Dog Days of Summer....

Well, really cat days of summer here at house....look at my poor Whiskers. She's so hot...

'Course, I got this look after she realized I took her picture while laying in not so lady-like manner. The heat wave continues (see post below) and actually, there's been some records set, from what I hear on the news. We only have a few really hot days during the summer, so not many have air conditioning. It's a bit uncomfortable at night trying to sleep, but we have fans going and that helps a bit. Poor Whiskers has a thick coat of fur, so I know she's warm. At least she doesn't have to do too much work! :)

Some happy news, today is our 23rd wedding anniversary....sweet hubby gave me these beautiful flowers!

Aren't they pretty! It's also Robin's birthday today!

What happens to snow in 90 degree weather?

We're having a heatwave here in the Pacific Northwest! 90 degrees! LOL I know that's not unusual compared to some parts of country and I'm not complaining one bit. We've waited a long time for temps to warm up here...just a week ago, it was still in the 60's.

So what does one do when it's 90 and there's no A/C to be found...head up to Mt Rainier, of course! (everyone and their brother seemed to have the same idea, by the way...it was crowded!) It was a bit cooler up there, but not much...it was quite warm in the sun and the snow was melting fast. We saw probably a hundred waterfalls of all sizes. Some of the larger waterfalls were really fast and powerful.

To give you a small glimpse of how much snow has melted and still needs to melt, look at this picture of the visitor center from February:

And here is the same walkway today. You can see there is still lots of snow left!

I never get tired of seeing the beauty of Mt. Rainier....especially with a clear, blue sky:

For some quilty news, I went to my LQS Quilt til you Wilt group last night. I was able to make all the blocks for quickie quilt. I'm making it for a neighbor that has become a good friend. It's made from 4 charm packs of Moda's Oak Leaves & Reel fabric line. I'm pretty happy with it, but there are things I wish I could have done differently, but oh well, what's done is done. Someone at the group said it looked Christmas-y...great! Not what I wanted to hear. I'm still deciding on a layout, but I'm pretty limited because there are only 20 blocks. It's seems all other layouts end up uneven....I still need to sew the blocks together and add borders. Seeing it here in the picture, it's kinda growing on me. :)

I also made the first block from the Patchwork Party blocks. It's called Capitol City Grill. These blocks are a bit of an extravagance ($7 each), but I love the Prairie Paisley fabrics, so I caved and signed up! Anyone else making these?

Here I go again...another long post! I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine! :)

Pint Size Mini

Check out this little mini quilt I made over the last two days...It's a Thimbleberries pattern called Pinwheel Stars from the book Pint Size Traditions 2. The book is half size versions of popular Thimbleberries quilts, but I made it half size of that too, so it measures about 13" square. Each little HST is 1".

Smokey is doing his quilt inspector job, too. He always has to come check out what I'm working on! :)

I think I'll add a hanging sleeve and hang it in my sewing room. I really should have worked on something that needs to get done, but it was a fun distraction. I love making the little minis!

The best laid plans....

Funny how life has a plan of it's own, huh? The last few weeks have been so hectic with travels, graduations, family visits, etc. I was really looking forward to this week because I had nothing on my schedule for the most part and I could get some projects finished up and start preparing for our upcoming move (more on that later).

Tuesday afternoon, my DH came home from work early not feeling well. By 10pm that night I took him to the ER because the abdominal pain had become unbearable. After an entire night spent in the ER, he was admitted about 8am the next morning with acute pancreatitis. He spent the next 4 days in the hospital recuperating. He was released yesterday (Saturday) and has improved greatly in the last 24-36 hours. I'm glad he's feeling better....pancreatitis is pretty painful and he doesn't want to go through that again!

It turns out, sitting in the hospital room is a great place to work on embroidery projects! LOL Travis kept worrying that I was bored, but I kept assuring him I didn't mind because it gave me time to sit and work on my projects. Sometimes it's hard to find time to embroidery at home because I get distracted easily. So while he dozed off and on (thanks to pain meds), I happily stitched along. I finished this block from Cinderberry Stitches Truly Scrumptious Quilt and made good progress on the second.

So here comes another week...let's see what life has planned! :)

Another finish....Laura's graduation quilt!

I finished this blue and yellow quilt and gave it to Laura last night! She seemed REALLY pleased with it and was completely surprised!

I am very happy with how this quilt turned out. I love blue and yellow quilts and it really grew on me as it was coming together. I had a hard time picking a thread to quilt it with and finally picked a variegated blue. I got all set to quilt and discovered that my machine really didn't like that

brand of thread. I just couldn't get the tension right, no matter what I tried. So, with only a couple of days left before I needed to have it ready, I didn't know what I was going to do! I happened to have a spool of Robinson-Anton "Blue Eyes" cotton thread (I love RA threads for quilting), so I decided to give it a try and it turns out that it's perfect! After a couple months contemplating about thread, I ended up having the perfect thread right here at home all along! My friend Robin calls that "Serendipity!" :)

Catchin' up....

(sorry about the edits...blogger is doing wierd things with the pictures)

I feel like I've been away forever and have sooo much to share. We spent a week in CA and the same day we got home, we had family come for a week long visit. Everyone has returned home now, so I feel like I can finally start getting back to some sort of normal!

Our trip to CA was awesome! As you probably know, the main purpose of the trip was to go see a taping of The Price is Right....We weren't able to take pictures inside the studio so our cameras were left in the car. I did snap this picture as we were getting in the car....you can see everyone is still wearing their nametags! (click for larger picture)Here is another picture of our nametags. :) We want to save them, but they are still sticky, so I just put them in a "safe" place until I figure out what to do with them.

In case you're interested, the show we were at will air on Tuesday, June 17th. We sat two rows behind "contestant's row," so I know we'll be on TV! We are all wearing "McChord AFB" t-shirts, some are red and some are blue.

Anyway, it was a fun experience and I'm so glad we did it. It was a long time dream of our son, Zachary's, so I'm glad we were able to make it happen for him. It's just a bummer he didn't get to be a contestant!! :)

So...we also went to Disneyland! How fun is Disneyland??!! We had a blast, of course, and rode all the rides (some more than once!). California Adventures is probably more fun because of the roller coasters. Here's a few pics:

Can't miss the Teacups when at Disney....

There was a Lego store in Downtown Disney...it was heaven for Zach. He's always been crazy for Legos, so he was like a kid in a candy store. :) By the way, he's wearing a Captain Jack Sparrow hat from Pirates of the Caribbean. He doesn't have dreadlocks in real life. :)

Time to go home.... :(

Last but not least....we had Zach's graduation party last weekend with 3 of his close friends and their families. There were about 60-70 guests and it turned out really well. One of the mom's had the idea to have the bakery transfer the picture of the kids on the cake!

Family Pic...Zach is the tall one!

I know this was a long post! Thanks for reading if you got this far...LOL. I have lots of quilty projects going on and deadlines coming up, so be watching for pictures.

UPDATE!

Just a quick update on our Price is Right adventure! I know some of you are anxiously waiting to hear! :)

We did get to go to a live taping of the show, but sadly, none of us were called to be a contestant. I was a neat experience, though, and we all had a fun time. Drew Carey is a great host and was pretty funny during the commercial breaks and other down times. It was a long day! We were up about 4:00am and at CBS about 6am to get a priority number. We didn't leave the CBS lot until 5:30pm!!

We also had tons of fun at Disneyland and California Adventure...I'll share pics and more stories a bit later. The same day we got home, we had family arrive for Zach's graduation. So, we're busy with visiting and sightseeing, graduation activities, etc.

More later!