Wednesday, August 26, 2009

We ran away...

My Hubby is a school teacher. He teaches at a Middle/Jr. High School, which covers grades 7-9. He loves teaching. This last week tho, he was stressing out about beginning a new school year. (He started this last Monday)
So he said to me last week, "Let's run away from home"
"Run away from Home? Can we do that, as parents?", I replied.
"I don't know if we're allowed, but we're gonna...find a hotel and somewhere we haven't been or haven't visited in a long time".....so
We ran away for home for a weekend, and it was wonderful, and we have decided to do it the weekend before he begins school every year from now on....
We originally wanted to camp, but couldn't find anywhere that was either open or sounded exciting or wasn't going to be freezing cold at night, so I booked a hotel at the Salt Lake Airport... I loaded the photos backwards, so on Sunday, we drove out to Wendover, Nevada on Hwy I-80. About half way west of Salt Lake, you come upon this "Tree" (pictured above) out along the highway. Now, there isn't anything else to look at out there, so it's kind of startling to come upon it. It represents a tree and the metal changes color as the temperature changes.
Just outside of (west) Salt Lake we stopped at Saltair on the Great Salt Lake. Saltair use to be a beautiful Pavilion next to the Lake where people would go to swim and dance and have a great time. The changing level of the Lake has changed Saltair to a sad crumbling building. We walked out a little on the beach where I took the photo (above) of a rainstorm coming across the water.

Saturday, we went to the Family History/Genealogy Library for about 8 hours. My Hubby is determined to find his ancestors, but history isn't making it easy for him. We took a break and walked across Temple Square over the Lamb's Restaurant for a early dinner.



As I said, we stayed in the Hampton Inn by the Salt Lake Airport. It was a nice hotel, but our stay was kind of comical. We checked in and went to our room, which was at the other end of the hotel. When we opened the door, we were overwhelmed with cigarette smoke. Called down to the desk, who told us to come back down and they'd change our room. They upgraded us to a nice suite, which was beautiful, until we walked into the bedroom and found the maid had left the dirty linens/towels on the floor. Another call to the desk to remove the laundry resulted in a move to another, bigger, cleaner suite that ended up being free! I had never stayed at a Hampton Inn before, but I will book with them again in the future. Oh, the breakfast in the morning was huge and yummy!
Next year, we'll just plan to run away earlier so we can book a nice camping spot....or maybe a cabin...or another Hampton Inn room!



Sunday, August 16, 2009

Stashbusting Report

Yeah hoo...I actually have something to report this week!

Fabric in this week:7.5 yards
Fabric in YTD:75 yards

Fabric used this week: 7.5 yards
Fabric used YTD: 100 yards

Finally, some sewing time! I made three flannel baby quilts for some new Mommies.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Canning...canning....canning.....

Olivia: Hey Suzanne...I have tons of apricots....what some?
Me:Sure, I'm in the mood for a little canning...
What was I thinking....... Hubby and son picked a large container for me....

Hubby dried a few trays of halved apricots

I (with hubby's help) canned
7 pints/3 quarts of apricot-pineapple sauce (new recipe-on left)
7 pints of apricot jam (new recipe-on right)-I may have cooked it too long so it may be syrup!
I'm tired and don't want to do anymore apricots, but I'll love it come winter when there isn't a apricot in sight!




Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Our first overnight with Tayge

Tonight is our first overnight stay with our grandson, Tayge. His parents are off celebrating their wedding anniversary. I babysit him everyday, so I think will go okay, if his Mother doesn't call a 1000 times, and his Dad doesn't worry about him sleeping thru the night at our house and a few other reasons his parents will think of....
They borrowed our 4-wheeler to go out on the trails at Hardware Ranch. Tayge was pretty happy about sitting on it with his Dad....
...and was pretty excited to sit on the 4-wheeler all by himself......

...but then wasn't too happy when Dad tried to remove him!

Yeah, he figured out he wasn't going on this trip!


Happy family photo just as the parents left him with us.....
I don't see alot of sewing/quilting/reading in my future the next 2 days!




Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Warm and warm and...

Warm! Okay, Hot! Our weather has been so hot and so dry....haven't felt like doing much of nothing, including Quilting.

I have been doing the usual...Mom, Grandma, Babysitting, playing on the computer, teaching, cleaning, a little reading and the garden.

And speaking of babysitting...isn't he cute! A true little boy with his dog and trying to wear his Uncle M's large shoes. His new words are "Wolf, Grandma, Grandpa and Bye". I sure love this little guy!
I have been setting up my goals for the next year. I even purchased a bright new planner (pictured above). I have been reading a book called "Twenty Wishes" by Debbie Macomber. The characters make a list of 20 wishes they would like to accomplish. Some of the wishes are really simple, while others are quite complicated. I've started my own list:
1.Learn to read Hebrew
2.Eat healthy each day
3.Swim again
4.Hike and camp with my Hubby
5.Finish more UFO's before I start new projects.
I know, not a list of 20, but I'll start working on these first and build on the list.
If you had a list, what would you be listing? Share, please...

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Stash Busting Report

Same as last week....no sewing for me!