Another George !

I got another "Here's George" dollar bill again. This one came from Boise City Oklahoma at a Loves Truck stop. I got home and registered it and it had come from Colorado, kinda fun to see what happens ! I was the first registration on it and the gal was so excited, I told her it's going to hitch a ride with me from Arizona to Alaska and spend it there to give it a bit of mileage !

Apricot time !!!!

It's that time of year again ! Apricots are ripening ! The tree is LOADED ! I've been picking for a few days to load my refrigerator up for when we come back from our trip so there will be plenty to take out and ripen and eat and make jam. I've set up a picking time and those that wanted could pick a day so hopefully the birds won't be getting them all ! Plenty to share with everyone that wants to come and pick ! They are mostly still all half green but that's when I pick them so they don't have a nibble out of them ! Hope everyone has fun ! A favorite memory of my kids is swimming in May and June when they ripen and pulling them off the tree and eating them in the pool , throwing the pits out into the yard ! Nothing better than warm fruit right off the tree !!!!

Washington !

Hi we made it to Seattle , wonderful hugs at the airport with Jeremy & Jamie! We drove downtown to see Pikes Market, it was closing down but we got the feel for it. Dinner at Olive Garden and off to McCord AFB to spend the night. It was FREEZING and wet when we arrived, Brrr! We went to Mount Rainier this morning, it was overcast and lots of drizzles this morning but it was georgeus! The mountain stayed in the clouds but we saw 2 visitors centers, the rest still closed to snow! We are heading to the Olympics this afternoon...getting our fill of "green"! Can't do any pictures until we get home so just think GREEN & wet!

Pizza time !

Ken and I had fun tonight with our little boys ! We went and picked them up when Aiden was out of school and off to Peter Piper Pizza !

Here is Garrett showing us his tatoo he won and his little flying disk.

They had Fun on the rides and games ! Then they devoured pizza !

Aiden is showing us the snap bracelet he got with his tickets he won !

Little ones are happy to pretend to play too !

There is a fun slide there, Ethan tried climbing up the right way and just wasn't tall enough so I thought we were "safe" from him going up high ! NOPE, he figured out he could just climb up the slide way and get clear to the top. All the sudden I look up thru the windows and there he is ! He has such a brain for figuring things out...hmmmmm great problem solving ......engineer perhaps????

And we topped it off with ice cream cones....took them home good and sticky and tired, but we sure had fun !

Emma thinks she's going !

Does your cat do this????? Pack for a trip and they have to be right there !

I set up a card table in my bedroom to start throwing things on for our upcoming trip, as I think of them. My new backpack is on there and it's now Emma's favorite place to sleep. How do they know....is she thinking - if she's going without me she's crazy ! I finally put a towel over it since I didn't want to clean "another cat" off of it with the shedding ! She still thinks it's a fine place for a nap and now Katie has found it too !

Kansas 2010

Just returned yesterday from Kansas. I had the opportunity to take my parents back to their home town. My Aunt Joyce had passed away and they wanted to be with her family to celebrate her life, so I cancelled the week and drove them to Kansas in their car. Two days of driving, thru Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and up thru Kansas, there isn't a N/S running interstate thru Kansas so it's all 2 lane country roads....just us and the semi's! First night into Texas, tornado's all around us. Second day should have been short day but for the torrential rains, wipers on highest speed, driving under 50MPH all thru Kansas, just me following the semi's ! But we made it safe and sound to our destination Russell Kansas!

