Down Under

I recently went on a trip. Two friends and I went to Sydney Australia. Yea, that's right, I left the hubby and kids behind. A friend got an invitation to teach at the Chiropractic Pediatric Diplomat Program in Sydney and invited me and another friend to go along. A 15 hour flight and 4 nights stay.

This is me at the beautiful and unique Sydney Opera Hall. Shaped like sails. Did you know that if you took apart the pieces of the building you could put them back together as a perfect sphere.
Looking left from here you see the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We went on a twilight bridge climb and saw the harbor at sunset. WOW that was fantastic.
This is not us but it could have been. There were only 4 of us. It was spectacular.



This is Darling Harbor where we took a Ferry to Manly Beach
We took a bus trip around Sydney and saw the sites. This is Bondi beach.
We spent some time in Paddy's market.
Shopping.
The Queen Victoria Building for more shopping. Great floor, hu?

We tried to get to a quilting shop but did not have the transportation. There was a Lindcraft in the shopping mall but nothing special in the way of Australian fabric.
It was a great and a super opportunity to see a part of the world I may never had the chance.

Green Fancy

This week I got another finish. This one I call Lyndsy Green. I guess because I made it for my friend Lyndsy and her favorite color is green. Her birthday was last month and I had to give her a rain check.I started by calling this one and another one Flee Market Fancy because that is the name of the quilt the tutorial is from by Crazymomquilts. Little did I know the quilt was named for the fabric line it was made for. Well now I have to come up with my own quilt name.

It seems I always have a model or two when I try to photograph a quilt in the floor. After my heavy sigh I came to my senses and appreciate the charming little folk for their playfulness.
I did all this free motion quilting. It felt like it took forever. I went through about 2000 yards of thread. The quilt measures 86X68.A little free piecing for the back to add interest.

A little red thrown in for variety. This is probably the most photographed landmark in our area. It is referred to as the Red Church for obvious reasons. Learn more about it here.

Birthday Week

Nicole celebrated her 12th birthday. She was born and raised in California and is Minnesota Twins fan through and through. Go Joe Mauer. What she wanted for her birthday was a Twins cap and a Mauer Jersey. Such a happy girl.Eric celebrated his 14th birthday. I don't know he got so old. He just wanted cash. So that's what he got. With all the money he bought himself an iTouch. Another good leverage tool. I made cupcakes for his soccer team but the powdered sugar frosting was lumpy and not very attractive. So while we were at the soccer tournament DH Jeff scraped the frosting off, bought some canned stuff, and made a soccer ball out of them. Isn't he clever?
Kevin is working on his tooth pick project for school. He learned that hot glue is really hot. I know he has craft sticks here, but he is building two towers so he can make a tooth pick bridge across them.And Me? quilting, quilting, quilting...

Not An Ordinary Day

This weekend I participated in my first Triathlon. I know I have been kinda secretive about it but I did not want to commit myself publicly for the obvious reason. I have never done anythig like this before. I have never been an endurance athlete I have always been a very poor runner and never cared for it. I did not even own a bike. I did however swim competitively growing up. I have not swam laps in 30 years though.
I decided to do this in June when talking mater of factly about the physical condition of triathletes. After looking up what exactly a Triathlon consisted of I said to myself "I can do this". It was tongue and cheek for a while when I said I was triathlon training, my DH would give kind of a chuckle. But I did it and not only finished, I finished 21th out of 65 women competing in the short course, 4th in my age group.

I did well in the swimming leg. I am here somewhere but you will have to find me.Transition from the swim to the bike. It takes longer than you think to to put clothes on over a wet bathing suit.
After a run I crossed the finish line! Wooo Whooo. Here I am with a friend of mine who also competed in the race, his first too.

For the Grandparents

Nicole dribbling for warm up.


Eric in his dance outfit that he did not go to.
Jeff and Alea watching soccer.

Kevin being cute as always.
This is where I had lunch the other day. I was reading my art quilt book about texture saw some here.
Went for a jog at the high school the other day. The trees caught my eye.

Neon Day

Today is Neon Day at the high school. I tried to tell him he hurt my eyes but he did not seem to care about my eyes.Not much action on the sewing front. Life is way too busy to carve out a little time to sew. However, yesterday the best hour of the day was when I got to sit at soccer practice under a tree and read my new book.'

I only got to page 6 and I did not look ahead. I am savoring the pictures. That's funny because I will eat a cake as fast as I can.(?).

I need a bigger wall

I need a bigger wall. Here are My Cactus Patch blocks. They are fun to make and I am not tired of making them yet.Went to a Soccer Tournament in Lodi this weekend and one of the games was canceled due to lightning. A woman in the next town was hit by lightning that morning. We were sorry for all the bellyaching about calling the game after 2.5 hour drive.


Eric had a school game this week. He is doing a flippy thing to throw the ball in. That is his signature move and the ball just flies.