quilt

 

Here is a terrible picture of a quilt I made for my former supervisor who retired 3 years ago and I finally got around to making this for her.  People at her retirement party made blocks and I put them together.  It looks much better in person, but you get an idea.  The fabric is red background with leaves and trees on it and is mixed in with a plain green.

   I think the last quilt I made was during Hurricane Sandy, which was 7 years ago. 

 

Thanksgiving 2019

My sister and her family came to visit for Thanksgiving this year.  They came super late Tuesday night and then we woke up early Wednesday for cronuts.  The kids weren't that into cronuts this year, but the "baby" liked like chocolate éclair. 

 

 

 

Visiting the High Line

 

 

 

We walked by the balloons being blown up the day before the parade.  I remember when I first moved to NYC 20 years ago, I  heard this was a thing to do because people didn't really know about it.  I did it once back then and do not remember there being very many people around.  Now it seems that everyone does because it was super crowded.  So crowded, in fact, that some of us didn't want to come back for more the next day.  I would have liked to go to the parade, but I had a lot of stuff to do to get ready for Thanksgiving, so I stayed home and we watched it on TV instead.  We walked over 23,000 steps that day and no one even really complained! 

 

After Thanksgiving portrait. 

Denver 2019

 

After Moab, I went to my sister's for a few days.  We visited a pumpkin patch, where my nephew knew just what to do. First he ran into the maze.

 

 

 

 

He posed as Frankenstein

 

 

And he jumped in this giant tub of dried corn.

 

For a long time.

 

He only posed on this pile of pumpkins because I bribed him with a "treat."  After a few minutes, he got down and came and asked for his treat, which I had already forgotten I had promised him.  Luckily, I had some Altoids in my purse.  Fun fact:  "Treat" was one of his very first words.

 

 

 

One night, my sister got the idea to make some cookies after watching The Great British Bake-off.  As soon as my nephew saw her, he just jumped up to help.

 

Here he is with his BFF

 

Moab 2019

I went to visit my parents last month.  This is a picture from the plane.

 

A little more attractive from land.  This is a view of the valley from the path behind my parents' house.

 

It's very easy to just take life easy while staying with my parents, so I made myself go out for a hike every day.  The first day, I went out to a trail behind my parents' house and got a little lost, so the second day, my dad went out with me.  Here he is looking down on a steep trail.  I think I said something like "Are you crazy?" and then we went a different way. We did climb back up this way, though. 

 

Here is my dad pointing out where his friend fell through some ice and had to be rescued. 

 

 

 

The third day, I went to Canyonlands.  This was my first time there, so I got a stamp in my book of National Parks.  I just found a random trail that had room in the parking lot.  There is still lots to explore, so I will go back next time.

 

 

Last day in Iceland

On my last day, I had a 5 pm flight and everyone else left in the  morning.  I went to the bus station and put my luggage in a locker and then walked around the rest of the day.  This is a good time to say that I didn't take cash out of an ATM the entire trip.  Everyone uses cards for everything in Scandinavia.  So at the bus station, I could even use a card to pay for the locker and also to pay 2 kroner to use the bathroom.  Since I have a credit card that gets me miles for every purchase, I loved getting miles for using the bathroom.


First I stopped into this famous church.  I happened to get there a little before 10 am and a service was starting at 10:00 (it was a Sunday).  I thought I'd stay for the service, but then the 10 minutes to wait seemed too boring, so I left.

I liked this little garden

stores and houses

My last cinnamon roll.

We had a Braud & co bakery about a block and a half from our B&B and we went there a few times.  This is the front of their other location.  

The end! (When can I go back?)

Iceland day 3 and 4

On day 3, my friends went to tour the Golden Circle, which I had already done, so I went on a whale watching tour.  For some reason, I have no pictures from that day. I took a Dramamine and was still feeling sick, so I took a second one. Then I was sick, but also very sleepy.  I did get to see a few whales, but I will never take another whale watching boat again.  I went home and slept for three hours (which was actually quite nice).

On day 4, Julia and I went to tour a volcano, while Heather went shopping.  She had had enough nature by then.  First we hiked to a little rest stop because we had to go in shifts.  We were divided into groups of 8.  There was a professional football player (they kept talking about how he had to be careful not to get injured.  Meanwhile, my mom would have done this "hike" in flip flops and been just fine.) and his wife  and a private tour guide that were put into the second group.  After a little whispering, they were changed into the first group and by the time we were finished, they were probably already back in Reykjavik.

Outside the "basecamp" 

The volcano is named "Thrihnukagigur"  

When it was our turn, we walked up a little path and then crossed this bridge to a "lift" that we took down into the volcano.

On the way down

I took a lot of photos inside, but they don't look like anything.  These people give you a little perspective of what it looked like inside.

We walked around inside for about an hour and then went back up in shifts. 

Here is base camp from above 

And here is the traditional Icelandic stew that they fed us, which was quite good.  

After the tour, we went back into town and quickly changed into our bathing suits to go to Blue Lagoon.  I didn't take any pictures here, either.  But I did see a big group of people enter the water at one point and Robert Plant was in the group.  When we got back into town, we saw this sign that showed that he was there to play a show for the solstice festival going on.  

Last time I was at Blue Lagoon