Spring is finally here in full force!

I spent several hours outside on Saturday pulling weeds and doing a general spruce up in my gardens...boy did I ever feel it on Sunday! I was mighty sore! The weather was fantastic and warm all weekend, but it is back to the rain today. I don't have any great stitching pictures or stories this week, but thought you might enjoy some flower pictures. My Japonica is gorgeous this year, it never has bloomed so fully. The apple trees are in their off year, so they don't have many blossoms at all. The lilacs are doing okay, not fantastic this year. My irises are just now beginning to bud, so it will be next week at the earliest before I can enjoy them.

We are planning on having 5 yards of bark delivered next Saturday morning, so John and I will spend the better part of the day distributing it to all the flower beds. Things should look really nice by next Sunday!!

I have been plugging away on stitching a new design that I have been working on since before we left for Hawaii..I have it all planned out, and it is about 3/4 done, but not getting stitched as quickly as I would like. Seems like there is never enough hours in the day!! I also started the Washington State Heart of America by Victoria Sampler, as I needed something to stitch that I could stitch without too much thinking when I was tired...it's about 1/3 done. I'll post a picture one of these days.

Amy, Lizzie and I took Alana (my granddaughter) to the park yesterday. We went to one of the newer parks in town, and I think everyone in town had the same idea...man, the place was packed. There were too many children on the playground equipment and Alana seemed overwhelmed, so we left and found a small neighborhood park where we were the only ones there. She wasn't too excited about the swings and slide, but she did enjoy running around on the grass! Maybe later this summer it will be more fun for her.

Hope everyone has a great week! I am looking forward to Von's report on her wonderful vacation!

A stitching picture

Here is a picture of the extent of my stitching while on vacation! Not very much really...this is Just Nan's Queen's Heart. I have a tiny bit of back stitching and some beads and the charm to add, and it will then be done. It was a fun one to work on, and is much prettier in person than the picture on the pattern!!!

Considering I usually get very little stitching done on vacation, I was pleased to be able to almost finish this!!

Pictures of Maui

I have finally gotten my pictures downloaded onto my computer and have begun sorting through them. I mostly took movies this trip, so I don't have a lot of REALLY good still photos to share...but here are some highlights...

First picture is myself in front of the Io Needle..a beautiful place, with a grim history. I think I have talked about already that this is the valley where King Kamehameha slaughtered many of the island natives in his quest to become King of all the Hawaiian islands. Sort of a sobering place, but very pretty.


The next picture is of John (my DH) walking in front of a strange lava formation called the Dragon's Teeth. The wind was blowing about 45 miles per hour that day, so we were having a hard time even standing up straight.




The next picture was taken at the top of the 10,000 foot Haleakala volcano. Kind of strange to be able to DRIVE up that high within a matter of 1/2 hour. It was beautiful, above the clouds, and very, very COLD! Our car thermometer registered about 36 degrees at the top. A little bit later at the bottom it was 85 degrees again!!!




I have also posted here a picture taken in the grocery store...notice the gallon of milk for $7.75 (this was the cheapest we saw for milk) and the gallon of orange juice for over $9.00. We saw bread at nearly $5.00 a loaf. I am not quite sure how people who live on Maui manage to feed their kids nutritious foods. It's one thing for the luxuries to be expensive (i.e., ice cream at over $8.00 per half gallon), but quite a shock to see basic necessities be so expensive.

I will close this post with a picture taken at sunset of the beach and condo (far right, first floor) we stayed in. I took a huge amount of photos this trip of the sunsets...all of them were glorious!

I will post a picture of the tiny bit of stitching I accomplished on the trip this evening! I still need to get it scanned...

Aloha, Mahalo Maui

It's almost time to head for home, tomorrow, Wednesday, to be exact. This has been the best trip we have had to the islands, and while we hate to say goodbye to Maui for this year, we are about ready to be back on our turf and sleeping in our beds again. The condo has been ideally situated for lots of playing in the ocean and laying in the sun, and we have taken full advantage of it. That's all we have been doing today, playing in the surf and laying in the sun, and now, drinking iced mochas in the internet cafe!

We saw whales up close, drove to the top of the 10,000 foot volcano, shopped till we were ready to drop and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I'll have some pictures to post on Thursday evening!

So, Maui, thank you (Mahalo) for the wonderful week. We are already looking forward to coming again next time. Aloha nui loa! (very much love)

Aloha!

