Our Trip to Panamaaaaaa

I am way behind on blogging. If there are any fans out there, which I'm not sure if there are or not, I'm sorry for the wait.

Jacob and I took a trip to Panama City, Panama (not Florida) to see his sister Mindy, her husband David and their son Griffin. We had such a great time. It really was one of the best vacations I've ever been on. David and Mindy are teaching at an American school in Panama for 2 years. They've been there for 1 year already so we wanted to go see them before they headed back to the states.
They had pretty much the whole week planned out for us with fun stuff to do. They were amazing hosts. We started off by driving to a volcanic valley 2 hours from the city called El Valle. Here's some info on it. We ate at a small restaurant that was delish before we headed to the jungle to zipline.
None of us had ever been on a zipline before, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that it was one of the coolest experiences. We ziplined over a waterfall and got to stop in the middle of the line to take in the beauty.
After El Valle, we drove to a beach resort called Decameron. David and Mindy's friends own a timeshare there so we stayed the night. It was right on a golf course and had a great view when there was lightning in the distance.Like any good resort, there were pools...
beaches...
and lizards.

We enjoyed ourselves. :)
Of course you can't go to Panama without going to the Panama Canal. We took a partial canal transit tour, which meant that we sailed through the two sets of locks that are on the south side. We love each other. :)
The guy on the right is the awesome dude that kept his shirt off nearly the entire trip. Only one on the boat with his shirt off. Classy.
We visited during Panama's "wet season", so naturally it rained nearly every day. I think that's the only reason that dude put his shirt back on.

This is one set of locks closing after we got in. Going down...and heading out.

A little sailboat went through the locks with us as well as a huge ship.

We went to Casco Viejo after the canal transit to inquire about a music festival we had heard about. We found the music festival, but they didn't have any power so it was delayed. Then the storm rolled in. Do you see the storm hovering over downtown? I was trying to book it outta there before being struck by lightning, but David was very content snapping pictures like this one.
This is downtown Panama City and it's one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
This is favorite #2 taken in Casco Viejo.

It's such a pain uploading pictures with blogger so I'm done for now. You can see all of the pictures Jacob took on my facebook page.

Tune in for the next Helber adventure!!!

Finally finished!

Aunt Jen's sewing machine is now back in business! Jacob, sweet husband and genius engineer that he is, replaced the wiring that was cracking and peeling apart. He also replaced the plug so that the is no longer a risk of electric shock due to exposed screws and wire.

These 2 pics were taken during the "stripping" process. During this step, I found out that the top layer all over the desk was not real wood, but a laminate wood. :( Booo, bummer, darn, puh, grr..... This was such a let down. At this point, I decided, what the heck. Who cares what it looks like as long as it's clean, not sticky and has a fresh coat of polyurethane finish on it.

So I muscled through and wound up with this. Nowhere near perfection, but it'll do.










So now I have it all put back together and functional, but no sewing projects on the horizon. Hmm, I'll have to fix that...

Happy June!

Well, May has come and gone. Last month I found a cute calendar for my desktop at Leelou Blogs.

This month, I found an even cuter calendar for my desktop here. I love it. Makes me smile when I open my computer.

Craft update:
I finished re-finishing the sewing machine desk, but it's not completely put back together yet. I'll post pics as soon as it's in one piece.

My next project involves acorns, spray paint, and a wreath. You can check out where I found my inspiration here.

My chocolate, strawberries and cream creation

I found this recipe on the Pioneer Woman's blog, which she re-posted from Snappy Gormet's blog. They called this dessert Dark Chocolate Strawberry Shortcakes with Amaretto Cream, but this title does not suit my creation at all. Here's why:
1. I used milk chocolate, they used dark.
2. The "shortcakes" came out more like cookies.
3. I didn't have any Amaretto so I substituted milk.
4. By making some alterations, I can claim it as my recipe. :)


I fed this to my small group girls last night and they loved it. It's not a very heavy dessert since I used fat free Cool Whip and cream cheese. And strawberries make it healthy right? right???

The recipe definitely calls for entirely too much of the wet ingredients so I ended up with massive amounts of cream left over. It was so tasty to dip the strawberries in though. I may make the cream as a fruit dip by itself next time. Yum!

The Future Mrs. Kilmer

Congratulations to Chris Kilmer and Katie Travis on their engagement!! Chris proposed to Katie on April 17, 2011. His and her immediate families were waiting at a nearby restaurant to surprise Katie and celebrate with her and Chris.


I was honored to help Chris with the planning of this event. I decided to bring some mason jars with store bought daisies mixed with a few daisies from my own flower bed.

I also decided to make a sign that said "Chris <3 Katie", but the wind would not cooperate for a picture. A huge shout out to Allie Millette for cutting out the letters for the sign with an Exacto knife. This was her first Exacto experience and she did a fabulous job.
Chris did a great job on the ring. It was a unique design made especially with his fiancee Katie in mind. It is an opal with crescent diamonds on either side.

Sophie's mobile

This weekend my mom and I threw a baby shower for my friend since Kindergarten Michelle. She is going to have a little girl in June named Sophie. I can't wait to meet her! Michelle's mother in law is making the bedding that will go in Sophie's crib out of a fabric from JoAnn's that has lady bugs, butterflies and flowers on it. I decided to make a mobile for the crib to match. Michelle liked it, which is all that matters. :)

My Great Aunt Jen

The 1950's Singer sewing machine that I have been using to learn to sew once belonged to my Great Aunt Jen. She was my grandfather's brother's wife. She died ~10 years ago and lived with Alzheimer's the last years of her life. I never knew her before she lost her memory, but the sewing machine I inherited has taught me so much about her. You see, this machine is built into a desk with 3 drawers. The contents of those 3 drawers are astounding. Anything and everything I will ever need to replace or use for this machine are in these drawers. She had spare everything. Thread, needles, bobbins, chalk, wax, darning balls, buttons, pearl snaps, measuring tapes, Singer oil, tools and all kinds of other things that I didn't even recognize.
This sewing machine desk has been around the block more than a few times and needs a major refinishing. Having zero experience in refinishing furniture, I naturally decided to tackle this task. Ask me how it went in a few weeks...