Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

...How does my garden grow?

With cucumbers and red peppers and roma tomatoes all in a row...oh wait...what are those weird orange things? HABANERO PEPPERS!! AH!!

So, I found out the hard way that the weird looking orange peppers were Habanero peppers. My family was over, and I didn't know what these peppers were (I did not buy Habanero peppers). They were supposed to be Mexi-bell peppers. My mom decided to try a little piece, and she liked it. She and Sung suggested that we some to the potatoes and veggies we were grilling. So I took a couple peppers, sliced them up, and put them in the veggies. I had rinsed my hands, and rubbed my itchy nose...A few minutes later...MY NOSE IS BURNING! It was literally burning! After washing my nose with soap and water, soaking it in water, milk, and finally lemon juice, my nose quit burning.

I was almost able to finish my dinner when...now my finger started burning under my wedding rings. I take off my rings, thinking they got some pepper juices stuck under them. Well, the rest of my fingers start burning on both hands. I couldn't be around anything even remotely warm without them burning more (ex. holding hands, walking out in the hot humid air, touching my fingers to each other, yeah...etc...). Again, I dipped my hands in cups of milk (what a waste I know), dabbed lemon juice all over them...nothing. Finally, after the fam left, we got some alcohol wipes (had no rubbing alcohol) and wrapped them all around my fingers--I looked like a burn victim! Didn't help much, so we squirt aloe vera AND hand sanitizer(thinking of alcohol again). If I kept my hands good and soaked in the stuff they were okay, but still couldn't move them without them burning. I finally went to bed with my hands dosed in aloe vera and hand sanitizer sitting on a paper towel. LOL

Luckily I woke up the next morning with only a phantom burn on the tips of my fingers. Stupid me did not go with her instincts to say "These look like Habanero peppers, maybe they really are even though I didn't buy them..." Oh well, we live---we learn. And, we enjoy the non-hot fruits of our harvest. We have had sooo many roma tomatoes and cucumbers popping up! It's been awesome!

On a side note and more recently, I have been doing more cards. Tried a technique with dryer sheets...SO COOL! Here they are Elisa!

This one has glitter all on the dryer sheet.

This one is without glitter. Doesn't it look like that homemade paper?!

Recent Projects

I recently inherited my sister, Elisa's stamp collection. She can't fit it in her apartment in Connecticut, and I CAN fit it in my big empty house. And so, my new stress relief and/or "I wanna be productive" activity is making cards and etc...

The next couple cards, I used a "grid" technique that I saw online. Oh, on the next one the "Happy Birthday" was embossed on there, so it's kind of mettalic-y.

You can't tell, but the cake's dots have glitter on them as do the "ribbons" on the cake. The background on this one was made into a grid, so it kind of has a quilted effect.

YAY for hobbies!

A much needed vacation!

As many of you know, for about the last 6 months Sung has worked 7 days a week. Two full time jobs and one part-time job. He loves what he does, but sometimes I have to force him to take it easy...

So this weekend we went to Highlands, NC with Kami and Amel. They've been a few times, but it was a first for us. We had a BLAST!

We went hiking! First we hiked up to Whiteside. It was BEAUTIFUL!

My attempt at taking pictures of the mountainous foliage...my camera did not like to focus correctly!

We were at 4930 feet above sea level at the top of the mountain!

Look behind them...

We also went to a cool waterfall spot close by where we were staying.

There was a place called Sunset Rock that was a popular place to go in the evenings. We went two of our evenings there. The town we were staying in was just in that valley below us!

I discovered the silhouette pictures and had fun!

On our way back, we went to the highest point in the Smokey Mountains, Clingman's Dome! We had to hike up about a half mile to get to the top. They had a kind of raised platform thing to look out and take pics. Unfortunately, we got there in the middle of a cloud, so there wasn't too much of a view. Oh yeah, it was at an altitude of 6,643 feet!

Some of the high mountain foliage! The spots on the leaves are because the acid in the rain is so bad it's eating away at the plants and trees on the mountain.

Trees dying because of acid rain.

Lastly, Sung and Amel had a lot of fun when we passed by a dam on the Ochoe River, and when we found matching t-shirts, we couldn't resist taking a picture on the way back!