It was great to get my folks back to their home town....which hasn't changed much. Wilson is where they both grew up and was the town I'd visit my Grandparents from little on. So it was great seeing it again.
This is one of my Grandparents homes, the other burned down years ago. The house looks great, it's now painted a light powder blue, many a fun evening spent on that porch watching the storm clouds and cows in the pasture across the street. My sister and I used to sleep on the floor on a pallet behind that upstairs dormer window, it was at the top of the stairs and just right for us. The little building off to the left was the "wash house" where the very scary cellar was and behind that was the chicken coop.
Only big change was that the old stone Opera house burned down this year. What a loss for that community. And as you see it's not been cleaned up as there isn't funding for it, amazing to me as around here within a week the hazardous area would have been cleaned up. Everything is as is, all the burned timber fallen into the basement.
We were able to spend some time one day at the cemetary, putting flowers on loved ones graves. My Dad where his parents are buried and our dear Aunt Annie.
We had time with family the day we arrived, the Visitation was that evening and a cousin brought a lovely meal into the hotel for everyone traveling so far. What a treat to be come reacquainted with cousins I havn't seen in so long. My Aunt had 4 children, Judy and Sharon ( front row) I've stayed in closer contact with over the years and have seen them periodically, Carol ( front row left) and Steve ( center back) I havn't seen for decades. Never have met any of the spouses so it was a nice time to reconnect.
These are all the grandchildren and great grandchildren of my Aunt Joyce, I had only met a couple of them, and it's the first time all have them have every been together on one place. I was very confused that first night figureing out who went with whom! I could connect some by looks, then we decided we just needed family pictures so that helped tremendously to put which child went with whom!!!!

Here is Judy's family, daughters and grandchildren.

On a side note her daughter Amy ( second from left) just got back from Ethiopia and brought her mom this fabric. It was lovely, felt like a bit of rayon in it, so for my quilter friends you'd have loved seeing it, only about 38 inch wide. It was a wonderful reunion for Judy too as she hadn't seen her grown daughters in a long time, She's my cousin in Farmington that is a quilter too !

Here is Sharon, her boyfriend Jerry and her 2 children and new son in law. They all live in Texas.

Here is my cousin Steve with his family, all from Texas.
Here is Carol and her family, I had never met her husband Larry or her children, John goes to Purdue clear to little Rachel who is about a year older than our Garrett. What beautiful children.
It was wonderful to get to see my Aunt Kay. Some friends drove her thru Kansas to be there for the service. Here she is with my parents.
She road with us to the burial in Wilson so we had a bit of time to visit then, also stayed for the lovely luncheon in Russell, so nice the church was to do that for us all. Aunt Kay just had her 90th birthday !
We were able to spend one evening with my Uncle Butch. He came from Wilson to Russell to meet us for dinner at Meridy's. Here are the 2 brothers walking back from the restaurant,
We got to meet Butch's Grandaughter Isabella, what a darling child ! She was very outgoing and would put her arms out to all of us to hold her. She's a few months younger than Ethan. Here she is with my Dad, her great Uncle !

Butch and Isabella

Here is Butch with Lisa and Brandon and Isabella, it was great catching up with my cousin Lisa and getting to visit with Brandon who is a volunteer firefighter, all the towns around there only have volunteer fire departments. Amazing ! He was on the scene for the opera house that burnt down, 17 surrounding towns fought that fire and they were able to save the rest of the block from burning down and only lost 2 buildings. We that live in the city have no clue how different life is in these rural towns, they had to send tanker trucks out to the nearby lake to get water to fight the fire.
After our day and a half we started our trek home. My Dad the official navigator with map and magnifying glass in hand decided on a different way home, a less traveled route than thru Dodge City with all the cattle yards and semi's after semi's going that route ! It was just me driving that van on the little country roads past all the green fields of wheat waving in the wind. We were able to stop in Great Bend at a little country cemetary and find where my Great Grandparents were buried. It all happened with a bit of luck as we headed to the town cemetary and realized it was wrong but a nice maintanence man gave me directions out of town to find this one and it had a directory posted so we found it.

Here are my parents giving it some loving family care.

