to find a place open on a Sunday but were successful! At the end of the manicure, Sarah convinced Donna to “brave” a little design on her toes. Sarah was getting flowers... one of the workers decided to join in the discussion (of course they get paid more if you get a design) and he said that he can do wild flames on the toes. So as a dare, and just for Sarah, Donna went for the flames. The little nail shop had never seen flames done so crowded around Donna were all the workers looking on as she had flames added to her big toes! It was quite an event. The guy who did the flames wanted Donna to come back in and next time get zebra stripes or leopard print. (not a chance) When Donna got home she felt inspired by the flames and grabbed an outfit that was more “Harley”. That night was a crazy event that only Joel got to witness (as Corey was busy working away), poor guy. Sarah and Donna picked out a movie that was supposed to be a nice Christian movie that was like The Notebook but it turned out FAR from that. Horrible acting and cliche lines lead to insanity between Donna and Sarah. Seeing a side that Donna has never seen, Sarah busted out her “sassy” comebacks that left Donna’s jaw dropping to the ground. Unfortunately no photos were taken during this crazy time (Joel was probably too scared to do so, can't blame him) we do have the image of the movie. DON’T RENT THIS BELOW. The quote on the box says “If you liked The Notebook, this film will hold you in its emotional grip...” Yeah—if you consider an emotional grip being delusional laughter and tears because of the poor acting, then yes. Joel and Sarah got a brief tour of the campus and were able to see the actual model that Corey (and Donna at times) spent hours creating. As well as seeing other drawings and projects he had done throughout the quarter. Reenacting the “support” role that Donna played throughout the quarter, we posed for a photo-op.

After campus, Sarah and Donna lured the guys to a wonderful little place they had discovered by chance. It is a cute little patisserie that has delicious chocolaty desserts.

We all indulged.

We LOVED having the Carters stay at our place. It was truly a blast! Now if we could only get them to move up here! • Next blog: camping fun... to come.