Bling is a girls best friend...

Ok, maybe that was diamonds, but for this girl it's the BLING! Here I am back at Walt Disney World at the "Race for the Taste 10k." My friend, Kelley and her family came down from NY to run/walk it with me. It was nice to have the company. This was Kelley's first race and she did awesome. I was pooped! Here are some shots from the day. Hard to look cute when you're sweatin like a pig.

Here I am before the race (looking fresh) with TJ and Maggie. Note the darkness.

Kelly & I making our way through The Studios

We made it past the ball, almost done! This girl runs with her eyes closed, that would be an accident waiting to happen for me!!!! The force must be with her.
Yay, the finish line! On to the free food please!

Old Farts Rock!!!! BLING!!!!
Da' BLING!!!

Me & My Gang!
GROUP SHOT... Me, Kelley, Tom, Maggie, Katie & TJ

The Cheerleaders!

My Birthday Girl

Oct 15th

Wow, where does the time go? 38 years ago today @5:33pm, I had Kerri. She's grown a little since then! lol  Here she is today with her birthday quilt.  She's such a Bears fan, what else would I make for her?!?!?!  Now she has kids of her own, and they are growing up quickly,  wait till they are her age!  oy!   

Anyway, Happy Birthday Kerri...Mom loves ya.

Opps, We've done it again!!

We have to stop shopping like this!   We bought a new house in Florida. We decided we were getting a little bored in Polk City, so we went on the hunt for a place on the gulf. We found a cute little place and thought it would be perfect. Only about two canals from the gulf. And since we were that close to water, well....we decided to buy a boat to put at that nice dock we all of a sudden have! Here's a few pics of the new house and the boat. Hopefully our friends will want to come visit and have a ride in the gulf on John's new boat. Better hurry before a hurricane gets us!

The house.

The cute little kitchen. Seriously, what more do I need?

A little family room area. I bought this furniture from the owner I thought it went so well in there. I bought the kitchen table too.

The dock area.

The canal, the route to the gulf

See, I told you the gulf was close! Cool huh?

Save the best till last....John's new 25' Catamaran.

Just a litte dose of Poison!

The things I do to be a cool Grandma! For some reason Emily was dying to see the Poison concert....I didnt realize she even knew who they were. Well, not being able to turn her down, we went for it. She found the tickets online, and they were really good seats, good in the sense if you wanted to go deaf, they were good seats! I have never seen such a huge bank of speakers in my life....up close! I know there's nothing worse than aging rock bands, but how can you pass up Bret Michaels...he's still got it. They put on a good show, and rocked the night away. The drummer, Rikki Rocket was awesome. And C.C. DeVille the guitarist, was fantastic. The nicest thing was, you could actually understand what they were singing!!! The opening act, Sebastian Bach, couldnt understand a thing he was screaming!!! LOL But it was all fun, and here are a few shots from the night. With a camera smuggled in inside Emily's bra!!!!  BTW, very interesting people watching that night....omg.

Emily and Grandma Terry

Bret Michaels

C.C. & Bret

Rikki Rocket

Kamp Keeneland

Well it was a big week at Kamp Keeneland. My niece Anna, nephews Jake & Hunter were here from Albq, NM and of course that meant that Emily and Mitch were here too. Also throw in a few girlfriends of the girls. I think everyone had a good time, I know Emily & Anna did. We swam a bit, when the weather cooperated, did movies...Strange Brew was watched 4 times by the girls, they are now obsessed with it! Went to the park, ate at subway, got ice cream in town, did lots of Wii, shopped and just hung out. Here are a few shots from the week.

Down in Durand at the park.
Mitch, Jake, Anna, Hunter & Emily.

Anna & Emily

Mitch & Jake

Back at the farm...
Pool time, Hunter and Jake

Anna & Hunter, having some crack problems!

Hunter got pretty brave on the diving board.

Emily and Anna did a night swim.
They love the underwater shots.Here we went to dinner at Fibs, these two love to cheese for the camera.
I think Mitchel has had enough!!!!