So these were my Great Grandparents, the original people to come and winter in Arizona, thus my parents followed in 1960.
Next we drove on thru all the little towns, lots of time for hearing stories from the old days of farming and learning all the details on what in the heck is a "drill". I always thought that was for wood but actually it's the thing that plants the wheat. Also did you know why in the heck are there so MANY little towns....they are positioned 8 miles apart, all a government and railroad agreement to let the railroads thru if they'd establish towns every 8 miles. We came to Haviland Kansas to look at the old Hardware store that my Great Great Grandparents family built. A wonderful brick building, the name Phillips 1911 is over the top. We went in to inquire about where the cemetery was and saw the wonderful tin ceiling, it's still a hardware store and as we discovered...the local hang out for coffee. And as fate would have it one gentleman ( of course they all know you are a stranger) that was there heard us ask about directions and is in charge of the american legion and placing flags at the cemetery and he just happened to have a plot map in his truck of the cemetery so he was able to look up the name and give us a hint at where to search for my Great Great Grandparents burial site.
And we went right to it, talk about luck, that was all meant to be or we'd have been searching everywhere looking for them. Here is my Dad by his Great Grandparents site. We have a few mementos from this far back in the family, that quilt that I showed you last week that my parents received was made by the lady that is buried here.

So our drive continued late into the evening, until we got thru Albuquerque, so our drive home the next day ended by 3 in the afternoon, thank goodness no rain or tornadoes came with us! It was wonderful to see Kansas again and enjoy the time with my parents as we drove along. Sure glad I could take the 5 days off and get my parents there and see family and celebrate my Aunt Joyce with them. I tried to take lots of photos since I was the only "representative cousin" there from the Frederick family that is spread all across the US.

A final shot of the stone posts you see everywhere, one of the surviving symbols of the Kansas pioneers.

Home safe and sound

We made it home this afternoon from our trek to Kansas, I accompanied my parents there for my dear Aunt Joyce's funeral. 2 days of driving thru amazing weather, but we made it there, saw wonderful family, 2 days driving back and we made it ! I'll post picture tomorrow when I find my brain ( long hours on the road with the semi's do that !) but here are just 2. We stopped to eat in Heber on our way back today at Junes. This will bring back many a memory for my kids, they loved to go here as children when we'd be up at our cabin in Heber, this was a "treat" to go to Junes Dairy Bar for an ice cream ! Well, it's still there !The inside looks the same but they've decorated with yard sticks, old fashioned yard sticks are everywhere ! the beams and walls have them all over the place.
If you'd like to experience June's.... go to Heber and take the turn towards Holbrook and there you'll find it !Fun to know the little old place is still around !

Finished !

Yea for another finished project, this one was only a couple years in the making ! It's bound and done and ready to hang in our bedroom ! Another great trip memory which seems to have become the theme in there, I have a little shelf going across one entire wall with fun trip memory pictures that we've taken. One more thing out of the sewing room !!!!

Scorpion Hunting

As per request from Jamie, she said....I need more details ! How do you scorpion hunt ?.... So for Jamie and anyone else that wants to read my rambling...here goes . If you want to go scorpion hunting, you have to wait until dark, around 9 or later seems to be the beginning of their active time. If you go to early they aren't out. Also if it's windy there aren't as many out and also if it's to cold they don't seem to come out as early. You keep all the outside lights off and you "sneak out" and then turn the black light on. Here is the one we have, it looks just like a flashlight in size.But it has many of these little bulbs, they make smaller ones but we like this one as it does have a bigger area that it lights up. We usually start with the perimeter of the house, shining the flashlight on the walls and checking cracks in the concrete patio, they have favorite places like the crack between the patio and the posts, also the best place is on the cement block fence. The pilaster ( the parts that hold the walls together in sections) seem to be the favorite place as they can go behind there and hide, they are the "scorpion condos" ! This tool is my department, I do the shining and am the "spotter".
When you spy one they might be all the way out of their hiding spot or just half out. If you are using a hammer at that point you have to be fast to do the smashing, if you are using a torch then it's not pertinent to be fast as you can burn them up even if they are only half out or on their way back in as you can shoot the flame behind and in between things. Here is the magic gas burner thing !
They do not like the black light, so if you spy one then I usually take the light off them until the "killer" ( Ken) is ready with his weapon. Then I tell him exactly where it was and turn on the light again until he's got them. If you leave the light on them they do run. Now if I was good at the online picture stealing I'd post a photo of one but since I havn't figured that out you just have to imagine the scorpion. Ours are a light tan and most are about 2 inches long. We did have one about an inch long so you know it was a teenager. They carry the babies on their back, we haven't gotten any of those yet. This little thing is the flint type of igniter that makes the spark to ignite the gas . These are both Ken's department, he is the official "killer", "burner" of scorpions.

