It has been a busy three weeks!

The last three weeks have been sooooooo busy, but so fun!  It started with a three day trip to visit my DD in Mesa, AZ.  We started out really early, about 5:00 AM because the weather report forecast high winds.  We hit those just after we headed south out of Holbrook, AZ.  The wind lasted until we reached Mesa and the sky was dark with lots of sand in the air.  We got into town a little early, so we did a little shopping, then went to DD's to deliver her Great-Great-Grandmothers rocking chair and went out to dinner.  The next day we all went to the botanical gardens in Mesa and checked out all kinds of desert plants.  I made note of a few for my garden next summer.  We had lunch and did a little more shopping, no quilt shops though.  It was back to her apartment to chat and visit a while, then out to dinner.  There was lots of eating out, but it was fun.  The next morning we met her for breakfast, then we were on our way home.  It was fun seeing her and her new apartment.  I like knowing she is in a safe area.

Next was getting the house picked up and ready for some high school friends to arrive.  We spent two days with them, driving about 425 miles and showing off some of our favorite sites.  We spent one day in Santa Fe starting off with a visit to the Loretto Chapel to see the staircase.

 

The beautiful altar

 

 

and the stained glass windows.

 

 

 

  We all walked around the plaza seeing what the vendors had on display and stepped inside the cathedral to view it.  There was a wedding about to begin, so we could not get any pictures inside but it is also very beautiful.  This was followed by lunch at a wonderful restaurant close by.  We had shrimp tacos that were to die for, YUM!  After lunch we headed back to Albuquerque via the "back road".  It is a wonderful drive through lots of beautiful scenery with a stop by "Maggies Diner" from the movie Wild Hogs.  On our way home, we drove up to the crest to look down on Albuquerque from 10,000 feet.  That night, we took the tram to the top of the crest just before sun down.  It is one of our favorite things to do when we have guests from out of town.  We had dinner in the restaurant at the top and watched the sun go down and the city light up.  It was a great day.  The next day, we started out with breakfast then headed downtown to walk and shop in Old Town.  They enjoyed the shops and a stop at the Candy Lady for some treats.  Nest was a stop to view buffalo and authentic native pottery and jewelry.  That was just a stop to look and dream.  After that we headed out of town and up into the Jemez mountains.  There we stopped at the Gilman tunnels, the soda dam, traveled on to the Valle Grande caldera, then back to the Los Ojos for dinner and home.  We crammed a lot into two days but we had a great time showing off a little of our state.

It took a few days to rest up and get back to normal, but it was worth it.  I finally got back to some sewing.  Right before our guests arrived I finished the last of the wedding signatures into a wall hanging for DS and DIL.  Last year at their wedding some of the guests signed strips of fabric for a quilt.  There were some of the strips where they wrote too close to the edges to get them into the quilt without losing some of the sentiments.  I appliqued them onto a wall hanging and decorated the border with more applique.  I like the way it turned out, I hope they do, too:

I am also working on a baby quilt for Henry who is due to arrive in January, here is a sneak peek:

It is all sandwiched and ready to quilt but I'm not sure how I want to do that.  I have a few months before it has to be finished, so there is time to think about it.

I have two other projects I want to finish as Christmas gifts, I really need to get started on those this week.  They are small and I hope won't take too long but we will see.  While I was making the backing for the owl quilt this afternoon I also made these:

We had a bread and soup dinner and the bread was yummy!  I think we both ate way more bread than soup.

That's it for now, I think I will go put my feet up and do some stitching!