Beaded earrings

This year, I wanted to get back into some crafts, so I started off making some more beaded earrings. Having a Michael's close by to Chase's after-school place made it easy to go get more craft supplies to make these. 

The first ones were incredibly simple and just a string of cool chevron beads that I got. I just interspersed the black and gold ones to make three rows that hang down. I don't usually wear gold-colored jewelry, but I really like the way these look and wear them with black clothing. 

The next one was from this tutorial. It was fun to get back into some more intense beading like I had done many years before. 

The last set of earrings took a long time and used brick stick. Since the first one (one the left) took me so long, I decided to make the second one a bit different for some variety. I used a few different brick stick tutorials including this one. 

Finally, as Chase had been collecting many seashells (and may with holes), we also assembled seashells into keychains for him and his friends. Not quite earrings, but still beading-adjacent. :)

Visiting family in NE

Even though we were able to see Nate's immediate family in December for Christmas (in between our move), due to the pandemic, we didn't want to risk seeing the rest of the family. Unfortunately, Nate's grandfather passed away in January at the age of 90. Since that was the height of the pandemic and we had literally just moved, we couldn't come for the funeral. Nate's grandmother scheduled a celebration of life in Omaha for the summer, and made it into a bit of a family reunion, renting a huge house for the out-of-town relatives to stay and planning lots of family-time. 

We really enjoyed seeing everyone after many years. We had a birthday celebration for Tindra, a baby shower for Melissa and Daniel (who, unfortunately couldn't come at the last minute due to COVID), and lots of hang-outs at the house. We also went to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium and some Medieval mini golf together with the family.