A Coupla Things

First of all, I have to mention that it is HUMID here today, and I'm not particularly happy about it. Now, it's only 69 degrees outside. Nice, you say. But there's 80% humidity! So, I sit and type and sweat....ewwww. Oh well.
On to the pleasant stuff! :) I told you I'd post pics of the fabrics I bought at Fabric Depot. Oh, I just love saying that....Fabric Depot, Fabric Depot, Fabric Depot....

These aquas and tans/browns are going to be the Happy Hour quilt. I've had my eyes on this pattern book for a while, and finally got it. It's an Atkinson's Design pattern and I love their patterns. They go together pretty easy and the patterns are easy to read. :)

The rest of the fabrics are just random fabrics that I liked or thought the chicks would like to play with. The guitars and fried eggs are for the girls to do whatever they want with...shorts, bags, pillows, whatever. The asian prints will probably be some type of quilty thing for Anisa's room. Fun, fun, fun!

Sara played her violin at church this past Sunday. There was a pretty big group. Jana N also played violin. The two chicks did really well together. Sara was a little nervous at first, but after she practiced with the group, she felt ok about it. I think she'll play again when the group is there. Sometimes we have Randall and Olivia playing guitar and leading worship, but sometimes Jana H comes up from Green Bay to lead. It's all good. :)

And last, but not least, here is the quilt that I made for Miss Aubrey, some friends' new baby Chick. It's a version of a Split Nine Patch. I found out while I was in Astoria, that there are different versions of it....Thanks M!! :) But this is one of my favorite blocks right now. Depending on which way you arrange your blocks it can look like stars (like this one) or like the WSU Cougar quilt I made for Sara. And it goes together pretty fast...which I REALLY like. :)

And that about wraps up my post today...Have a super fantastic day my peeps! :)

SOME Highlights Of Our Trip Out West

This post will mostly be pictures. I'll add some little blurbs about each pic, but I hope you enjoy seeing some of what we did in CA/WA/OR.
We had an excellent time. The trip started with a mechanical cancellation of our flight from Pheonix to Ontario. Lucky for us, Michelle, Lauren and Morgan saved us from our 7 hour delay. We went to lunch, Starbucks, the mall and their house for a while.

We arrived safely in CA that evening and got our cool car...a Charger.....too bad it didn't have a Hemi, but we had fun in it anyway. :)

We got to see all of our family. It was nice since we only go to California every other year (yea, so we can actually take a VACATION in the other years!). :)





We got to meet Michelle and her very cool little chicks. We met at a really neat fabric store, then went to lunch. It was a nice visit and it's nice to be able to say she's an "IRL" friend :).










What's a trip to CA without a trip to Disneyland?! We went to Disneyland with the Evil Queen herself! My sis, Wendy and her wonderful kid Kelsey. We had a total blast riding rides, taking pictures of freaky people and each other, and just spending time with each other.

When we were at Disneyland, we ran into Sara's 1st grade teacher! It SOUNDS pretty random, but her teacher is a DISNEY FREAK!!! :) So, she goes quite often, and it was a treat to see her.

More visiting friends....we went swimming with Sonja and Wes and Lacey. We also got to go out to dinner that night with them and Mom, Bee, Jean and Steen.

Here are the cute cousins. :) I wish they could see each other more, since they all get along really well. We're hoping they get to come out soon to visit us.

After our 2 weeks visiting friends and family in California, we headed north to the Great Pacific Northwest. I had reserved a 4 door midsize car. We got a Ticket Red 2-door Mustang. It was very fun to drive. V-8s are cool! :)

The 4th of July was spent at our friend's house. There were TONS of people.....we spent the day eating and swimming and visiting. That evening we did fireworks and had a great time!

On Friday, Kirsten, Sara and I went to Daiso in Federal Way. It's a Japanese dollar store. I got a little chick plate, a Chicken timer, some cute foil, and some little japanese handtowels.

