So, what happened in January?? Not much for such a LONG month!! January is my least favorite month of the year. . . it doesn't matter how many things I plan or how many distractions I try to create, the month goes on and on and on and on and forever on! So, here are a few of the pictures from our activities.
This is Addison. Isn't she just so cute!!! Her hair is finally growing some, though not as much as one would like. She's really started liking it done though.
Although you can't see Andrew's face, you can see what a sweet boy he is. They are usually fighting, but I managed to capture this on camera. So cute!
These are the eclairs I made one Sunday when I was craving eclairs!! Really I just wanted a treat and these sounded good. They turned out really great, and with a couple of changes I'll make them again.
This is the desk that I decided to build in January. This is what it looked like about half way done.
This is what it looked like when I was done with it and got it all set up. I think it turned out ok. I learned a lot and will be able to make things a little easier in the future. I couldn't have done it so easily without the help of my friend Jody Rugg. She makes FABULOUS furniture. She was a great help!! Thanks for the help.
It was custom built to fit perfectly under our tv and to fit all of our components of our desk like the computer, the printer, the speakers, the trash that I keep (really it's mail but it feels like trash), and a couple of projects that I feel like I am always working on that one day I'll actually do and be so happy!!!
The COOLEST thing that happened was that Josh went to India. He was gone for just over two weeks and really loved his time there. Here are some of the pictures that he took.
This picture is for my Father. It's a laser leveler. It makes the whole field perfectly flat and even so that the water will sit evenly on it once it is flooded. Pretty cool.
This is a picture with Josh and some rice paddies in the earlier phase of growth. It's what he does, so it's cool!!
This is a picture of Josh with some rice paddies just ready to be harvested. I couldn't believe it turned so golden it looked like wheat for a second. I also didn't know it grew so tall. It's not what I do, so I'm still learning.
This is the field after the harvest. Still different than what I imagined.
This is just a scenery picture from his travels through the country side. He said it was really pretty and nice to see both the country and the cities of India.
These are Tea fields. The upper half that is slightly darker has been harvested, and the lower half with a little lighter color has not been. There was a lot of tea fields over there.
There is two different types of soil in Southern India. Black soil and red soil. This is the black soil that Josh is holding. It has to be plowed several times before they can even plant in it. That is a large clump of dirt he is holding, not a rock.
The far soil is the red soil. It's not nearly as clumpy and clay like. These two pictures show the different soils nicely as they are divided by the road. The black soil that is closer in this picture, has obviously been plowed a few time already.
This is another great picture for my father. It's the only pivot in India. The ONLY ONE!! It was on ICRISAT's campus. They are an international center of agricultural. The IRRI of India (IRRI is in the Philippine). They needed to be able to control how much water the field received (as in no drought issues) so they ordered one from the mid-west here in the states and set it up over there. It's a cool picture.
One of my most favorite flowers happens to not only grow in Hawaii, but also in India. I love the plumeria flower. The fragrance is so fabulous!!
This is an interesting picture. The white strands are actually strands of thread bunched together. The black segments are pieces of rubber. They wrap pieces of rubber around the areas that they don't want dyed and then they dip it in dye and the exposed white parts change color. They then take off the rubber and put it in another spot on the same strands and repeat the process until they have the pattern in the thread they are going for. The patterned threads are then woven into material to create another pattern. It's really a process.
Here are two examples of how it can turn out.
Then it is weaved together to make the pattern into a piece of cloth. It really is quite crazy!!
This is a picture of Hyderabad India. It's a fairly large city (4th largest in India) with somewhere just shy of 14 million people!! They didn't grow the city up, they grew it out. So it is sprawled over 250 square miles with approx. 56,000 people per square mile. That's a lot of people smashed together!!!!
It's known as the city of pearls.
Well, there is a bit about January. India sounds really cool and I would like to go one day. I'm glad Josh had such a great experience there and made so many friends. I'm just glad January finally ended.