Now the black light is sold in stores as scorpion lights since the black light just makes them glow, they look almost white and glow under the light like all the funny things on your shirt or shoes do on rides in Disney land. Of course certain other things glow too, we found out that the citrus blossoms all glow, so that makes you jumpy as you think you see them here and there, but when you do spy them you know it, it's not hard to determine them. Now Ken first started out with a hammer, hunting and smashing after experiencing the fun with our son Chris, my friend Denise first told me about this new hobby her daughter had a year ago and she used a rubber mallet. So there are many ways to scorpion hunt but the black light and torch seems to work best for us. We usually now find only about 3 when we got out to hunt a couple times a week so I think the nights of 9 or 11 are gone as word is out not to come into our yard if you are a scorpion !

Holy Scraps !

Well, the "girls" came up with the perfect name for this blog.... We had our Thornberry quilt group meeting today at my house and we had gotten this notion to have this scrap cutting day. So everyone was to bring scraps and cutting things and ironing things and scrap patterns and we thought we'd whip these scraps into shape. Little did we know everyone had BAGS and BAGS of them ! They just sort of snuck in the door and then as we worked they sort of fluffed and I wonder if we really eliminated any bags at all ! Here is our fearless leader of the day... Lorene had us all whipped into shape in no time, it was a sweat shop ! she had wonderfully organized cutting charts according to scrap patterns that people had given her the sizes for, charts and names and we really did appear quite organized. She kept us all in shape, set the timer for an hour at a time, then we got a 10 minute break to reguvinate ourselves. 10 minutes later the timer went off and back to work !
Louise was very busy. she was cutting many many plaid fabrics for a couple patterns we all loved ! Many a guy quilt will come out of those plaids ! How wonderful quilters are to share !
Sue was also a cutter and she ended up in the red" departement" but then got sick of reds so switched me for the neutrals. Her and I used my big cutting table that I won and it worked great. Near the end she ended up going to the "organizing department" as we sort of realized there is no way we will cut everything in one day.
Judy was the official ironer of the day, Judy loves to iron ! She'd press and then deliver to the right area for cutting ... neutrals, reds, plaids, assorted colors!
And here is Barb, she ironed also but then went to the cutting area .....
Terry P. was our official person to sort and make piles of all the cut scraps. She had everyone's names and kept all the scraps evened out as they were cut, Lorene had the clever idea of trays from the dollar store so she would go around taking our tray and then splitting them all up. Katie helped her for awhile.
And then Emma thought she should help too. Aren't pool tables great for so many things !
Finally when the timer went off Lorene let us have lunch ! We had a wonderful potluck like usual and then it was back to work !!!! At the next timer break we had birthday cake for Terry P. Sue and Barb, all having birthdays within 3 weeks of each other.
Well towards 3:00 we got "real" with this thought process and started realizing we were not going to finish this project, the scraps were growing and fluffing and perhaps having babies along that wall ! So Sue and Barb started sorting thru all the bags and got alot of things separated out and we all went home with a huge bag of scraps to get ironed before we do this again. That should save alot of time.
Next month we meet at Judy's so I think we'll be very organized again to get things cut. We all went home with a huge bag of squares and quilt parts all cut so it'll be fun now to organize what we did into the scrap patterns that they go with and see how much we really did do ! We are thinking once the scraps are in control we could do this once a year and stay caught up. But oh my who would think there would be that many scraps !

9 quilters x lots of fabric = scraps by the buckets full !

So here we are at the end, Mindy got here after work, Judy is STILL ironing and Ken is just shaking his head at the amazing piles ! Emma is in the action on the counter of course !
So it was a very fun day, I for one deal with my scraps alot as I make them and this definitly reaffirmed that it's a good thing to do as once they get into the big bags it's overwhelming ! So until next month when we do it all again we can keep quilting and thinking about what wonderful quilts we will get out of our scrap cutting days !