Moving On.

I've been gone for a while.  So much has happened over the past months, I'm not sure where to begin!  I have laid a quick summary out for you below.

First, I'm sad to say that we no longer live in New Mexico.  We packed up our little ranch house, livestock, and kiddos and drove halfway across the country to Washington State.  It was a bit of a sudden decision, but here we are.  If you have been following me for a while, you know that all of our family live here in Washington, and it was just time to be closer to them.

My little ones have never seen the ocean, or any kind of large body of water before.  Now that we are in Washington, we thought it necessary.  So, one day we bundled up and took a ferry boat trip to Vashon Island.  It was wet and cold, but absolutely wonderful!

Our heifer we brought along with us from New Mexico, had a little heifer of her own.  She is a couple of hours old in this photo and has already grown so much since then! 

I ran the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon - photo taken at the start line.

I reopened Fresh Picked Patchwork here in Washington and survived my first craft show!  I will be at the Puyallup Farmers Market this Fall - so if you're from the area stop by!



 

 I will have more on sewing and other matters, but for now thank you.  I appreciate all of you readers and have truly missed this aspect of the sewing community. 

 

Enjoying Some of Summer

Being ranchers, we usually don't go out for late night outings.  So, it was a real treat that we actually went to watch fireworks on July 4th.  It was the first time Logan and Aslyn had ever seen fireworks in person.

We recently took a much needed weekend off. A little trip to Grants, New Mexico where we "camped out" and toured areas of the Land of Enchantment.

Since it was the kiddos first time sleeping in a tent, we decided to go the old KOA route.  I had never stayed in a KOA campground before; growing up camping was hiking back into the woods, and setting up tent. 

 

 

The Natural History Museum to view the "Cowboys Real and Imagined" exhibit, the Mining Museum, Fire and Ice caves, and Sky City were just a few stops we made.

 

Bandera Volcano

 



Ice Cave

Brrr - It's cold down here in the ice cave

 

After a day of hiking volcanoes, we spent part of the evening cooling off in the pool.

 

 

Now to get back to my sewing machine! 

Not Much Sewing

I haven't done a whole lot of sewing these past weekends, instead we drove up to Taos and hung out. 

 

 

I did make a trip to our local library and ordered a few books from Amazon.  I feel like I am currently in a bit of an inspirational rut (hence, the traveling around New Mexico on the weekends.) 

Perhaps this week will be a bit better.

Saturday Train Ride

On Saturday, we decided to skip our usual trip to Albuquerque to do our errands.  Instead we drove the opposite direction to Santa Fe to hop on the Rail runner - a commuter train. 

We decided to ride it from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.  Since we had time to kill before the train was to leave, we walked around Santa Fe, ate lunch, had hot cocoa.  It was wet and cold, but none of us minded, we were out to just enjoy the day.

The train ride from Santa Fe to Albuquerque was little over a hour.

 

 

We ate dinner in Albuquerque before hopping back on the train to go back to Santa Fe.  My kiddos were pretty tuckered out!

 

 

An excellent Saturday!

Photo Friday 2012

Photo Friday - 2012

A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

I mentioned a while back that my oldest, Logan had a loose tooth.  Well last night it finally fell out (with a bit of help from Dad.)  After the tears slowed, w gave Logan his caboose pillow, the pockets ready to hold his precious first tooth.  Though we have talked about it before, we gave another explanation on how the tooth fairy will come, leave a token for him, and bless him with sweet dreams and good luck.

It's funny - I remember losing my teeth as a child.  The excitement of the tooth fairy bringing me a little something in my elephant pillow.  Logan seemed to care less!  He was more concerned about his tooth falling out than anything else.

As of tonight, here is his pillow.  Laying there, untouched.

In this pocket you will find
A teensy, tiny tooth of mine.
So while I sleep where
dreams are made,
Let’s see if you
can make a trade.

In this pocket I will lay,
the little tooth I lost today.
Please, dear fairy,
tonight as I sleep
leave me a coin.
My tooth you can keep.

- Author Unknown

Busy Little Bees

Things have been pretty crazy around here.  School started back up,  Logan is now in Pre-K.  We are just getting used to the school year schedule again.

My little Aslyn turned 2 years old!  Where does the time go?  Since one of Logan's teacher's birthday is the day before Aslyn's, we all took the tram in Albuquerque up to the top of the Sandia Mountains and had dinner.

 

 

Lots and lots of cattle work being done.  Ultra sounding (I am the ultrasound tech), breeding, embryo flush and transferring. 

We spent most of Labor Day weekend working, but managed to get away on Monday.  We drove up to Nambe and played in the water holes.

 

I did manage to squeeze in one little project.  After being asked for a business card and not having any on me, I decided I needed a business card holder.  After searching the web for a few tutorials, I got the general gist of it and put this one together.  This little project is great for those lingering scraps.

Lastly, my iron died on me.  Luckily, I had just finished reading the iron reviews in the debut issue of Generation Q magazine.  An order to Amazon and now I am impatiently waiting for my new iron to arrive.

Hope all has been well with you!

Photo Friday - 2012

Photo Friday

Baby Quilt

I recently received a text message from a family friend inviting me to her son's, girlfriend's baby shower.  I have met both new-to-be parents at family events (i.e. Christmas, Mother's Day, etc.) but really do not know them all that well.  However, since my family has been friends with theirs for 30 years I feel that whether I attend or not (cattle work is being done so my attendance is still up in the air,) I should have a little something for the new parents.

The baby shower is on Sunday.  Yep.  Sunday!  Not a whole lot of time to put a gift together.  The information I have attained thus far, they are having a little girl and the nursery is in yellow and brown.

I searched through my fabric stash for their color scheme, not a whole lot there in yellows and browns.  It's not that I use these colors a lot, I just don't buy them often, a shame I know!

One of the yellow prints I found has a bit of pink in the center of the flower, so I added in some of Denyse Schmidt's eyelet in pink from the Flea Market Fancy line for a little pop of color.

Obviously, something quick and simple is needed for this baby quilt due to the time restraint.  For babies though, simple seems the way to go anyway.

I decided to do the quilt in a coin stack style.  Here is what is up on my design wall so far.

Another row of coins and a slight rearranging of colors, then I should be able to get my ol' sewing machine a whirring.

Three days to go until deadline!