Saturday we went to the lovely wedding of a friend from college, Brook, and his new wife Ginnie.

(poor camera can't handle indoor shots)




I actually met Brook before I started at Berry; when I came up to visit the campus and some friends from high school, he was a part of their new crew. Unfortunately, he didn't meet Ginnie until later on (he spent most of the college years dating my roomate, who was a bit touched in the head), and Ginnie lived out of state, so we have not had many opportunities to get to know her better. But she has always seemed very sweet, a good match for Brook, and has quite a love of Phunky Monkey Threads, so you know she's good people ;)

Just before we exited Rock City we came across the "Fairyland Caverns".
Geodes lining the wall, coral across the ceiling, and gnomes galore.



Several of the gnomes had been imprisoned for some reason or another.
Justin says "I will save you brother!"



After a few such prisons, and other random gnome scenes, we reached the black-lit tunnels with their day-glo painted displays. A fairy fluttering over sleeping children, a fishing gnome surrounded by neon plants and rocks, etc. After an hour of walking through the beautiful mossy landscapes of Rock City, the tackiness was almost overwhelming.



But wait....

A few steps further and the day-glo scenes started depicting well-known Mother Goose poems and Grim fairytales. An endless row of holes along the cavern wall, each with a well loved childhood story.



I hate to say it took us a while to warm up to the neon sights after the cheesy gnome section, but I was soon in awe of the carefully crafted figures. What a great place to bring children, or any fairy-tale-loving adult!



Just before you leave the caverns you reach a large room with a path around the outer edge of a huge display. Not all of the scenes were familiar, but the depicted poems line the railing. (These were equally as neon, but since the displays were closer I ventured to take some flash photos)



(Unfortunately, this room was quite warm. Leaving the cavern is a relief after the heat.
I think that is why these kittens are fleeing?)



How unexpected and delightful!

Yesterday we spent a lovely day exploring Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We visted Rock City and Ruby Falls, but skipped the trip on the Incline Railway (a rickety train that travels steeply up the mountain, Justin's family rode it & were pretty scared).

Rock City was *beautiful*, I would highly recommend a visit.
I'm not usually wowed by nature, but everything was so lush & mossy.

(This is one of the few times you'll see me in sneakers,
but I knew we would be doing a lot of walking that day!)





At two points along the trail you had to *squeeze* through two large rock walls along a very narrow path (at one point you even have to turn sideways to get through). It is pretty intimidating when you first walk up to the opening, but not bad if you scoot through quickly. It was hard to capture just how narrow it was in the pictures, but this gives you an idea.



The trail takes you very, very high up.
Which is when I stand a few feet back from the railing and peek over, slowly stepping closer for a quick glance down before I retreat to safety.

It is a very leisurely walk though, not a steep hike.











After this we entered the "Fairyland Caverns",
but that display really deserves and entry all to itself!

Justin and I made sushi for the first time last night. It turned out really well, and was so fun to make. It's sad that it took us so long to try it out! We will have to see how many of our friends eat sushi and maybe have everyone make their own rolls at the next get together.

My first one, ready to roll. Shrimp, carrot, green onion, celery.



Justin's first roll ~ shrimp, carrot, green onion, avacado.
He had a lot of trouble with adding too much rich and getting huge rolls.



Mine turned out pretty small, but I still don't like cramming that much food in my mouth at once & still ate them in two bites. Next time I want to work on making bite-size rolls, so I don't end up with half of the fillings per bite.

I got creative with my other roll & split it in half to try two new combinations. My first roll is on the right half (there is another layer of rolls under all of this). Top left we have my "veggies & dip roll", which is my favorite vegetable dip with celery and carrots. It wasn't bad, but you couldn't taste the dip much at all. I'd like to try a stronger sauce, like barbeque, next time. Bottom left is shrimp and pepperoni, which ended up being my favorite.



We bought some miso soup cups (since I've never found miso on its own) and had a fancy little meal.



Unfortunently I don't like eating sushi as much as I like making it. (It's good, but not one of my favorite foods) I do really like the idea of creating odd combinations though, like a Mexican themed roll with spanish rice, avacado, tomato, onion, etc. I'm not sure if the nori would work with the flavors, but if they can create inside-out rolls, I think I would be able to create a roll without using the nori.

I just finished up this custom patchwork dress ~
elephants (and mountains and full moon) appliqued on dark purple and blue.
http://www.phunkymonkeythreads.com/dresses/elephantspurpleblue.php

The dress took so much longer than I was thinking it would, probably because of the two sets of appliques. There are three elephants across the bottom (front) of the dress, as well as three tiny elephants on the back, along with a mountain range and a full moon. I painted the spots on the moon. The patchwork is a mix of random and seminole. I had to knock about $35 off of the price because it was going to be sooo pricey.


Purples and blues are always so hard to photograph, the camera can't capture the red tones very well. I end up doing a lot of alterations on the photos to get the colors accurate. (This set of pictures was even worse, on some of the pictures the colors also changed from top to bottom, so I couldn't alter one fabric at a time.) The colors are still not very good after my changes. This time I thought I would share the difference with you. Here is the original picture and the altered version ~



I had to re-take the detail shots today, and I tried taking the pictures in in-direct and direct sunlight. Normally you want to take them in in-direct, or else you will get really harsh shadows on every fold of fabric (and it will wash out light colors). But apparently bright glaring sunlight is exactly what purple and blue need, I barely had to touch up the photos. Here is the picture in indirect, then direct sunglight (both unaltered) ~



I'm not sure if this happens with regular film or just digital cameras.

This weekend we went to Berry to find our first letterboxes. We found 5 boxes (out of 6, the last one I think is missing) and took a photo of each spot to add to our book. The pictures are of the landmarks that the boxes were hidden near, and a few extras for fun.

If you've never been to Berry (in Rome, Georgia), it is a beautiful place. It only has about 2,000 students, but it is the largest campus in the world, and most of that is fields, woods, and such.

( 8 pictures... )

I've been trying to work on my photography skills, and snapped a few photos for the church site at our July 4th celebration. The church is across the road from the city's firework show (we can watch from the church lawn), so we go all out & rent inflatables for the kids, give away free sodas, have drawings for prizes an so on.

( Here are some pics from the inflatables that I thought turned out nicely ;) )