I'm still here ...

Wow, this last year has gone so fast.  I have a lot to catch up on, blogging-wise.  My last post was before the March retreat!  Crazy.

March in Amishland was lovely. It was so relaxing to cross the pavement without fear of ankle breaking or wrist snapping.  It was relatively warm; however, all weekend, I thought I’d managed to forget to pack socks (despite the fact that I remembered making a pile of socks to bring).  It was probably a month later when Mike reached into the secret zipper compartment on my bag and there were my socks.  Sheesh.

I managed to get a few things done at the retreat.  There was the usual project—Moonglow.  I made progress and hope to have all of the blocks done before the next retreat.  I worked on the cute holiday sampler that Mary turned us on to.  I rescued the Friendship Group pinwheel stars top from obscurity and added a piano key border that I’d actually worked out on a previous retreat.  I think I also worked on Bonnie Hunter’s mystery from last year.  Could that be all I did?  I don’t have any photos to tell me otherwise.  The boys asked me to bring them wings from Quaker Steak at the airport so they were extra happy to see me when I returned.

I was home from the retreat for less than a week before we headed off for spring break.  We drove to Las Vegas and stayed the night before catching our connection to London in Atlanta.    I was lucky to be able to meet up with an Ohio friend whose trip overlapped with ours by a couple of hours.  Things were pretty chaotic at the Vegas airport but we finally figured out the maze and boarded for Atlanta.  We were so relaxed in the Atlanta lounge that we missed our flight to London.  It was absolutely our fault but who knew that it is the airline’s “policy” to leave 20 minutes before the “departure time”?  Sigh.  While Mike tried desperately not to lose his temper and Brady cried because Mike had said we should just go home to AZ, I tried to figure out what our options were.  Unfortunately, there were 2 more flights that night but they were all overbooked.  We waited for the next few hours on standby, slowly watching those planes fill and leave, before booking a hotel in Atlanta. Sigh again.  We bought toothbrushes and Mike huddled in the cold and rain wearing his travel clothes of shorts and a t shirt.  Luckily, our London hotel was nice enough to shift out our reservation.  We were at the airport extra early the next day so we easily made our flight.  When we got to London, Mike’s luggage hadn’t made it.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t cross-packed and I’d put some of my toiletries in his bag so he was going on the third day in the same clothes and we all had our cheapie toothbrushes, etc.  It all worked out in the end but it was a bumpy start.

We had a great time seeing all of the sights and basically running Brady ragged.  Luckily our hotel had a great lounge so we didn’t feel too guilty about ending the days earlier than Mike and I alone might have.  Brady would say that the Tower of London and “the pubs” were his favorite.  We let him order soda at the pubs (a rarity) so that’s why they made the list.  That plus the fact that the mercurial bartenders paid him special attention.  The trip was wonderful and broadened our world view, once again.

We spent a couple more days in Vegas once we returned from the UK.  That gave us enough time to see mostly all of the child-appropriate sights and do a stopover at the Hoover Dam.

Since then we’ve indulged in spring activities (former Cleveland summer activities) like baseball, basketball and hikes.

Monthly wine night with the neighborhood women ...

Allergy season--can you believe these trees in bloom?  You can hear the swarms of bees from far away.

Creepy mannequin in Old Scottsdale--it took some convincing to get Brady to sit with "him".

In May, we learned that my great nephew Quinnten would be coming from San Jose to Phoenix for a hockey tournament.  Family from all over came to watch him play.  If you had told me that we’d have a family dinner in Phoenix less than a year after we’d moved, I never would have believed it.  We had such a great time with two of my brothers, their families and extended families.  Brady and Quinnten were born less than a month apart and they had the best time.  After saying his goodbyes in tears, Brady told us that because he and Quinnten have the same personality and interests, they are “pretty much best friends”.  We were so happy for them that they were able to spend time together.  The tournament is here every year and Quinnten has family in Tucson so we hope to get the boys together more often.

With all of the activities I’ve mentioned, I haven’t gotten much sewing done.  I have had more misses than hits at guild meetings so I needed to regroup somehow.  I volunteered to take a position on the community quilts subcommittee.  I’ve only facilitated one meeting so far but we have a bigger session on Tuesday so I should be fully indoctrinated by then.  Hopefully, investing more will pay dividends rather than backfiring.

I also signed up for a couple of classes at the closest shop to me.  They are a small shop and very new—50/50 sewing and scrapbooking.  One class was to make a clutch using laminated fabric and the other showed you how to make fabric flowers and a garland.  I met some interesting people there but over half of them were visiting from out of town (!). 

I did some shopping.  Thank you, Divas, for my spree at Mad B’s.

May also brought plans to finalize our back yard design.  We hope to break ground in about a week which would mean that the yard would be mostly done by August.  Here’s what the end product will look like, sort of.

That’s all for now.  Check out this post from a sewing blog when you have time.  Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, all!