Happy Holidays from the Wu's

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! After receiving holiday photo cards and annual family updates from friends, I felt compelled to share some photos and share about this past year's highlights.

In the homestretch...

Gordon just completed his 7th semester of seminary classes at Dallas Theological Seminary (Houston extension location) and only has 1 more semester left!! We are both looking forward to life after school because he's been in seminary for as long as we've been married! He's definitely experiencing "senioritis" and it's harder and harder to write those 10 paged papers after writing a zillion 10+ paged papers over the past 3.5 years. Gordon is not sure what lies ahead after seminary, but is prayerfully considering a part time position at our church, Access.

Gordon only has a couple of classes during his last semester. So he will be able to fly to Denver with Yvonne almost every week (see Yvonne's update below) and perfect his snowboarding skills.

Sew busy...

Yvonne is still working for Quorum Business Solutions (after 7.5 years...whew!) and is currently managing a project in Denver, CO. She has had to travel to Denver every week since August '09 and will continue traveling to Denver until the project is over (August '10). She really enjoys the client and team she is working with. She is even renting a loft in downtown Denver, which allows her to retain some sense of normalcy (not having to live out of a suitcase, getting to bake and sew). She enjoys the urban life of public transportation and walking to get to places, but there's always no place like home when she goes home to Houston on the weekends. She is still trying to get used to the constant dry skin and chapped lips, but it's nothing that a big bottle of lotion and constantly carrying around chapstick won't solve! So far, she has had a couple visitors to Denver...Suemy and Carolyn in October, Gordon's mom and sister in November, and Yvonne's entire family will be coming in January! Gordo's Austin and Houston church buddies will also be visiting Denver for a conference at the end of January!

Earlier this year, Yvonne learned how to sew and has fallen in love with sewing. In her spare time in Denver and on weekends in Houston, she spends most of her free time sewing and baking. See her sewing creations (and baking and paper crafting creations) at her new blog. She hopes to open her own business in the future where people can make crafts and eat yummy baked goods.

Our jet-setting shih-tzu...

Trinity continues to be a joy in daddy and mommy's life. She is 2.5 years old now and has definitely matured. She loves belly rubs and face massages. She also loves snuggling up next to mommy or daddy when napping. Trinity experienced her first plane flight a few months ago when she accompanied mommy to Denver to keep her company. Since then, she has flown back and forth to Denver 5 times! Trinity also got to experience snow for the first time in Denver...she's not too fond of snow and the cold weather. She has enjoyed exploring Colorado with mommy and daddy.

What's to come in 2010?

We will be spending the majority of our time in Denver until Yvonne's project is over. We hope to become proficient at snowboarding and look forward to exploring more of what Colorado has to offer. Please pray that we don't hurt ourselves while snowboarding or driving on icy/snowy roads!

Hopefully God will reveal His plan for Gordon in terms of what to do after graduating in the spring. We are open to wherever God leads us. Please pray that Gordon will have a clear vision of how God wants to use him after graduating and pray for our decision making process...that we would put aside our own selfishness and be able to communicate openly and honestly since this could potentially be a big step in our marriage...and that our decision would be glorifying to God.

We are also trying for our first child. We've been trying for a while, but unfortunately, it has not happened yet. We are hopeful that God will bless us with a child, but it definitely has not been easy to wait on God's timing. Next month, we are planning on starting the process of getting tested to see if there are any fertility issues with either of us. Please pray that we'll continue to trust in God's timing and provision, no matter what we discover through this process.

Thank you, faithful readers of our blog, for reading this far. We do not take your friendship for granted and thank God for the friends He has placed in our lives. We hope you and your families experience a merry holiday season and blessed New Year!!

The Amy Butler Weekender Bag: A Step by Step Commentary

After I made my first Amy Butler Weekender Travel Bag, I decided that I wanted to empower novice sewers with the ability to make their own Amy Butler Weekender Travel Bag.

I recently learned how to sew back in April of 2009 (thanks to my hubby who bought me a sewing machine and lessons at Sew Crafty Houston for my birthday). After learning how to make a pillow case, simple tote bag, and pajama pants, I decided to try my hand at the Amy Butler Goddess Apron. After making 2 aprons, I decided to take a shot at the weekender.

I first went online to read reviews of the pattern. I stumbled upon several blogs with helpful tips and pictures. All of the blogs talked about how difficult it was to make the bag because of all of the layers and piping. But they also mentioned that the finished product was worth all of the finger pricks, seam ripping and re-sewing, and long hours.