Of course we always have a bonfire.

Emily using a little flair when roasting her marshmallows.

New reciepe for Smores, exchange the chocolate bar for a brownie! Yum!
And finally, the graduate. Best of Luck to you Anna, Good luck at UNM.

This was our last day together, we met with my sister, Kathy down at the park.One more group shot, them acting wacky.

Beach Bums

Well these pics are in no particular order since I cant figure out Mac's way of moving them around yet! So.....here we go. We didn't do parks this trip, we just hung out, mostly checking out the beaches and snooping around the area. I love Tampa and Clearwater area.

Wholly crap, there is a boat following us down the road!

I love the beach, it makes me smile. Even John has a slight smurk!

How funny where those poles landed above Emily's head! LOL And a bird on each one to boot. Note pirate ship in background. Arrrgh! As soon as I figure out how, i will replace this pic with the one I fixed in photo shop, getting rid of her horns and the big orange ball.

Yay, I did it!!

This is such a cool bridge, I think it's the Sunshine Bridge or

something in St. Pete

Mitch helping me try out the under water capabilities of my camera.

And Sew It Goes...

As far back as I can remember, I have sewn. Probably starting off in grade school, going to my FHA meetings at Opal Bennets house. My first project, a cotton elastic waist skirt. White with black polkadots...I can still picture it. Makes me smile to think about it. Sewing has always been a constant in my life, no matter what else was going on around me. I made my daughter's clothes until till she hit Jr High, of course then it would have been totally embarrassing to wear home made clothes!!! I'm not sure what it is about sewing that I like, I just do. Making clothes, quilts or just goofy crafts, I love it. When I'm sitting there sewing on my fancy computerized machines, I think about my great Grandmother and how her head would spin if she could see the new things to make what was their chore, oh so easy. The tools, the gadgets and the fantastic fabrics they have now. No more feedsack dresses, although those fabrics cost more than new ones now! It all just makes me smile.

Here is my terrific sewing studio. I heart it! I could have cleaned it up better for the photo, but this is the normal state of things....when you're busy, who has time for cleaning. It's a terrific space and thanks to John for letting me redo the whole basement just so i could move to a bigger space. It is greatly loved and used.

Ahhh, the toys!!! This is my computerized Brother Disney Embroidery Machine. It's way smarter than me!!! But i have fun with it anyway.

OK, it's bragging time. My first quilt I ever made was a Red, White & Blue quilt. I made it to fit on the end of our porch for a 4th of July party, thought it would look cool....it did. After that I decided to enter it into the Winnebago County Fair...wholly cow, I not only got first place, I also got Best of Show. Not that there is a lot of competition there, but it was still special to me since it was my first real quilt. It holds a special place in my heart. Here is the BOS ribbon. cool huh?

The quilt is pictured below.

Here are other ribbons from various quilts at the fair.

These are my quirky thimbles and pin cushions. What started out as a "nice" thimbles only collection, got carried away with goofy ones our service guys would bring back for me. So, if you can't beat em', join em'. Now I have thimbles from all over the world, they are all special to me. I also have some in the Motor Home from our travels across the states.

Is there a Chicago Bears fan around here?!?! I thought so! These are things I made for Kerri, and anyone that knows her knows what a true blue fan she is. The first shot is her wallhanging I made for her office. It's enough to make the men fans jealous and was great fun to make.

This is Lucinda Dorinda! She's Kerri's cabbage patch doll from High School, all the girls use to haul them around with them when they were doing flag competitions. At that time she had a Hononegah flag uniform on, but has moved on to the Bears. She's totally cute.

And this is Kerri's newest quilt, hopefully to be done by her birthday in Oct to keep her warm through all the games.

This is one of my favorite wall quilts. It's just cute.

And there is nothing better than passing on the tradition to the little ones. Here's Emily with one of her projects for the school fair. BTW, the tradition seems to skip a generation....odd huh? lol