That evening we went out to sushi at Sushi Hana with the Hisatomi family. Good times! :)

Saturday morning Sara played violin in the park with Kirsten and 2 high school violin students. She had a great time and made $7.00.

Saturday, I made a trip to my favoritest store...Fabric Depot. I will post pics of my fabric later, but I spent 3.5 hours and only $136.00! I was hoping to meet up with quilty blog buddies, but things just didn't work out. Maybe next year! :)

Sara and I spent a night in HEAVEN...Cannon Beach, Oregon. It's the bestest place in the whole Universe!

We had lunch at Bill's Tavern and I had some of my favorite beer, Blackberry Beauty. It's a wheat beer with 60 pounds of fresh berries! :) I had the FRESH halibut fish and chips. YUMMY!!!!!

I made a quickie trip to see Monica and her new place. I was hoping to meet Wende, but my trip was just too fast....darn it! Hopefully next year! :)

Ok, you all know I love my van....Baby is the most beautiful van in the world, and I'm not even biased. :) But this made us laugh a lot. It's a pimped out Aerostar. This will never happen to Baby!

Those are some of the highlights from our trip. It was fun to see everyone, but it was nice to get back to my own bed after 3 weeks of running! :)

Back in WI

Hello everyone!
Well, we had a SUPER, EXTREMELY, CRAZY Busy 3 weeks trip to the West Coast. Our first 2 weeks were spent in Southern California visiting friends and family. I got to meet Michelle and her chicks! That was fun. A trip to Disneyland with my sis and neice, lots and lots of running around to visit. It was nice to see everyone, but tiring! :) Then we headed north to WA/OR to see friends and MY BEACH! :) We got to see a few friends, but not everyone we wanted to see. A week just isn't enough time. Sara and I made a trip to Cannon Beach, and that really was great. We got back to WI last night at about 9:15 and went straight to bed. But I got scared awake by my kids who were saying something about somebody banging on the door. It was a guy delivering out luggage at midnight! All our flights yesterday were delayed/late for some reason or another, and none of our 3 bags arrived with us, but we have them now. I'll be posting LOTS of pictures later, but for now I am going through mail, paying bills, doing some laundry, unpacking, feeding my squirrels and bunnies and just relaxing! Even tho I didn't want to come back to WI, it's nice to be home with my own stuff! :)

Fabric Depot ~ the last post :)

Ok, I've heard that some of you can't make it...bummer, but I am still going! :) I'll be there around noonish, wearing a green Green Bay Packers shirt and shorts. I know, I'm not selling out or anything, but when you live in Wisconsin you have to cheer for the Packers or you might get beat up! tee hee Ok, not beat up, but you get weird looks of unbelief. So, I'll see WHOEVER at Fabric Depot, or nobody, but I hope you all are having a great day anyway. I will be having a FABRICTASTIC day. M and W (and whoever else is out on the coast), I'll be out tomorrow thru Monday. We've got reservations at the Hallmark Inn right above my rock for Sunday night. :) I'll call! :)

Fabric Depot Trip

Hey chicks,
Well, my little Happy Zombie friend is out, but I'll see her on Sunday since I have reservations at Hallmark for Sunday night. But for those of you who are still able to go to Fabric Depot, let's meet at noon. We can decide if we need food before or after fabric fondling!! :) Let me know here how that is for you, I am pretty flexible. :)

