"Bye For Now" Bonfire

  We had to say goodbye (for now-they'll be back in the fall) to three of our closest friends this week. Clayton and Brittney are doing summer sales in North Carolina, and Jordan got an internship in the D.C. area. His wife, Megan, will be joining him as soon as her school year ends (in about a month), but is still with us for now. We decided to have a bonfire to give everyone the chance to say goodbye and to show them how much we love them and will miss them.

Clayton and Melissa

Jeff, Jordan and Megan (who was not prepared for this photo).

Beautiful Brittney.

Amy and Megan (who were both well-prepared for the photo).

Josh and Dan.

Todd, roasting some hot dogs.

Brittney and her friend Melissa.

Amy and Alaina-so beautiful!

Rachel and Alaina, trying to get close for the picture.

Todd and Nate. I love this because Todd looks like he's saying something super profound and interesting, but Nate's not listening.

Nate, Clayton, Amy and Josh.

Nate, Clayton, Josh.

Amy and me! I like that I don't look super pregnant in this photo!

Dan, Brittney, Nicole.

Clayton (saying something hilarious, I'm sure) and Josh.

Rachel and Brittney.

Jeff, asleep at the fireside. He hadn't recovered from his overnight flight from Argentina yet.

Hamming it up for the camera.

Odd. Just....odd.

A few of Brittney's friends: Melissa, Jen, Shelby. And, of course, Brittney.

I know it's out of focus, but I just loved the look on Todd's face in this pic!

Clayton and Brittney, such a lovely couple. Also, I just barely noticed Jen photobombing this like a boss!

We tried just taking a normal picture, but I looked really huge and that made me uncomfortable, so we tried a few different poses to minimize the torpedo.

This was the most unsuccessful, or successful, depending on how you look at it.

I eventually embraced the torpedo look and made the picture better by taking my hair down.

Here's Jeff, asleep by the fire again.

It took all three of us to get the camp table back into its bag.

Jeff woke up when everyone started cleaning up and/or leaving.

His hair sometimes looks crazy when he gets really tired.

  I had a great time at the bonfire, and hope everyone else did, too. I miss my friends already!

  Earlier that day I picked Jeff up from the airport after his epic Argentina trip. It was his favorite trip so far (out of two Berlin trips, a Brussels trip, and a California trip) and he absolutely fell in love with Argentina. His Spanish came right back to him (which was great because he was really concerned that it wouldn't) which won him tons of new friends. He ate really delicious food (milanesa, choripan, steak, etc), explored Buenos Aires, and got to give two presentations at his conference. He even accidentally drank some strange lime liquor, thinking it was Jell-o (apparently, it's "chelo", which I guess is a thing), but realized quickly that it most definitely wasn't Jell-o when it burned the crap out of his mouth and throat. :)
  I was very grateful that it was a short trip (I was only without Jeff for 4 days, instead of the typical 7-8), and I kept myself busy doing some sewing projects. I sewed a bare naked boppy, along with a boppy and boppy cover. Don't know what those are? I'll show you pictures!

Bare Naked Boppy

Boppy with cover. Yes, it's a bit asymmetrical, but it was my first cover and it was super difficult.

Polka-dotted boppy underneath, cover unzipped.

So in case some of you still don't know what a boppy is, I'll tell you. It's a nursing pillow that you wrap around your waist while seated, then lay the baby on top of to help your arms not get tired while nursing. They're pretty darn expensive, too. I did some research before I made my own to see how cost-effective it would really be to make it myself and I found that bare naked boppys (boppys without covers) cost between $25-35. Boppy covers are equally expensive, running between $25-35 (hence the word "equally"). So as long as I was able to make the boppy and cover for less than $50, I felt that it would have been a success. The fabric (which I fell in love with at first sight) was on sale at Home Fabrics in Orem for $3/yd. The pattern I had only required one yard of fabric for the naked boppy, and just over a yard for the cover. Unfortunately, I misread the tutorial and bought 5 yards of fabric, but I plan to either make more boppys or use the fabric for something else, so I'm not counting it as a loss. I also had to pick up some basic sewing supplies at JoAnn's (remember how I'm a beginner? I don't even have my own sewing machine yet-I'm borrowing my sister-in-law's), which cost about $6, and I needed a lot of stuffing, which ended up being another $6. So the naked boppy ended up costing about $15, but would've cost $9 if I already had some of the basics. The boppy that I ended up covering was made with an old bed sheet that we've been using as a dropcloth for the past few months, so that was free. I needed just over a yard of fabric for the cover (hard to exactly calculate, but approximately $3.50), a zipper ($4), and some more stuffing ($6), making the second one cost $13.50 (since I'm not double-counting the basic supplies). I'm pretty sure that it was super cost-effective to do it myself instead of buying it-and I still have materials left over to make another one! Since my sweet sister-in-law let me borrow her machine, I think I'll make one for her. :)

So what do you think of the boppys? I pinned the pattern on my "Sewing" board on pinterest in case any of ya'll are interested in making your own. :)