Father's Day 2014....and the Death of Little Red's battery

Father's Day this year was a quiet day. Mom was out of town visiting the new grand-baby, so Dad just had me and my brother Doug to celebrate.  On Saturday, Dad and I hung out, going shopping for random things. We ended up comparing prices and buying stuff on Amazon anyway. But it was fun to get out and about.

Dad treated me to a lunch at A&W. It's been awhile since I had one of their Root Beer Floats:

Then on Sunday, I made my dad go on a treasure hunt. Mom had bought him a BYU trash bin when we were in Provo in May. But since she was going to be away for Father's Day she had me put together a treasure hunt.

I had seven clues leading him to different parts of the house. The only one that stumped him was the clue for mom's computer...he never uses it so he couldn't remember what color it was. But eventually he succeeded in finding his gift.

We had a nice small dinner afterwards and Dad made one of his watermelon pies. So we had a nice evening relaxing....

Now today, Tuesday....I have to add how my Dad saved me. I got up, worked on this blog, got ready for work, did some exercises, and headed out the door. Doing my normal boring routine...until I turned the key in my car....and my car didn't start. That was NOT in my normal routine. So I had a bit of a panic. I called my Dad...no answer, I called Doug....no answer. I was stranded at home. So I called work and my co-worker went and got the mail for me. Finally my Dad called me back and told me he had been getting ready for work with his phone on silent.

He came over as quick as he could and took me to work. After work he helped me put in his spare battery into my car, my car battery had finally died.

 

The problem with the new battery though is that it is a little too short for my car. My car now runs, so it will get me too and from work. That is all I needed.

Dad used some ceramic tiles given to us by my friendly maintenance man. So now the battery is secure and not going anywhere...for now.

Mr. Fix-it ....kind of a silly picture

Thanks again Dad, love ya! And Happy Father's Day.

Nacho Normal Cheesecake

This last Christmas I got this fun cake cook book. It has many many fun and creative cakes and treats. I can't wait to try them all out.

One of the recipes was for this fun cheesecake that looks like a bowl of yummy nachos.

 I had a lot of fun making this cheesecake. Most of the toppings are candies. But the actual cheesecake is a yummy lemon vanilla cake made with yellow and red food coloring.

 The cheesecake is then topped with a sour cream / sugar mix and set aside to cool for two hours. While the cake was cooling I made the "chips". The chips were made out of a pie crust that was sprinkled with milk and sugar. Then sliced into little triangles and cooked for about 8 minutes.

This little "chip" are really yummy...I'd just eat them for a snack. You let them cool completely. After the cake is cool, the fun starts. You top it with the "chips". The "tomatoes" are made with Swedish Fish candies cut into squares and mixed with strawberry jam. The "meat" is chocolate covered raisins. With little cuts of green licorices for "chili". And I used gummy life savers for olives. The "nacho cheese" was another mixture of sour cream and sugar, dyed orange. The results was this:

A nice yummy bowl of "nachos." Looks good enough to eat. This was the funnest cheesecake I've ever made. Can't wait to try some of the other recipes.

I'm an Aunt for the 5th time!!

Just wanted to share my excitement. My littlest brother and his wife had their first baby yesterday. He's such a little cutie. So pleased to introduce little Daniel:

Memorial Day 2014

This year we really didn't do much for Memorial Day except enjoy an extra day off of work. Mom and I finished my chair cushions. And Dad grilled some stuff outside. I spent most of my day watching movies and chatting with long distant friends. It was a nice relaxing day. Here are some pictures of our picnic.

Dad making Root Beer

 

We also had some watermelon pie on Saturday... Yummy!!

It was just a nice day spent with friends and family.

Crafty with Cushions

The other day I was looking at my dining room chairs and thinking...I wonder how hard it would be to make some chair cushions. So I turned to the internet to see how it was done. After checking a few websites I was pretty confident that I could make some....with my mom's help. I don't really sew.

My first step was to trace the chair seat and since I only had Christmas tissue paper, I got a pretty creative pattern.

This was on Tuesday of last week....the rest of my week got really crazy. So I didn't get a chance to go shopping for materials until Friday night. And with the Memorial Day holiday coming up I got most of my supplies half off.

I went with a really pretty jade green color linen. The color looked great with my dark wood chairs. The next step was to cut out the foam. I'd never cut foam so I wasn't sure how to do it. I tried a knife first then the kitchen scissors. The scissors did the job.

After I got the foam shaped into the patterned I wanted, I laid it on the fabric and cut around it. Getting a top and bottom piece.

And this is where I called in the reinforcements....my mom. She can sew and she thought it was pretty simple.

We sewed the "pillow case" covering and stuffed the foam inside. Leaving a gap in the back to attach the tie strings.
 
















With all six finally finished today, I took them home to see if they worked out.

I am extremely happy with how they came out. One of these days I'm going to learn how to put buttons in them so they have a more quilted look. But for now they turned out perfect.

My Dad the Voice Actor

My dad took a voice acting class back in August of 2013 just for the fun of it. Just to see if it would be a good hobby to take up. After a few classes, his teacher thought he had the talent to do it for real. So ever since then my dad has been very excited about working as a part time voice actor. He's been going to his teacher's master class and getting really excited about trying this voice acting thing. So when my parents moved into their new home, my dad picked out a perfect place to build sound booth. Here are the fun photos of it's build:

First Dad had to empty the closet in his den

Then when my older brother was in town for Christmas, he helped put the frames up

 Nothing moved ahead on the project until my Uncle Randy and Mike came into town in February. Then things started to happen.

Uncle Randy taking a break.

 

 They added another foot onto the frames, moved my dad's overhead fan over about a foot in the ceiling. And put some drywall up.

Dry walls up.

Window in.

Dry wall smoothed out and texture added.

Then Uncle Randy and Mike left and things kind of stopped for a bit. Finally in April Dad decided to paint the whole den. Which is where Mom and I came in. We are the family painters. And in just a couple of hours we had the room and sound booth painted.

 

Got a little paint on my fingers...but I like that, I'm a artist.

 And Dad was able to move his stuff out of the hallway and back into the den...much to Mom's delight.

Next was just the finishing touches to really make it into a sound booth. Doug wired the fans and Dad removed the old carpet to be replaced by hard wood floor.

The air intake fan.

Doug laying the hardwood

Very nice job

The last touch to the floor was a multi purpose rug and a nice door threshold.

With the floor to Dad's liking they moved on to sound proofing the room with foam.

 

 

With everything in place, Dad was able to try it out. With Doug in the other room recording.

Dad on the microphone

Doug's operating system.

So now my Dad can live his dream of being a voice actor. He even has a demo reel out and if you are interested in hearing it here is a website: http://voice123.com/jepperson