Playing catch-up - camping

We tried to go camping at least once a month this year from April to October and we were pretty successful minus a few months.

Besides our train wreck camping trips in March and May the rest turned out pretty good. In Early July we bought a new tent with some birthday money from my parents and then took it on it's maiden voyage soon after. It's a good thing we did or that trip would have been crappy too because it rained a day and a half. Because our tent was keeping us warm and dry we toughed it out and still really enjoyed ourselves.

We tried to hike the trail through the boy scout camp that burned a few years ago, but it didn't go too smoothly. After a couple minutes of walking the dogs were a few feet a head of us and stopped dead in the tracks staring at the side of a hill. My first thought was, "Oh dear God, there's a moose!" but when I jogged up to them it was just some cows. The dogs didn't start barking until we clipped their leashes on and the cows didn't seem phased.

It then started raining so we turned back and hunkered down in the tent the rest of the day.

The next camping trip we went on was a couple weeks later with some friends and their dog. They hit a large rock into the camping site and ripped a hole in their car's radiator so most of the trip was spent driving to and from Wyoming trying to repair it. Luckily it didn't ruin the trip and we still all enjoyed ourselves.

September and October passed by us in a blink of an eye so I thought we were done camping, but my mom called me saying she wanted to go to Goblin Valley in early November. Since Goblin Valley started out our year by kicking our butts I agreed so we could conquer it!
I didn't take many pictures, but it was such a nice camping trip with my parents, John and our two pups.

We hope that 2015 brings us some more camping adventures because both John and I love going up into the mountains to get away from everything for a while.

Playing catch-up - stuff around the house

2014 has been pretty quiet on the remodel front, besides finishing up the craft room, basement flooding and new carpet not much has been done. The larger projects we want to do will all have to wait until money is saved up.

We did do a little work in the backyard only because we were presented with free rocks. John's co-worker ordered one ton of rock for his driveway and the company delivered two tons. The company wouldn't come get it so John's co-worker has been trying to get rid of it.
Knowing that we needed to fill in some of the backyard, John offered to take some off his hands.

I think in the end it took 4 or 5 truck beds full to finish the side of our house, but it looks much better than it did. I couldn't find a before picture, but just imagine dirt, mud and over grown weeds and that is what it looked like.

 John also filled in the section of dirt between our house and the grass, nothing would grow there but weeds.

We also had a lot of dead sections of grass from storing the shed on it or Winston's killer pee so we bought some sod to patch them up.

Now we wait out winter and save for a new roof to be installed in the spring.

Playing catch-up - quilting class

I hate when others play catch-up and here I am doing it. My quilt class started in August and that's where most of my time went.

 There are about nine girls in my class now and here they all are enjoying our first class of the series.

I'm teaching paper piecing, meaning the pattern is printed on a piece of paper and fabric is sewn onto the paper and once all the pieces are sewn on the paper is torn off. We're doing a quilt called Around the Town and every month we sew a new building.

It takes a few weeks prep time since I make the pattern in 3 levels for the girls in my group since everyone is at a different skill level. I then sew the hardest level and make cutting lists for all three levels. It's quite a bit of work, but I enjoy it.

I didn't get pictures of the first month block, but the second month was a church.

 Here is my church, advanced pattern has appliqued windows and embroidery

And some of the class's church, they all did the advanced block, but didn't have time to do the applique

 

The next month was an ice cream shop,the advanced block had more windows and an appliqued ice cream cone on the door and appliqued window curtains

 My block

Some of the class's blocks, I think most went with the intermediate block and they need to embroider the words Ice Cream Shop on the building 

The next month was a quilt shop and it looks like I slacked on pictures because I didn't even take one of mine. Here are a few of the classes.

In December we did a toy shop and I forgot to take pictures of the classes finished blocks, but they all turned out pretty cute.

The class will go until next August or so and then I think I'll take a couple months off to breath before I even think about doing another block of the month series.