Lizzie and I are siting in a nice little internet cafe here on Maui, sipping iced mochas and browsing the web, so thought I would make a quick entry on my blog. I have no way to upload any pictures here, so you will need to be content with just descriptions! Sorry!

We had a great plane flight over. (*Side note, the movie they showed on the plane was called Freedom Writers and it was a great movie. If you have a chance to see it, I would really recommend it. John and I were brought to tears several times and we were bawling openly by the end of the movie). We arrived about 1:00 in the afternoon, and after picking up the rental car, headed for the condo. The weather here in April is perfect...about 85 degrees in the afternoon. Very warm, but not too hot. This has been the best weather of all the times we have been here. October and May were both tooooo hot.

We have an ocean front condo on the first floor of the building, just steps from the pool and sundeck, a few more steps to the beach. We don't have to bother with the elevator which is wonderful, so convenient. The weather is cool enough to enjoy our breakfasts on the deck (lanai) outside, and have been sitting out there alot. The sunsets so far have been gorgeous. We have been watching the whales (with binoculours), and getting tan. A little. We are being careful not to sunburn!!!

Yesterday we spent a couple hours at the Marine Center...a small but very cool place. There is a tunnel through the middle of the large aquarium and the sting rays swim right over the top of you....it's like swimming with them...almost surreal. I took lots of cool movies and pictures! We then spent a hour at the Io Needle park, a lovely place. Today we drove to the top of Haleakala volcano, 10,000 feet high! We were way up above the clouds...it was gloriously beautiful. I will post some pictures when we get home!

Tomorrow morning we are going whale watching in a boat...it promises to be a great adventure, the whales have been very active since we have been here. I am looking forward to it!

We have about done everything we really wanted to do this trip, so now we have several days to relax and enjoy the beach and sunshine. Wish you could all join us here! I'll post more early next week, and post pictures when I get home.

Missing you all!

It's been a busy two weeks!

The last two weeks have been very full and busy. Last weekend my dear friend Von came over from Kennewick (other side of the State), and we had a wonderful time visiting and getting caught up with everything. If you are interested in hearing about the weekend, please see Von's blog...she gave such a great run down of all we did, that I don't need to repeat it all here. I will say though that I had a marvelous time with her, as I always do. Thanks for being such a long time friend and stitching buddy Von! I believe we have been friends for nearly 30 years, as we knew each other before we were married! We were married within a month of each other, had our first baby within 2 months of each other, and now we are enjoying being new grandma's together, tho she beat me in that department by a couple of years!!!

So as you can see by the picture, the saga of the leaking shower continues. I took a picture of the lovely hole in my living room ceiling...John spent alot of time last weekend installing the new parts and it still leaks. He says that's what you get when you use free labor!!! LOL! I am not sure what he plans on doing now.

I am also sharing a picture of Catch the Wind since I framed it. I think it turned out pretty well for a do-it-yourself project. Von asked me if I had put spacers between the fabric and the glass...oops, no! I need to fix that soon!

It's been a great Easter Sunday here...even tho it rained and we had to have the egg hunt indoors for the little ones. They seemed to love it in spite of being inside. My whole family, except one sister, came to my parents home for dinner, and we exchanged birthday gifts for all the winter and spring birthdays in the family (let me tell you, it was like Christmas all over again!), then had the egg hunt. We were all amazed that Alana (17 months) picked up so quickly the jist of the game, and she filled her basket to overflowing with very little help! It was so fun!

I was out nearly every evening and most of the day Saturday this last week shopping for things we needed for our trip to Hawaii. I hope that I have everything under control. We just need to get it all into the suitcases now! We leave very early Wednesday the 11th! Woo hoo! I tried to find some Hawaiian music code to have playing as you read this, but everything I found sounded pretty dorky. My favorite site for music was down today. Oh well. At this point, you can start humming Aloha Oe, Aloha Oe....dum dum dum, etc. Then you can still be in the mood!!! Grin.

Tomorrow, Monday is Amy Sue's 25th birthday. We will have them over for dinner and gifts and cheesecake tomorrow evening. Birthday cakes are becoming a thing of the past in this family...most everyone would rather eat cheesecake!! Tuesday we pack, and then I will be gone for 8 days...I leave you with a picture of the view from our balcony at the condo. You can see the island of Lanai in the distant background. Aloha everyone!!!