Andy's last day...

First, we said goodbye to the grandparents:

Then, we said goodbye to each other:


Andy had to say goodbye to his new best friend:


Then he left, and Molly came over to collect her magnetic silly-putty:

Old Bird got a dog...

Here's the new puppy on his mummy's lap:


Here he is with his new poppa (I think this photo really shows, in his eyes, how much Ammon likes to eat children):


The bad puppy couldn't go to sleep on his own. Andy is always a dog magnet:


A hand's free method of carrying your dog:


I think that Tristan is the only dog in our family that sleeps with any dignity:

And we went hiking...

So this is how we began our hike:


And then we got to the top:


Nicki tried to kill herself:


Some of us got really stupid for the camera:


And Ammon cooled off his painful sunburn:


Just us sisters:

Jennifer's Wedding

Since I seem to be the only bugger in this family that gives a damn about this blog (just being funny, of course), I will be the one to post photos of our weekend with Heather and Andy--all broken up into parts, of course. Blogger can only handle so much at a time.


This is Heather and I just after the ceremony was performed. It was outdoors with a string quartet, two horrible female soloists, beautiful colors and a quiet backdrop, two doggies dressed in wedding garb to walk down the isle, a lovely, lacy wedding dress that must have cost a fortune, and cherry blossoms to throw at the wedded couple. It was exquisite. We took a photo by the giant waterfall just before cocktail hour. We had booze and sushi galore.


This is Heather and her friends at the reception. The bride is the one in the middle. At the reception, they had horrid live music, we ate a salad of spring greens, local buffalo cutlets that one could cut through like butter, Utah trout with some type of yellow and tart sauce on the side, all served on fresh asparagus and blue cheese risotto. Then, they served us wedding cake--beautiful looking, but no much for taste. The flowers had tall, dried branches jetting out of the middle with tea lights hanging from the tallest twigs. Just lovely. Later in the evening, they had fire pits on the patio with everything appropriate for making the most amazing smores.

These are our photos from the photo booth. I'm sorry, Nicki, that we didn't know about this for your wedding; it was the most novel thing to have at a wedding. All the guests could take as many photos as they wanted, and it didn't cost anything.

Another Harry Potter

This is a half leather binding. The leather covering the spine stops at exactly one quarter of the width of the board. That same distance matches the measurement from the corner to the end of the corner-piece. Those little corner-pieces are especially hard to pare because there is so little to hold on to.

These are the faux raised bands. To make this binding a true library binding, the signatures must be sewn on four tapes rather than the usual three. Of course, the tapes add very little definition to the spine, so I added these bands cut from binder's board:


The spine must also have a hinge. Today's bindings all have a hinge because it reduces wear on the binding, but earlier bindings do not. The paper covering the remaining half of the book is hand marbled in Italy. It looks so delicious, I just want to eat it. It's my favorite part of this book.


Here is the opened book:


This is my lovely silk endband and the leather headcap. I do such a lovely and uniform job on the sewing of the endband, if I do say so myself.


Here is a photo of the staining so beautifully modeled by the title page:

Another Hobbit

I'm quite proud of this one. This one looks a little more antiquarian than the others. Notice the bumps on the spine. Instead of sewing the signatures on tapes, I used cord. The raised cords on Mom's, Nicky's, and Mikey's books are regrettably faux raised cords. These are real. Here is a close up of my headcap and endband:


You can also see some of the fly sheets and the pastedown. That lovely marbled paper is hand-marbled in Spain. Here is another look at my raised cords:


They're charming, aren't they? I hated sewing on cords. There has to be more attention paid to evenness than in sewing on tapes. But the end effect is lovely. This is the book opened:


And a nice little close-up of the staining on the paper:

The Girdle Book

This is the girdle book, made from a historical model. See the hemp cord tied around the end bottom gathering of leather. That's the part that monks would tie around their girdle/belt/waist so that an important book could be referenced rather easily like this:


Here is another view of the opened book:


This sort of feature (commonly called a "yap") is essential in a girdle book. It protects the pages from dirt/dust/spillage. This is a view of the top edge that would hang toward the ground:


I really didn't take a very good photo of the back side of the book. Here is the best one I have that shows the fore edge and the cross of thorns lightly burned into the back cover:


The girdle book must have its own cover besides the outer leather. Here is a view of the leather covering the boards of the book before it is then attached to the outer covering:


A view of the endband. I am a bit disappointed with myself that I did not take the time to sew a more historically accurate headband.