I recently had another Dim Sum party which turned out to be a total hoot!  First of all, Dim Sum is a Chinese tradition where you get together and order little appetizers off various carts that they roll around the dining room.  The words Dim Sum literally mean "of the heart."  Dim Sum options can be either steamed sauteed or deep fried.  The portion sizes are small and the waiter pushing the cart marks a card at your table.  At the end of the meal you bring your card up to the register and they tally up how many little appetizers you had.  Ours version isn't exactly traditional in that we will serve some Thai dishes or even Phillipino dishes, but we always have a good time.  I was telling everyone how my dumplings look so much prettier since I watched a you tube video on how to fold them correctly!

This picture makes me laugh because it looks like it should be on a coupon offering a discount at Nancy's Dim Sum Palace or something!

After dinner we went down stairs into my Retro Room to listen to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and drink cocktails!  This is a room I am always working on and one of my ongoing projects.  I have been filling it with memorabilia from the 60's so that you can hang out there, read magazines from the era, play with games from the era and listen to music from the era.  My friend Hannah took all these great photos and they are great!  Thanks, Hannah!!

 Yes, it is a disco ball, I love those things!!

 Hey!  What'll ya have?

Here I am with my Shirley Temple, yeah, I know that's lame. LOL!

 Here's a close up of the bar stools!

 Here's bartender John making some Margaritas!

It was a great time!  We looked at old vacation slides! HA!  Looked at View Master reels and read some old Life magazines!  I will post some brighter pictures of the Retro room a little later!

Como Zoo

I went to the Como Zoo recently with my husband, my son and his girl friend.  They have the most adorable little monkeys with really long white mustaches!  I can't remember what type of monkey they are but they look like they should be in a Dr. Seuss story!  This one in particular was very interested in my son's key chain and everything that hung on it.  We spent a great deal of time just watching him look over these keys over and over again and he was right up against the window too!  They are so adorable, I took a couple pictures, I hope you enjoy them!!

What cute little mustachioed monkeys!!

Beautiful Jewelry

My son came home from College last weekend and I've been so excited to see all that he accomplished.  He was taking classes on how to repair and manufacture fine jewelry.  Although he didn't learn how to cut any gemstones, he did learn how to set them and how to manufacture some of his own designs.  I'm super proud of him but of course he just sees where he needs improvement.  I have a couple pictures of some of the items he made, these are made with Alloy (not gold) and Cubic Zirconia.

 These are close ups, and not very good ones I might add as they are from my cell phone.  Here are some other pictures of the rings.

Here's a set of earrings he made that are really beautiful!

I'm hoping he continues with it and tries to get an Apprenticeship where he can really practice his skills.  I think everything looks amazing and he doesn't think so, he just thinks I say that because I'm his mom!  Well, maybe I am a little biased!

My package came!

I got my package from my yarn swap partner who is not the same person I sent a package to.  I almost feel guilty as I think she went way over the amount she had to spend :/ but everything is wonderful!  The theme of the swap was Steam Punk- which should give you an idea why she sent me what she did.  Here are the pictures!!

She made the gifts and sent a bunch of keys, watch parts and other cool things for me to craft with- I can't wait to make something with them-and sent lots of other items!  Yarn swaps are really fun and a lot of people participate in them. Ravelry.com which is an online community for people who knit, crochet, weave, and spin their own yarn has clubs you can join to get in on these swaps, or to get free patterns, meet new people, etc. it's really great!