Friday, August 27, 2010

Finally Finished!


This is my High Octave Hester doll. I took a class to make this doll over 3 years ago. We didn't have time to finish the doll in class and at the time I knew I couldn't finish her myself. Well, a couple of weeks ago I found poor Hester in a bag with fabrics and trims to keep her company all these years, so I pulled her out of the bag and decided it was about time I finished the poor dear and put her out on display to make friends with all my other dolls. She is such a cute doll, another great Jill Maas design.




Wednesday, August 25, 2010

What I did on my Summer Vacation

As I mentioned in my last post Ed and I went on vacation last week and actually got home last night. We went to Reno to visit our son and grandson and to meet our son's girlfriend. Reno is actually a really nice place to either visit or live. We moved there 17 years ago from New Hampshire and lived there for 2 1/2 years, but I can't believe how much it has changed in the last 14 years.
They have improved downtown tremendously since we lived there. The Truckee River which is the only river to flow out of Lake Tahoe (others flow into the lake) goes through downtown Reno. When we lived there it was pretty much just a river. Now there are parks built around it and people go rafting and tubing or just lay in the water and let the current take them down stream. The river is not very deep but the current is pretty swift. This is a picture of the river standing on a footbridge that crosses over the river.
One of our favorite places to go to when we visit Reno is Lake Tahoe. When I lived there it was my favorite place to go at least once a week, except when it snowed. It is so peacful and serene and so, so beautiful. Ed and I spent the day with Jordan, our grandson, and we sat on the boulders near where this picture was taken. We had lunch at Jason's which is in Kings Beach and also overlooks the beach, and we drove around for a while. It was a great day.
One of the best things about Reno/Tahoe is the weather. We were there for 8 days and it was cloudy only 1 day. As you can see from my photos the clear dark blue skies are almost an every day experience. It is just a wonderful place to be. The temperature is warm, but it is dry. And the mornings and evenings are amazing. Because it is high desert, it cools off very quickly after the sun sets so the evenings and on into the mornings are spectacular.
Well, besides going there for vacation, we went there to visit our son and grandson and meet our son's girlfriend Erin. She is a lovely woman, very bubbly and sweet. This is a picture of our son Chris and Erin sitting on their back patio area. We had a great visit and we had a lovely dinner that Erin and Chris made and Erin's parents came also. It was great to meet them.
This is a picture of Erin and Jordan at a restaurant where we had breakfast one morning. I am so happy that they get along so well.
One morning Jordan, Ed and I ate breakfast at a restaurant called Squeeze In. Wow, the food was wonderful! The restaurant started in Truckee in the mid 70's and the couple that own it now bought it and opened a second restaurant in Reno, actually around the corner from where we use to live, and will be opening a 3rd restaurant in south Reno next year. The one we went to in Reno was the place where Bobby Flay of the Foodnetwork had one of his Throwdown shows. We tried to get in there on Sunday morning with all the kids but the line was out the door so we went to a place we used to go to when we lived there, Heide's and that is where the picture was taken. Forgot to take a pic of Jordan and Ed at the Squeeze In which we went to on Moday morning.
Well, this Saturday will be Jordan's 13th birthday - a teenager!! Where did the time go???? Since Ed and I were leaving first thing Tuesday morning we had a little party for Jordan Sunday evening. He liked the cash! We also got him a couple of Wii games. It was a fun time. He is such a sweetheart.
We wanted to make it an early evening on Monday so we went to visit Chris' bowling pro shop that he just opened with his friend Dave Wilson. This is a picture of Chris with his drill press for the bowling balls. I can't even begin to explain what this means to my son. He has loved bowling all his life. I remember sitting on the kitchen floor when he was a year old and setting up those plastic pins and he would just knock them down and I'd set them up again - for HOURS!!! He has bowled all his life, but when we moved to Reno, Chris was 17 and got a part time job at the bowling center at the old Reno Hilton, now the Grand Sierra Resort and joined some leagues and started to make a lot of friends and build his reputation. He has his PBA card and has bowled in PBA tournaments on the west coast for a few years now. I'm so proud of him and so happy because I know this makes him so happy.
Well, we are back in Ohio now and the only one who is happy about that is our dog Lucy. But life will quickly get back to normal as it always does when we get home from vacation.

Spider Sprite


The lovely and sweet Colleen Babcock asked me once again to test a pattern for her. This is her new pattern that is about to be published called Snowflake/Spider Sprite, I chose to make the spider and her 2 other testers made the snowflake. This doll is so cute and so much fun to make, I am going to make the Snowflake Sprite before Christmas, at least that is the plan. If you read Colleen's blog, The Magic Bean, then you may have seen my doll as well as the snowflakes. I went on vacation last week and wanted to finish the doll before I left so I haven't had time to post pictures of her until now. I'm not sure what I'm going to name her yet, any ideas?