April and May

It's been a crazy last couple months. We've had my birthday, my mom's birthday, Sung's birthday, our 3 year anniversary, my brother John's birthday, Memorial day, and a trip down to the beach/Mobile (not all in that order). Sung got a new grill for his birthday, so we've tried to have family over as much as possible to enjoy the beautiful weather when it's here.

It was very fun seeing our nephews and neice enjoy playing outside and inside on Memorial day! Marky loves to chase Lola around the yard. And we had some amazing chicken and steak brought by our moms!

We got to see our good friends Enoch and Jennifer when we made our trip South. It was great seeing you guys and eating and going out! (Can't wait for you both to be back up here!!!) Unfortunately, it decided to be overcast for most of our time near the beach, and the one partial day it wasn't completely cloud covered, it was so windy, we felt like we were in a sand storm!

April and May seem to be our months of celebration between all that happens! It keeps us busy, so June will hopefully be more restful!

I'll post pictures later, because my internet does not want to upload any right now! :(

Oh, and so sad (and exciting), John only has a month and a half until he leaves for the MTC. For those interested, he'll be speaking in sacrament July 19th! I know he'd love to see all of you!

The Little Rocker!

Anyone who knows me, knows that my nephews (and neice) have a special place in my heart. I LOVE being an aunt and would spoil those kids rotten if I could! I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to watch Marky, Matt and Clarissa's son, and we found out that Mark just happens to love the drums (or at least the sticks that go with them)! It was too cute.


A true rocker, shirtless and all!

Who would say that's not a happy boy!?

Until he decided to eat the sticks! A drummer gets hungry quickly!

And, here are just a few of our other favorite rockers far away! We miss you guys!

She's not squatting, she's bouncing! Keeps her rhythm steady!

Dear John!

I just can't believe it, but my baby brother (one of them) is going on his mission. It really doesn't seem like that long ago when Matt left and we would talk about how it would be quite a few years before John left. Well, those few years have come and gone and now he'll be leaving soon.

How soon, do you ask? Where will he be going?

On JULY 22, Elder John Daniel Fredrickson will be leaving to go to the MTC and learn what he needs to to serve in TIRANA ALBANIA!!!

Now, if you're like we were, you probably asked..."Albania? Where's that?" Well, we all kind of thought it was in Europe somewhere (it is), but specifically it is in South Eastern Europe. It is on the Adriatic Sea (a boat ride away from Italy). It borders Greece in the south, Serbia/Kosovo and Montenegro to the north, and Macedonia to the east.

John got a call from the stake president last friday night, saying that his call was in the mail and it should be here on friday. Well, despite our hopes of it coming early it was just on time on friday. John spent the afternoon waiting by the mailbox(literally). (if you want pics of that talk to mom) Finally it came, and what did john do? Well he locked himself in his room. Of course mom said that there was no way he was locking that door without her in it. SO, john AND mom locked themselves in his room. But, mom was kind enough to open the door for us to hear/see where he went (after we pretty much banged the door down, and ammon picked the lock).

Here are the pics:

John reading where he's going.

John reading to himself so we couldn't know before him.

John calling everyone in the whole world who has ever known him.

Mom crying...it's her baby! She's allowed to!


John calling the rest of the world who doesn't know him!

THE LETTER

Can you see where it says Elder Fredrickson, and his mission and the date he's leaving? It's a little blurry...

Grosgrain: Born 2 Impress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Grosgrain: Born 2 Impress GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Brenden, Young Women, and Poison Ivy

We've had an eventful week at our home this week. On Monday, we spent the evening with Matt and Clarissa and Marky and Sung's good friend Branden. It's been about three years since we last saw Branden (before he moved to Colorado) and it better not be that long until we see him again.

We used to call Sung, Brenden and Matt the three Musketeers. Since Mark has since come along we have the new "fourth musketeer."

And you can never have too many pictures of cute nephews.

Since moving back to Madison, I've been called into Young Womens as the Beehive Advisore. I've never been in YW as a leader, and I'm loving getting a chance to spend time with the girls in our ward. We had an activity this week at my house on healthy eating. So we made smoothies and fruit pizza!

Yum!




And lastly for this post. We have always said that Sung was allergic to poison ivy. When we were first married, he had a horrible case of it and it took almost a month to get over it. Well, since moving back he's run into it again. Here's just a little of what happens when Sung gets near the stuff.

It's not pretty. He's still recovering and it's been about a month.