Fabric Depot fun

Hey girls,
It's looking like Saturday would be the best day for me to go on our lunch and fabric expedition. So, who's coming???
Right now we're in Calif. It was an adventure getting here. We flew out of Green Bay at 6:50 a.m. Wed. Got to Chicago to change planes without a hitch. It was a 3 hour flight to Phoenix, AZ where we had planned to have lunch with a friend since we had a 2 hour layover. BUT, we went to check into our next flight (changing airlines), they told us our flight had been "Mechanically Canceled". Um, ok, now what??? Sooo, we got scheduled on a flight that left at 7:15 p.m. We were supposed to leave at 1:35. Lucky for us, Michelle was there for lunch anyway, so we left the airport and went out to lunch, then Starbucks, then the mall, then Michelle's house for a couple of hours. It was a bonus, since I haven't seen her in about 3 years. We got all caught up, then she took us back to the airport to come to CA. We got onto the plane and they announced there were some computer issues. URGH. But, it ended up being something minor that they fixed quickly and we were only about 15 minutes late. Got to CA, met my Dad, Peg and Blake and now here we are at my grandparent's house for a little while.
We've been to Trader Joe's and Ikea and we got to go to Chevy's last night for dinner. So far, we're having a good trip. :)
So, comment me about Saturday at Fabric Depot. The more, the merrier!! :)

An open invitation

Hey all you Pacific Northwesterners, I'm coming out for a visit! It's only for a week (sadness), but Monica and I are getting together for lunch and Fabric Depot's 40% sale. The thing is, I want to see/meet EVERYONE I know IRL and online! :) The more the merrier kinda thing! :) Soooo, the FD sale is Friday and Saturday, July 6 and 7. Either day works for us chicks, what about YOU chicks?? Please leave a comment if you want to come and what day works best for you. We're planning to do lunch at The Kennedy School and if we know how many chicks will be there, we can make reservations. Even if you can only do lunch or only do Fabric Depot, come on out and visit! Ooo, this will be so much fun!

Storms! Gotta love 'em

Wow, that's pretty much all I can say. Well, of course, I am a talker, I can say a whole bunch more, but "WOW" pretty much sums it up. We had a storm blow in yesterday. I love the storms here, but this one was a little bigger and messier than what we're used to.

It started out a sunny, hot, humid day. Then, it started raining. We were thrilled because our poor grass is so dry, it needed the rain. A little hail started coming down and we were watching the little ice balls hit the ground and bounce. But, the LITTLE ice balls quickly turned to BIG ICE CHUNKS! I have never seen ice like that being hurled from the sky. Ok, I know they weren't the biggest, just the biggest I've ever seen.

The wind was blowing so hard, the ice and rain was beating at the windows. In fact, some of the ice chunks hit our little A/C unit, they dented some of the grill thingies inside. There are leaves and mud EVERYWHERE. I was just hoping that my birds and squirrels and bunnies were all ok and cuddled up in their burrows and nests! :)

The kids were worried about the trailer being out in the ice chunks. But Traily is fine. No broken windows and the roof looks good.

Here is our mailbox. You can see the high water. You couldn't even see the ground. The street was just like a river.

Here is a shot out the front window at the rain and ice coming down. See Traily? :) If you look closely, you can see there is a little wave out in front of the trailer. Water was coming from every angle. You can also see the little river coming down past the railing in the left bottom corner. Yea, that was basically the dirt from under the bushes out our front windows being washed into our driveway, which is where it all is today.

After the storm, Anisa and I HAD TO go outside and play in the water. Here is what was left right after the storm. Lots of water! and mud and sticks and pinecones. Today we'll walk down the street to see what landed at the end. The poor people at the end probably have a mess of junk in the street and gutters.

And here is the sky after the storm. It blew out almost as quickly as it blew in. It stayed cooler for the rest of the evening, but more humid. They're calling for thunder storms today thru Wed. I just hope they aren't bad on Wed, since the chicks and I are flying out that morning. But that's another post! :)

A little bragging about my honey

I was sewing my honey's new insignias on his uniforms. I was thinking of how INCREDIBLY proud of my husband I am. I don't mention it often enough, but MY HUSBAND ROCKS!!

When we first met, we were both a couple of punky kids in high school with our whole lives ahead of us. We were both 17 (he turned 18 a couple of months later) when we met. We went to a party and one of my friends who was totally drunk, lost her lunch on the side of his car. Well, he didn't run! He stayed, our relationship bloomed into a fun partnership. We have been a couple for over 23 years, and I just thank God every day for what He's given us.

