Snow bound

Clark is loving our winter storm weather. We started with 4 inches of snow yesterday. That tapered into freezing rain, sleet, rain and then back into snow with another 6 inches. It is beautiful. I'm so glad I'm done working at the hospital for the week. Otherwise I would HAVE to go. I felt sorry for my co-workers last night. They finished work at 11:00 then had to scrape an inch or two of ice off their cars before they could drive home in unsafe conditions.
I started a couple of new cross stitch pieces this week. From Sea to Shining Sea. My son lives in California, my sister and her husband and family live in Colorado, we live in Ohio, my parents and Rich's family live in Pennsylvania and my brother and his family live in Massachusetts. This is the perfect piece to represent our family.
I also started a piece for my niece's birthday. Here is what I have done so far. I'm using Vicki Clayton HDF silks which are wonderful on a cream colored even weave. The colors are not showing up well.

I was surprised Clark liked the snow as much as he did. He spent an hour sitting on the sun room steps watching it snow, watching the birds at the feeder and bird bath (I ran out of black oil sunflower seeds and feel really guilty).

Marsha

Girls Ski Weekend

We started our trip as planned for Thursday night. I 90 from Cleveland towards NY became a a good old fashioned blizzard. By 4 am we called it quits. Found a hotel room off Peach St. in Erie, PA, wound down and finally slept. This is a picture of a rest stop Fri. morning when we finished the rest of the drive. The snow continued to fall non-stop until Sun. morning. Even the locals in Ellicottville would look out the window and exclaim, "WOW, it's STILL snowing!"

Here is the lovely chalet we were so lucky to stay in.

Here is Cynthia shoveling off the lid of the hot tub for the first time of the weekend. The little building next to it is the sauna. The process was run out in a towel and slippers and leave them in the sauna. Next run to the hot tub, pray you don't slip into the snow and then soak away muscle aches from skiing. Once you are nicely cooked, run to the sauna, rewarm or cook some more, wrap warmed towel around you, slide on slippers and run to the house. Ahhhh. Fun even if you don't ski.

This was the view from the dining table Sunday morning when it had finally quit snowing. It was a beautiful place. 14 women in all spent the weekend. The skiers had ideal conditions with no one falling or getting cold. The non skiers had a trip to Ellicottville for spa treatments and a tiny bit of shopping. We all enjoyed each others company, great food, drinks and lots of cards, scrabble, bananagram and Mexican train games. Lots and lots of laughing. Even squeezed in a movie.

Here we are after a long weekend of fun before traveling home.

It's the girl's ski weekend starting tonight at 9:15. Three friends and I will jam our stuff into a car and drive to Ellicottville, NY. Holiday Valley is the destination. It's beautiful and quaint all rolled into one. Another friend from Buffalo, NY has a chalet all set for us to use. She will meet us there with another friend meeting us later. The Kentucky contingent, made up of 3 sisters, will be coming also. That makes 9 women for a wild and wacky weekend. The only down side is missing my grandson's 4th birthday on Saturday. Here are some pictures of the pillows I made for his bed. He loves orange:

The other pillow is flannel material and is nice and soft and slightly bigger. They don't really go together which may drive his Mom nuts but I don't think he will mind.

I have my first cross stitch finish for the new year. The last little bees are all stitched on. I will have to see my framer friend soon.

All the ornaments are snuggled back in their tissue paper nests. The trees have been dismantled. The santa claus collection and snowman collection are packed away until later this year. Now the long cold winter sets in. I have lots of sewing projects to keep me company and stay busy with.



I told a friend I had made Dana an apron for Christmas. She said she would like a Christmas apron for next year. That's all I needed to hear. Our local Joann's fabric store is moving to another location and everything is on sale. I had fun picking out apron patterns, fabric and other sewing supplies. I hope to make a few aprons this winter. I'm also a few bees short of finishing an Annie Beez sampler. Hopefully, I can finish it today and take a picture tomorrow.

Ornaments of Christmas

This is an ornament a long time friend made for me. Her mother-in-law is in the Sampler Guild and knows I like anything with bees. So, she told my friend she had to make this for me. Wasn't that nice. It's sweet.

This is the ornament I got in the exchange at our guild Christmas party. It goes perfectly on my tree in the sunroom that has bird, gardening and natural themed ornaments. It's delicate looking. The fabric on the back has teeny tiny doves on it.

This is the ornament I got from my secret stitcher in the guild. Isn't it sweet? She knew I really like purses.

These are some of the fun things, Janice, my secret stitcher gave to me through out the year. It was a lot of fun and I loved everything.

Only a couple more days 'til Christmas. This year I have to work Christmas evening so, we will be celebrating on Christmas Eve. Everything is wrapped! That took hours and hours but now I'm all ready.

This was one of my grandmother's ornaments and the crocheted snowflake behind it was done by a friend who died a few years ago. Most of my ornaments have lots of memories.

Shared birthdays

Dana celebrated her 25th birthday on Tuesday! What a beautiful daughter she is. We didn't get to see her on her big day so we delivered her present last night. A new Vera Bradley tote that she seems to really like. My other pictures would have been awesome but I had my camera set on macro for stitchery picture taking and I couldn't figure out why they were fuzzy. Silly me.

Dana and Clark share their birthday days. Clark turned 6! When we were picking out our puppy we knew he was meant to be ours 'cause he had the same birthday as Dana. Here's his post birthday celebration picture. He had a haircut yesterday and is looking spiffy in his December bandana. Have a great day!

And the Winner Is...........

The winner of my first giveaway is ............................. Barbara of Mainely Stitching!http://mainelystitching.wordpress.com/ Congratulations! Hope it gets to you in time for some fun Christmas stitching.