Vacations!

I haven't posted in quite a while.  There are lots of good reasons.  First off I was working on a wedding quilt, and hopefully get to finally post pics next week as I mailed it today.  To make this a quilting post, yesterday I actually sewed!  I used up some leftover strip sets from a msytery quilt and made this little 15" square wallhaning.  I happened to have some silk flowers I took apart and stitched on and added some beads and fun machine quilting.  A quickie little project for my stairwell.

Now, the rest of the post is about my trips and family!

In June my sister received an unexpected surprise and won a trip for two to Washington D.C.  I was her guest as her husband couldn't take off on short notice, since we already had another trip scheduled, more on that in a bit!  I drove to Boise June 21 and at least got to see my grandkids.  The twins were 7 months old at the time.  I will post a pic of the other two later in the post.

Remy (left) and Finn

We took off on June 22nd and did some touring of  D.C. before her awards conference for the Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST).  She is a 6th grade math teacher.  We have a high school friend who works at the Pentagon and he gave us a private tour on the weekend.  We walked miles!  

Beautiful display in the Pentagon.  There were many quilts on the walls that they rotate given in memory of 9-11

 My sister and I went to all the monuments, Arlington Cemetary, Smithsonians (I went to one more than my sister when she was busy, as well as the Capitol and gardens) saw friends of my sisters for lunches from her time of her husband's two tours at West Point, and we went to the awards banquet at the National Portrait gallery.  It was lovely!

awards dinner with my name card!  We had assigned seating.

I flew home from Boise and flew back down three days later to take off on a long planned trip to Maine to a wedding.  I flew with my other sister to Niagara Falls first and then we drove across to Maine, stopping to look at many covered bridges in Vermont.  It's so hard to pick just a few pictures!  We had a great road trip!  We also crossed over to the Canadian side and got lots of great pics from there and we loved the Maid of the Mist boat tour.

American Falls, Bridal Veil and Horseshoe Falls from front to back.

One of many covered bridges we saw

 When we arrived in Bethel, Maine on the day of the wedding rehearsal we met up with my daughter, her husband and their two kids.  They had been on a different schedule, but had also flown into Niagara a day earlier than I had!  My sister and I took the kids for the morning of the wedding and went to a couple more covered bridges in Maine.  

Then on July 6th was the wedding!  Nicole was the flower girl and Jared walked with her as a sign bearer.  The groom is their mom's first cousin.

 The happy couple Kristine and Mike! 

 After the wedding both sisters, my BIL, nephew (best man for his brother), my daughter, SIL and grandkids and I went to the coast.  It was my first time seeing the Atlantic ocean and the grandkids loved it!  We went to Acadia National Park.  The next day we drove on down the coast stopping at lighthouses.  We left my daughter's family in Portland, ME to fly home and the rest of us went on to Boston.  My nephew flew home (he is also an Army officer stationed in Texas) from there and the other 4 of us went to Cape Cod and toured around Boston walking a lot of the Freedom Trail.  We flew home from there and I finally drove home on July 11th!

me at Acadia

one of several lighthouses

Since arriving home I machine quilted the king size wedding quilt (the couple lives in Kentucky, so it needed to be mailed), and I have done a deep clean and some painting in my house in anticipation of having a big birthday this weekend!  I am throwing my own party!

Family Photo

I actually did it! I posted a photo of myself, along with my family to complement me! My daughter Amy took this photo when she was home in mid October with her camera remote. She is student teaching in Utah, although her mentor had a baby so Amy is in charge of the classes now. She is teaching Jr. High Algebra. Lisa is a Jr. in college majoring in Bio Engineering and Brad is a high school senior who plans on majoring in Agricultural Engineering (I think, he is interested in plant breeding). He is a hard worker and does a lot of work on the farm, takes care of our yard, garden, etc. We never know where he is, he loves to go out hiking in the woods behind our house.

Next year it will be empty nest time. Oh yes and less expense at the grocery store! Of course there are college expenses to deal with but we have been lucky with the girls and lots of scholarships and wages from summer jobs paying for a lot of their expenses.

This is a picture of our search and rescue dog Kanobi. He usually sleeps more on his back than this, but last month I tried to paint the wall "dog dirt brown" because of the dogs laying against it. It's really not pink like this photo shows but not as brown as I was going for. Kanobi is part lab and part border collie.

Yesterday I painted my family room, kitchen table area and hallway silver mist. It's a little bluer than I was going for (see a pattern here in my color choices). The prep work was horrible and now I need to paint the window and door casings and get the furniture back.

Then it's back to my regularly scheduled quilting!