Sure, we have had our share of ups and downs. I remember one time, when we lived on Kodiak, we got into a fight (one of many), and we were driving along the road. I stopped the car, and got out. The nice guy that he is, he hopped into the driver's seat and left me there to walk home! Boy, was I mad, but we survived! Another Kodiak fight, I packed up my stuff and I WAS GOING TO LEAVE! I drove off, late at night, and couldn't go anywhere. Kodiak is an ISLAND, you can't go anywhere. I drove around for a few hours, stopped at a friends house, then, defeated, went back home. It makes me laugh now, and I'm happy we went through those times so we could get to where we are.

I was sewing on his new Warrant Officer 4 insignias because he just got promoted as of June 1. He is as high up as he can go without going to the regular Officer ranks. He has done so well in his career (with a little help from his wife, but mostly because he's good at what he does). He has provided for his family more than we could want (well, I'm sure we could WANT more, but we have so much more than we even need). I totally appreciate his drive to succeed. Sometimes, he gets on my last nerve and I want to beat him with a stick, but for the most part, I just love him. Plain and simple. I could never have dreamed that I would have such a great life. We have our wonderful chicks who are really great kids, a roof over our heads and food in our tummies. I have my van (you all know the unhealthy love for my Baby that I have. :)), I have boxes and drawers full of fabric. We are all healthy, except Anisa and I have colds right now, but they're fading.

I just feel very blessed, and I needed to say that I LOVE MY HUSBAND!!! :)

Lookee What I Got!!

My dear neighbor, Ami, is from Japan. She had a stash of silk Kimono fabrics stuck in a bag that her mom sent her when she moved to America. She said she was bored, and her mom sent the fabrics for her to make bags, or whatever, with. Well, she never did anything with them, and so they sat. Well, she gave them to ME yesterday! What a treasure. I plan to make some sort of wallhanging, not sure exactly how or what pattern, if a pattern at all. I don't want to cut or throw away ANY of it, but I'll have to square some of them up, so I will have a little bit to toss. I might just sew them all together and call it good. :) Aren't they purty???
These are a couple of my favorites. The pink one has little fans embossed on it. I just really like the flowery one. I'll post it when I get it figured out and done, SOMEDAY. :)

Relient K ROCKS!

We went to Bayfest down in Green Bay on Friday to see Relient K. First we stopped in Titletown for lunch and a good, cold Beer. Titletown happens to be our favorite pub in Green Bay, and the owner, Brent, is a super cool guy. We met him on a trip to the pub a while ago, and struck up a conversation about being from Portland, OR, we wanted to see some brewfests, blah blah blah. Anyway, he came over to chat for a minute and we mentioned that we were going to Bayfest and he gave us free tickets!~ KEWL!

After lunch, we went to Appleton to shop for a while, then came back up to go to the concert. Anisa and gang were already there, glued to the front of the stage in their special t-shirts they had made at Olivia's the night before. Sara had 2 friends with her. Sara's gang and I got a spot in the audience and watched the show. It was very fun and good music.

After the concert, we waited to see the band and one of the stagehands came out and announced that the band had left. A lot of the fans left, but luckily, Anisa's friend Olivia has some stalker blood in her! :) We saw the big girl group walking around in back by the trailers for the staff. We joined them and walked around for a few, then saw the band come out of a tent. We got shooed out by some guy, and the girls were complaining and a couple of the guys came out to talk to the fans. They signed t-shirts and took lots of pictures. Jon and John are super cool guys and very sweet.

I think everyone had an excellent time. :)

just a quick update

Hey everyone, I just got told I needed an update on here since I haven't posted in a little while...thanks Wende! And, this will be for you since it's more words than pictures ~MAYBE! :) Oh, and for everyone reading this, make sure you click on the link and visit Evidently. She's got some AMAZING pictures of one of the most beautiful places on earth!! :)

So, what the heck have I been up to in the last week since I haven't been posting anything. Well, hmmmm, let's see.

