Hello July!

If one has traveled over 5000 miles in the last 9 days, she can be forgiven if she is a bit late in welcoming the new month, right?

So much happened in June, it might take me two posts to fully recap it all. With all the coronavirus madness out there, I really doubted that our trip would happen. We did it, though, and it was wonderful.

First, let me go over the regular stuff from before the trip with this first collage.

Top Row
We began the month fighting raccoons. We trapped 7 raccoons all of which were treated humanely and released in a distant, safe location. We spent a day early in the month in Mansfield visiting Kingwood Garden Center, and my first quilt top finish was Lady of the Lake.

Middle Row
We accomplished some significant outdoor improvements which all are highlighted in the middle row. We had a giant boulder moved out of our wooded area for an eventual landscape feature. Our front sidewalk is now cement, much easier to keep clean and safer for stepping up to the porch. Finally, cement was poured for a driveway apron. We love this addition.

Bottom Row

I love the star that I used for a tutorial here on the blog. I now need to come up with a way to use it. The next star is my sample for hand stitching while in the car on the trip. I have made several! The final picture is our official 41st anniversary picture - we are at my cousin's Montana mountain cabin. We were at the fire pit eating s'mores; our 40th was memorable, yet this one may have topped it.

The vacation collage contains 9 pictures that represent the highlights of our trip up to the last day of June. Here's the list:

1. Abilene, Kansas, the boyhood home of President Eisenhower.

2. Remainder of an old prairie homestead in western Kansas. Made me think of the book by Willa Cather, My Antonia.

3. Rocky cliff face in the Colorado Rockies.

4. Alien-looking landscape of southern Utah.

5. First clear glimpse of the Three Sisters Peaks in central Oregon.

6. DH and I posing at Crater Lake in southwest Oregon.

7. DH standing next to a redwood tree in northern California.

8. A scenic view of the Pacific Ocean from the Oregon coast highway.

9. The view from cousin Steve's remote mountain cabin in the mountains of Montana.

I plan to write more fully about our trip in an upcoming post. I hope I can do it justice. The sights were so incredibly breathtaking; I seriously doubt I know enough adjectives to properly describe the scenes.

One more day on the road and we'll be home; get right to work tidying the luggage and laundry, prepping food to take to two different holiday parties; getting groceries; and maybe visiting with our daughters, one of whom has moved to a new apartment. We will hit the ground running, for sure, when we get back home.

Happy Quilting, Friends!