Really Random (Friday), 7/14/17

Welcome to July.

Mark and I started the month by driving up to Kings Canyon, which is such a short drive--a little over an hour--and we always wonder why we don't go there much more often.

We ate a picnic lunch, read, and played one of our favorite games--Shut the Box.

There is a new restaurant by the visitors center and we wanted to try it out before we drove back to the heat of the valley. It's very nice. We found out they had just opened two nights before.

They were short staffed (on a holiday weekend!?) and our waitress decided to save time and just bring our drink refills at the same time as the original drink. Whatever...

Sewing has been happening--and not all of it by me.

Stacie and I did a sewing project together.

When I was in Morro Bay, I met the creator of Tubby Wubbies,  little felt critters that come with everything already cut out--even the needle is already threaded! I couldn't resist buying a few of them--they are super cute, and a fun project for a hot afternoon.

I was so proud of how they turned out.

I'm making so much progress on my hexie quilt.

 All the fabric in the quilt is designed by Denyse Schmidt. So when she left this comment on my Instagram post, I was thrilled.

This was on Marie Bostwick's instagram feed. Haha.

We had "the littles" all day Sunday. It was hot. So for part of the afternoon, they chilled and watched a movie. Don't ask me why they are covered in quilts.

Then we decided to go to one of the water parks. It wasn't working at full capacity, but there was enough water to get a little cooler.

 

We ended with shaved ice--although it sure wasn't as tasty as what we had a couple of weeks ago.

Mark meets a friend every Monday morning at a small locally owned restaurant called Benaddiction, for breakfast and to talk football. His friend is in Hawaii this week, so he took me instead. All the things on the menu are named after rock songs. And the food was so good. This is the only place that Mark drinks coffee--I'm going to have to get a French press for home. I sure hope to be invited back. :)

Do you all head over to 7-11 on 7/11 from 11-7 for free Slurpees?

And there you have it. We are caught up.

Really Random, June 2017, Part 2

Do you have city clean-up where you live--that opportunity to clean out your garage/attic/closets/yard clippings, and the city will haul it away?

We found these in the rafters, and since we are in the decluttering mode, and these had not been down from the rafters in probably about 20 years, out to the street they went. Mark thought it would be funny to put them together. People drive by constantly and take things from your pile. These were gone before we had barely finished putting them together.

Some things went to Salvation Army, including this small shelf that my father made. Don't worry--I have a lot of his beautiful woodworking projects, so I somewhat reluctantly let this one go.

Along with this table from my tole painting days.

 And this mailbox that I painted to hold Christmas cards.

And this display stand from Mark's woodworking days.

Nope, these did not go anywhere but my closet. I discovered I must really love yellow shoes.

The organization that Christa works for (Central Valley Justice Coalition) had a fundraiser with a shaved ice truck. I'm not normally a shaved ice fan, but this was on the gourmet level. Soooo good.

I think everyone was pretty happy with their flavor choice, which pretty unanimously was "rainbow."

Sometimes the sky is just spectacular.

And then sometimes you have to leave the heat of the valley and go back to the coast.

 Lots of times when there is high heat in the valley, the coast is socked in with fog. Which suits us just fine!

Some cool new houses have been built near downtown Pismo. There is apparently one guy who didn't want to sell his property, and is staying right where he is.

We went through a carwash and it had multicolored soap. That was kind of cool.

And I remain convinced that the city of Pismo is telling me that I need to keep on sewing. I refuse to believe that this is merely a marker for the sewer location.

Our neighbors keep an eye on our house when we are away, so we treated them to teppanyaki, which is always a fun event.

Meanwhile, Aaron, Christa and the kids went to Legoland. It's a standing joke that Mark's favorite "ride" is the park bench. He was quite amused when they sent him a picture of this lego man sitting on the bench--just like Gramps.

I hope you will come back for the final installment--which should get us caught up.

Really Random, June 2017, Part 1

This will be broken into several posts, since I haven't posted anything random for a long time. So let's go back to the beginning of June, shall we?

Mark took the kids to Terry and Cathy's house one morning to pick berries.

Cathy and Charlotte also gathered some lavender--Charlotte and I will make some sachets later in the summer.

It was Terry's birthday, so they all had breakfast together on Terry and Cathy's deck.

Charlotte has taken piano lessons from my mother for quite a few years and has participated in the Piano Festival at least five years.You earn points based on your performance and when you reach 25 points, you are awarded a gold cup. 2017 was the year for her--it's a big accomplishment.

She also received a spelling certificate. Too bad her last name was misspelled...

Speaking of spelling, the national spelling bee champion is from Fresno. There was a nice article in the paper. However, in the last sentence, there is a punctuation error. Can you spot it?

I was fortunate to be invited to a quilting retreat in Cayucos, on the central coast of California. The house we stayed in was wonderful.

We had a great set-up for quilters, and occasionally had a view of Morro Rock when it wasn't covered with fog.

We usually went on a little road trip each day--out for lunch and then to the local quilt shops.

Lunch in Morro Bay.

San Luis Obispo.

A couple of us walked to the beach one evening. The tile on these steps has inspired me to make a strip quilt.

It was an interesting house from all angles.

The evening was beautiful.

There was a little fort made out of driftwood. Unbelievably, this is the only picture I have from the week that included another person--Cathy and I would live here if we could be this close to the beach.

Assorted things I saw during the week. All true.

Although I'm not a beer drinker, so I would probably change that last sign to read "wine" instead.

I worked on this flamingo quilt the entire week. I just have to make the backing and it's ready to be quilted.

It was our anniversary while I was gone. Aaron sent Mark and me this text.

And these beautiful flowers were waiting for me when I arrived home.

It was such a wonderful week. I sure hope I'm invited to attend next year!