Saturday, I drove BY MYSELF to Algoma and Kewaunee to go to the antique shops down there. I didn't find any good OLD stuff, but I found these babies. Converse Chucks as the kids nowadays call them. They were $12 bucks. I couldn't pass them up, but now I have to find someone to fit into them! :) I do have someone in mind.

Sunday was spent at church, then playing. Anisa spent the day at a friend's house, and the rest of us just hung out. It was nice to have a day like that.

Monday was Memorial Day. We went downtown to the dedication ceremony of the War Veteran's Memorial. It would have been really nice, except someone didn't think to shut down the street for the hour and most of what we heard was cars and Harley's. It was a bummer. I thought it would a good thing to take the girls to so they would possibly understand what sacrifices others have made for us to live like we do. So, since we didn't hear it there, we talked to the girls about it later. Afterward, we had a BBQ with some friends over here. The kids played outside and we got to visit and eat yummy food! :)

Here is a little quilted "thing" I made for Ben at Robot Comix. You should go there because it's very cute and entertaining. I guess this "thing" is a little wallhanging or a table decoration. It's about 7.5" x 7.5" so Ben can do whatever he wants with this little decorative thing. I just figured he could use a little Mailbox Love. :)

And now for some wildlife, because, what would my blog be without some pictures of the wildlife in my backyard?! We have a couple of baby bunnies out under the bushes in our neighbor's yard. They have been coming out to eat lately and here is one eating a dandelion puff. So cute!

This morning I heard a new song outside. I couldn't see who was making the cute noise, then saw THIS! A Baltimore Oriole!!!! I was thrilled. They are hanging around a little bit since my neighbor has grape jelly out. :) I need to get some today on my Green Bay adventure.

So, as you all know, now, I'm heading to Green Bay today. I am in desperate need of groceries, and I like to do a monthly food run to Super Walmart and Sam's Club. I also have to run to Home Depot. I WILL NOT be going to any fabric stores which just hurts, but I'm saving myself for Fabric Depot in about 30 days!!!!!!

I hope you all are having a wonderful day and have a super fun fantastic weekend!! :)

Got cheese?

I figured since I live in the "Cheese" state, I should have a cheese quilt. The problem.....I couldn't find a pattern. So, being the creative type, I decided to MAKE a pattern. And here is the result.

I need some creative advice, tho. I can't decide if I want to do more quilting on it. Should I add some swirlies in the cheese blocks? Should I just leave it alone? What???? Comment, advice, ANYTHING!! :)

I DID quilt the names of different cheeses between the blocks. I like how that turned out, I just wish I had used darker yellow/gold thread.

I paper pieced the cheese blocks, which I love, because it's fairly accurate (even I can mess up on paper piecing, but not usually!). Then I appliqued the little dots on some of the blocks for "holes". One of the ladies at the quilt shop suggested reverse applique! DUH! Oh well. Too late now. :) Now I have to figure out where I want to hang it. I thought I'd hang it close to the kitchen, since it IS food. :)

Oh My! She's 13

Well, my baby is now a teenager. I no longer have any CHILDREN, I now have only TEENAGERS! Pray for me! :) tee hee

Here's Sara on her birthday. We went to Olive Garden in Green Bay for her birthday meal. We usually go out to dinner, but Anisa had to babysit that evening, so we went down for the day. She got a digital camera, a shirt, a Relient K CD, um, I can't remember what else. :) Oh, she got some money from Great Grandparents H and she bought herself some black and white checkered Vans. Just like the ones I used to wear in high school! ha! She got money from Mija Grandma for a pedicure! spoiled.

The flowers are from Kirsten (her one and only violin teacher in WA!). Aren't they beeeyooteeful??!! Yea, she thinks she's pretty special.

I'm sure she'll have fun being a teenager, I just hope I can survive it!

