Fun Times

Thought I'd get up a quick post, and share a few photos. We've been a bit busy, with a three-day trip to Algonac and Lapeer in mid-July plus a couple of all-day outings.

We were able to spend a few hours with my biological dad, and I was encouraged to see him doing better than I expected. Well, I honestly didn't know what to expect since I hadn't seen him in 24 years, although from our occasional phone conversations I wasn't hopeful. But overall he's doing pretty good for a fellow who will soon celebrate his 86th birthday!

Not the best photo, since it was taken with the phone, but better than nothing.

I've talked about our obsession with antique cars, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I pushed Ivan to speed just a tiny bit so we could catch up and pass this gorgeous chunk of metal:

Although we see antique cars on the road in Argentina, too, we never see this kind.

I took the camera to Shipshewana on Friday, where we met up with family to see "Half-Stitched", but failed to take a.single.photo. Which makes me sad, because we had quite a group, including two of my friends from Michigan. At least Tina took a great photo later at her house, when Rita stopped by with mom and "Aunt" Margaret*:

*We call her Aunt Margaret even though she's not related. Margaret and her late husband, Jim, were also missionaries in Argentina. Now Margaret and mom are next-door neighbors at Grace Village. 

In addition to the travels, we've continued our quest to digitize our photos. No small feat! We've been married 34 years, and both of us have photos from our childhood as well, so we have THOUSANDS, filling nine photo boxes plus a couple dozen albums. It's been my responsibility to sort through and pull out duplicates as well as the multitude of not-very-good photos. Y'all remember when we used film, and you never knew how many shots would actually turn out? Well, my record was pretty pathetic -- and for whatever reason I saved even the really bad ones -- so now I'm culling about 3/4 that we're not even bothering with. That still leaves a LOT of photos for Ivan to scan though. BUT the end is in sight. It will take another week or so (depending on how many "free" evenings we have) but we're down to the final two boxes. Woot!

I'm really excited about having access to our photos again. We're planning to "store" them in three different locations: on the iCloud, our family flickr account, and some type of flash or pen drive. Eventually I'd like to create photo books with some of our favorites, although I want to think that through and figure out whether it would be better to do it by date (maybe by decade?) or by topic (vacations, holidays, etc)?

Yesterday we shared at a church that was having their annual "Picnic in the Park" Sunday, and the weather was PERFECT. The extreme heat and humidity we'd been experiencing gave way to cooler temperatures with barely a hint of humidity, and the sun was shining after a night of rain. It was one of my favorite Sundays yet -- and not just because the service was followed by a potluck picnic :) That kind of venue makes it a lot easier for us to connect with more people, and really have time to talk with them. Which is one of our goals this furlough, so whenever possible, we like having more time than just a Sunday service.

Progress on the baby quilt continues, too. I have 8 more blocks to appliqué before assembling the blocks and then adding borders. I started out by doing machine appliqué but wasn't happy with how it looked, so started over and am doing all the appliqué by hand. The colors -- aqua, gray, white and lime green -- make it look more suitable for a boy, but if it's a girl I will add magenta via more appliqué and the binding. We'll find out the end of August whether it's a boy or girl, and we're all looking forward to that!

Can you believe August is just around the corner?! July has absolutely flown by. We'll be heading out the end of this week for a three week loop down to Indiana and up to mid and then northern Michigan.

Ivan will drop me off in Grand Rapids on August 14th, on his way back to Jonesville. I'm meeting up with two friends and attending the AQS Quilt Show that will be held at the DeVos Place Convention Center. On Thursday I'm really excited to take an all-day class with Katie Pasquini Masopust. We'll be mixing it up with paint, fabric, and canvas and along with traditional stitching we'll be cutting and re-assembling our work to create a unique piece of wall art. It will definitely be a stretching experience for me, moving me outside my comfort zone. But I've watched Katie several times, on the old HGTV series, Simply Quilts, as well as online at The Quilt Show, and she's a dynamic teacher. Then Friday I'll tour the quilt show and check out the vendors.

This will be my first time attending a big quilt show in over 20 years, and I am almost giddy with excitement. Along with the class, just to see the hundreds of creative, inventive quilts that will be shown, and learn about new products that vendors are sure to have on hand... Can you imagine anything more fun for a quilt enthusiast?!

So what are you looking forward to this summer? Or has it already happened? Did it meet your expectations?