Great day . . .

We arrived in the Parker, AZ area on Thursday and found our site at the Buckskin Mountain Park. We really like this spot - lots of room between RV's and everyone here is so friendly.

Last night we had hamburgers at my brother's who lives pretty close to us here. We celebrated his birthday which was a week ago and my Bob's birthday which is next week. Today we did a long day trip to Phoenix - the east side of Mesa actually - for the wedding of my brother's granddaughter. She was a gorgeous bride. The wedding and reception were outside. But it is a long drive over and back in one day.

Our friends from Helena, MT are also in the area and we met up with them for lunch yesterday. I think tomorrow is a stay at home day. We have not even had time to get to the grocery since we arrived. It is all good!!!

on the road . . .

We are on the road . . . finally.

We had a beef delivered yesterday so had to wait for that. We split it with 3 other couples and the sharing turned into a wonderful gathering of family and good friends - so we were late getting everything finished this morning, but we are on the road.

We are in Idaho Falls tonight - nice RV park - good neighbors from Canada who are heading home - hot soup and hook-ups. Not a bad way to go after a long, hard day.

More later. . . hopefully.

Wild and wonderful weekend . . .

It was a great time - but God knows what he is doing when he gives them to the young.

Weston and Walker were here this weekend. They came yesterday morning and stayed until this evening. We love having them come to visit. We had a Target shopping spree for Valentine treats and a fun supper out at Wendy's last night. We had their favorite waffles this morning, made valentine buttons, mini donut pops, learned to make videos and Weston did a great job "doing the news" on a little video he made. And, Walker got in a little nap and woke up sick so there was a lot of unplanned washing. Tonight we made a big "make your own" taco/nacho supper in the evening and had everyone here to end the day. As soon as everyone was out the door, Bob and I put up our feet and let out a big sigh - good memories from every minute.

But, I am not far from bed and it is just 8 pm. We are so blessed.

Finally . . .

The last piece of the "remodel" arrived. The stools came yesterday and they look good. They are a bit redder in color than the cupboards, but I like them fine. It has been 9 months since we first identified the water leak and black mold from the dishwasher leak and this is the last part so it feels good. And the time it has taken is probably the main reason I like them just fine!

If the color had been off a bit 6 months ago, I would have cared, but I love the way time evens out what is really important.

Keeping us warm. . .

Monday I took Mom to Missoula to visit with some of her friends and for a meeting with her accountant since it is tax time. We stayed overnight and came home yesterday. When I got home last night, the new fireplace insert was finally installed. It was "just in time" as we woke this morning to no electricity and 8 degrees. Of course we soon had the power company here and within a couple hours they had the problem fixed. At first they thought they were going to have to dig and replace a bad section of the cable that is buried from the road. However, they found it was a bad connection in the transformer so that was good news and a much quicker fix. But the fireplace insert sure kept this part of the house toasty. I think we will love it.

Finally . . .

I am finally feeling human. I ventured out today and picked up Mom to do a little grocery shopping. The coughing is less and I only had one "coughing fit" in the store. After several days of being down, it is feeling good to be up and around.

Here is a picture of the stitchout I did of the border design. I still have some tweaking to do to make it as nice as I would like, but I was pleased with how it looks. I would certainly use it on a quilt and have lots of ideas on how to use this method for similar designs.

Weather here continues to be really nice for winter in Montana.

coughing, coughing, coughing . . .

I came home with some kind of crud - well I probably went with it and it just didn't bloom until I got back home. I have been coughing, coughing, coughing. You know the way that goes - your stomach and ribs hurt and it feels like I could have a an accident if I were very far from the bathroom. I am glad I am home. I think it is the mucinex - but it is getting all that bad stuff out of there.

Here is what I worked on today. . . I wanted to try to find a way to digitize the beadboard border above and below a design in a border. The lower picture is of a border I did like that shortly after I got my IQ. I used my IQ for one run of the panto, Waterworld and then did the beadboard manually.

This is my first effort at seeing if I can digitize this type of design so it will be repeatable for a border. This one might work, but I have a lot of refining to do. I was just glad to get it to run from left to right and have the start and stop point end on the same plane.

I will try to do some stitching out tomorrow with Hoke.