Fabric Diet

I was happily reading along on my favorite blogs and came across Anne's blog where she mentioned that she was going on a Fabric Diet. I thought, wow, I need to do that! I don't have as much fabric as some of the chicks I know, but I do have quite a bit that needs using. So, I got the badge from Kim at A Peach in Stitches, now I'm committed! Now I CANNOT buy any fabric, at least for this month. I plan to make a trip to Fabric Depot (hopefully with a bunch of bloggy, crafty, quilty friends) in July when I'm in WA, so the diet will have to go to the wayside for that day. Now, I must go sew....finishing a project that will be posted asap! :)

Lots of random stuff

Well, I haven't posted in a while. It's not because I haven't had time, or the desire. It's just because I haven't. :) So, without further ado, I will post some of what's been going on here. :)

My little Sara went to semi-formals last week. She's been talking about this forever, but we told her the grades had to be good. She pulled them up and got to go. Here she is getting ready to head out. Tomorrow she turns 13! Where does the time go? Heck, only 5 more years til she moves out! :) tee hee

Anisa has been taking Jazz dance. She likes it, but has decided to quit for now because for dance team, she has to take ballet. This is Anisa and Andrea at the recital the school had. It was very cute, especially the little 2 and 3 year olds dancing.

Here is the quilt I made for my friend whose husband died. I wish I could be there to give her a hug myself, but this will have to do.

Ok, I went up north BY MYSELF to look at the little antique shops that have now reopened. Things around here close down for the winter, and that's pretty much EVERYTHING up north of us. It's kind of wierd, but whatever. So, they're open now, and this little chicken bell was sitting on the shelf waiting for me to buy it. So I did. :)

And one last parting shot. This is Miss Tango. I've posted pics of her before, but this is just too cute to not put on here. We've kind of created a little monster. We let her run around in the living room (wood floors) and she hates being in her cage now. Well, who wouldn't hate being in a cage?! Anyway, she's a little fluffly lovebug. :)

Now, today, I'm working on a new project, but I'll have to post about that later...when I figure out what the heck I'm doing! :)

7 Random Things about ME meme

Kim at Kim's Northwoods Discoveries tagged me to do this 7 things meme.

Here are the rules: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. I love squirrels. Duh

2. I think camping in a trailer is CAMPING. :) We don't have a tv in our trailer, and if you put 4 people in a 19 ft. trailer that's ROUGHING IT.

3. 70 degrees is the warmest I like. Anything higher, put me in front of the A/C!

4. I like popcorn with chocolate chips ~ or other chocolate, like DOVE...my favorite.

5. I KNOW for certain, that I want to retire in Cannon Beach, OR....the most fabulous place in the universe.

6. I have really short, fat, little toes, my family says they look like Barney Rubble toes. :)

7. I love my bright blue 1993 Ford Aerostar named Baby. I love her color, I love the room inside, I love being high up, and I just love her!! Someday, when I'm a trucker, I'm going to buy a Kenworth T2000 with a flatbed trailer to haul Baby around! Now, how random was that??!! :) hee hee

Ok, so now I tag ~

Happy Zombie
PamKittyMorning
Wende at Evidently
Chris at Wisconsin Freeze
Michelle Sews
Michelle at Oil Cloth Junkie
Patti at Quilting is My Passion

Churn-Dash Cherries

Here is my latest little quilt. It's about 43"x 43". I found the pattern in the December 2004 copy of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine (can you believe someone is selling it on ebay?). The pattern is called Candy Cane Quilt by Darlene Zimmerman. The original is supposed to be Christmas-y, ya know, like a candy cane, but I found this cherry fabric that looked so cute and summery, I had to do something with it. I like how the top turned out. My quilting leaves something to be desired, but heck, I don't care. It's done and up. And I like it! :)

I've already started my next quilt. It's for a friend of mine whose husband died last week. I think she needs a quilty hug, don't you??