We walked to the MGM and saw the LION display!!  There was the trainer and then behind us happen to be another young man in there -- I am sure for security for the trainer.  They hand feet these gals.  Inside there are a couple of baby cubs and you are allowed for a nominal fee you could get your picture with the baby. 

Video from the Rodeo Finals Grand Entry. The light show for the performance was pretty neat.  Being at the Rodeo was way more fun that watching it on TV.  When they go to commercial on TV--there is a whole lot going on in the arena.  TV only shows the hi-lights.  We loved it and someday hope to be able to go back.  The best part was to see the faces of my family and see the smiles.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Vegas

This year Christmas came early. We had promised our 2 kids that when they both turned 21 we would take the whole family to Vegas to the National Rodeo Finals. Well, we held up our end of the deal. I took pictures and tried to record our 2010 Christmas. There are lots of memories, but wasn't allowed to take as many pictures as I would have liked. I have been slacking on the pictures to Vegas. I looked thru the pictures and I thought you may not like what I had, but I have had a few requested and I DID PROMISE!!!

This is the the Hotel we stayed in on the strip. Near the New York New York, MGM, Tropicana. We had a great time just walking and seeing the sites.
We walked down to the Belagio and watched the light/water show about 10:30pm. It was amazing and very powerful.

Our main purpose to visit the "sin city" was for the rodeo finals. We, my husband, son, pregnant daughter and her husband, had a great time and enjoyed everything we did. A few photos of the grand entry to one of the nights we attended.
One of the nights we went Charlie Daniels performed and it was just amazing, but I left the camera in the Hotel room, WHO DOES THAT?????? Our son-in-law was about to cry, he loves his music!!

Merry Christmas

I wanted to wish all my followers, friends and family a Merry Christmas. God has blessed us all with a gift and my hope for all is that you use your gift to the fullest. Your life will be filled with joy when you use your gifts. God bless and have a safe and wonderful Holiday.

Thank Heaven

Here we are a week to Christmas and I have gotten everything moved to our new home, but still have the organizing. I must tell you that it is quite an undertaking to get a sewing room packed, moved and set up again the way you want it. Most of us want a room that is organized and everything in its place. I am one of those and so I tried very hard to pack in an orderly manner, but after getting home from a vacation I found that I just wanted to be moved. Yep, I found myself just putting things in boxes to get it done!!

All cleaned out!!!
Now on to the new home with all my STUFF- and I mean ALL!

The new room is the same size, but feels smaller. I am wanting to build in a counter top and under counter storage. This will have to wait until our finances regroup. For now I am using 2 8ft tables in a "L" shape.

Love the closet, from top to bottom is full of organizing shelving. I am ready to get my sewing room up and going. I want to get things done, so I am going to start this week getting it ready. Enough for today and maybe in the next couple days I will upload vacation pictures. THEY ARE AMAZING!!!!

Update on the move

My internet will be up and running tomorrow at my new home, so I am hoping to update you with a few photos on the move, the sewing rooms are difficult to tear down and then set up again.  I am wanting to do some work in the new house on the sewing room, but both time and money are going to make that difficult.  If I wait until I have the money I may not get to set it up for a few months, so I am going to go with what I have.   I was really wanting to rip out the new carpet and put in a tile or wood floor and have counter top for my sewing surface, but I am going to us the 2- 8" tables I have and leave the carpet for now and be happy that I have a place to sew and peace.

Needing Rest

Well, we are back from our vacation in Las Vegas.  What an amazing place to visit.  We went to the National Rodeo Finals for a couple rounds-the grand entry was absolutely beautiful.  Went to see The Lion King musical at the Mandalay Bay Casino and that was the most amazing show I have ever seen.  The costumes and the powerful voices of some very talented people.  We went to the Tourn of King's at Excalibur.  That was a great show of costumes, horsemanship and just fun.  We ate like cavemen - no silverware, very good food and entertainment.   Pictures to follow in a few days.  As I have told you all we are now back into the moving mode, so I may be off for a few days, but hope to be in our new home by the end of the week and then start setting things up to be HOME!!  Thanks for all the prayers and support!!

On the move

Wow, what a whirlwind of things going on.  We closed on our first home yesterday, so now the packing, moving and frustration begins.  What a blessing to have a new, beautiful home on 30 acres.   In just a couple days we fly out to the National Rodeo Finals for our first family vacation.  You all may think we are CRAZY!   Should let you know--WE ARE!!