So before I start documenting the process of making my second weekender, I want to give credit where credit is due. These are the blogs that provided the helpful hints and pictures and helped make my first weekender a success:
The Lint Knitter
Miss Behave
craftoholic
all buttoned up
hiuma
wise craft
needle book
sewpixie - tutorial on how to make a pocket inside the lining of the bag

Thank you for sharing your tips and beautiful bags...I hope my blog posts will help others as much as those above have helped me!

baking update

[y] so i know it's been forever since i've posted anything...call it lazy...call it forgetful...or just accept the fact that i'm not a frequent blogger/facebooker/online networking site user. but i do have an exciting baking update for those who are interested!

i've started making cookie bouquets! it all started when i decided to make one for my friends jade and patrick for their baby shower at work. it took a long time, but i was pretty happy with the results.





then a co-worker asked if she could pay me to make one for her daughter's baby shower. so i made another one and got paid for it! i definitely cannot make a living off of making cookie bouquets though because it's about an 8 hour labor of love (make dough one night and let it chill, cut and bake dough next night and let it cool, decorate the next night and let it dry, put into plastic sleeves and make bouquet the next morning or night) and i only got paid $75. until i can open my own bakery and become more proficient and efficient at making stuff, i shall continue my day job as a consultant!







more the complete set of pictures, go here: http://flickr.com/photos/fortewu/

Sandra and Denver Wedding

SandraDenverWedding-69
Originally uploaded by fortewu

I know, I know, it's already 2009, but I just got to them. I blame school. But here are the shots I got. My fav are the S and D hanging topiaries.

Up next, sister-in-law, Yvette's wedding. I wish my camera came out more than just weddings. . .

hurricane IKE update: part 2

[y] we drove around the area to check on our condo, church, and my office. in the westchase area, street lights are either not working or are flashing. there are tree limbs littering the streets and some broken windows in various office buildings. our church (access) was totally ok and there was still electricity also. my office building seemed fine (no broken windows), although i couldn't go inside. our condo suffered some water damage. we had to tear up the upstairs carpet because it absorbed a lot of water from a leak in the roof or window. but thankfully, the previous tenant had just moved out a few weeks prior and it was empty. we'll need to spend some money fixing it up so we can rent it out or sell it, but that's nothing in the grand scheme of things when you watch the news and see the devastation in galveston and hear that the majority of houston is without electricity.

here are some pictures that we took during our drive around the area today after hurricane ike...

going east on richmond at west sam houston tollway

going east on richmond at briarpark (turn left to get to the Quorum office)

today's post-hurricane dinner...

we've eaten better in the past couple of days than most days...thanks to having my parents live with us for a few days!

hurricane IKE update

[y] it's about 11:30am here in houston on saturday and there is still some wind and rain outside our house from hurricane ike. it looks like it is moving away from us and we're just getting the southern outer bands of the hurricane. thankfully, we never lost electricity. we're also thankful that the worst extent of the damage to our home was that our back fence fell down and there's a leak somewhere in our roof into one of our guest rooms. a water pumping station is also out of commission so we barely have running water anymore. BUT, because of gordo's good planning, we have a bath tub full of water we can use for flushing toilets, etc. each person also had a head light (the ones you use for camping/caving) in case the electricity went out. and gordo cooked a whole batch of his famous soy sauce chicken (to use up the chicken in case the electricity went out). go gordo!

the scariest part of the night was probably around 5am when the wind was howling and shaking our windows. we didn't board up any windows and we don't have those nice double-pane or storm proof windows so we were afraid they would break from the wind. thankfully, no windows broke. although i can't say the same for other houses around us. we don't have any landscaping in our backyard and since our neighborhood is a young neighborhood, there aren't any huge trees near us...so we were spared from tree limbs damaging our house. the water level of the bayou behind our house is rising, but i don't think it will reach the top and threaten to flood our house.

my parents evacuated from clear lake because they were in a mandatory evacuation zone. it was nice having them here all day yesterday and today...in their boredom, they cooked for us, cleaned our house, trimmed the dead part of our plants, and took Trinity on walks. we just hope their home in clear lake didn't sustain too much damage, although they do have huge oak trees and are susceptible to flooding.

we've seen news reports that some downtown buildings have suffered major damage where windows have been blown out and office material are scattered all over downtown. galveston experienced a LOT of damage and apparently the entire island is without electricity. there will be a major cleanup effort in the coming weeks.

anyway, just wanted to let our friends and family know that we're doing fine and staying put at our house until they say it is safe to go out. we're curious to see if our condo and church were damaged so we will assess that when we are able to leave the house.

please continue to pray for the many people without electricity (praise God a cold front is moving in on monday)...for people who sustained a lot of damage to their homes...for the emergency crews and city personnel who are assessing the damage and answering the calls for help.

the view of our backyard from our 2nd floor bedroom with fence blown down
(kinda looks like we have a waterfront view huh...)

a house across the bayou with a hole in their roof, 1 window blown out, and fence down

Cars going swimming. . .

Cars going swimming. . .

Love the Houston downpour!

running errands

running errands in pouring rain for the wifey

trinity says...