I will be taking you along with me with the move and on vacation--hope you enjoy the ride!!  I am hoping you remember to laugh, cry and enjoy with us as we take our journey to a new life and new places.

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I won't be cooking much until Friday and Saturday.  It is difficult for us to get together with family for 1 day, so we will be celebrating on Saturday.  My blog may be slowing down for a little while, because we are finally going to be able to close on our first property on Dec. 2nd.  I still am praying that all is going to go smoothly and this will really happen.  We have been thru many trials and tribulations to get to this point in our lives.  May our Lord, Jesus, give us the blessing of signing on that dotted line this time.  This means you may be following me thru the move.  The tear down of my sewing room and the re-build.  What a mess this is going to be!!!!!  I so badly want to have this done.  Oh, to top all things off ---- we are suppose to close on Dec. 2nd and we fly out for our very 1st family vacation on Dec. 8th.  We are needing to find peace with all the mess and whirlwind.

Rotary Blades

I found out about a place that sells 45mm rotary blades cheap!  $1.99 for 2 blades.....WOW!!!!!  I know they fit an Olfa cutter, but I am not certain about any other brand.  These blades have a round hole in the middle and fit the Olfa just fine!  Go to www.harborfreightsusa.com and search blades.  I found them on the second page.  The shipping may be high if you only order 1.

Still exhausted!

The weekend was a great get-away.  I got very little sleep, but a lot of sewing and quilting done.  I felt very successful and beginning to get ahead of the game.

 
I finished ANOTHER baby quilt.  I used an easy rail fence and  a very cute duck border.  I quilted the body of the quilt with quilting The open tear drop or the J hook, not sure exactly what the name is.  In the border I quilted bubbles.  It turned out very nice.

These are the fabrics and I used the flannel for the back for softness.

Finished with a pail blue binding,  this will be a warm cozy quilt for a baby.
I also work on a huge rag quilt and finished stitching it together.  I still have all the clipping to do, but with the special scissors for clipping rag quilts, it will go pretty fast.  It will be warm and cozy for our COLD, SNOWY winter.  I used 10" squares from 5 different flannels.  10X11  BIG!!!!!

The best of laughs happen to be when we arrested the undercover cop that was very stiff with the fines.  We had to take 2 1/2 inch strips of Christmas fabric and when caught in violation ----- well a strip was due to pay the fine.  Man, let me tell you she was a strict one.  I was broke by Saturday night!!  I was down to giving my clothing!  Here is Elaine strangling the undercover cop, Marlene. 

I found that we all have the need to be accepted and appreciated for our love of quilting.  We enjoyed each other and visited a lot.   I look awful and exhausted--getting a total of around 5 hours of sleep from Friday thru Sunday.  Guess, I'm not looking too bad!!  LOVED MY TIME

retreat

Well girls today is the first day of a 3 day retreat.  It was foggy and the roads are very ice with lots of snow.  Made it safely and ready to get busy.  Will be updating with pictures later. 

Getting ready for baby

Finding out that our daughter and her husband are giving us our first grandchild, so ....... grandma got busy.  I have not done much for DM quilting, so here goes----- Our family is a true ranch family and true cowboys, so this fabric was a great choice for a quilt.  The salmon fabric was a little plain, so thought I'd use my embroidery machine and add some saddles.


 Then I found some sulky thread that had all the colors needs, so I used a teardrop type motif all over the body of the quilt.  Not too bad for the first try!!




This is a crib size quilt and it didn't take as long as I had thought, so on to the borders.  This quilt has two--salmon that I put hearts and swirls in it and then the yellow border I tried my hand at J hooks.  Not bad!!

 




 
 Now I am working on the binding.  I am hand sewing on a yellow binding.  I am moving on to another one to see what new things I can come up with.
I must say that the quilting world really push long arm quilting, but I am finding that my domestic machine, Pfaff C1100, is doing just fine--think I'll keep it.
I plan on working on a couple small projects and then I am going to move to a larger quilt.  Working on small projects and seeing that I am successful gives me the courage to go BIG!!!  

New beginnings

The "quilt Police" showed at a group I was at.  Our retreat is suppose to be having the police, too.
Today is a new beginning for me.  I am trying something new, a blog!  I have decided to share my love of quilting and things I have learned.  I have a good friend Elaine that blogs and told me to give it a try--well, here goes.  This weekend I am going to a 3 day quilt retreat and plan on sewing until my machine starts yelling "stop".  I'll keep you posted on how much I get done and what others are doing.   Enjoy the future and God Bless.