Hello April!

 

I’m a few days late in welcoming the month, but you know me - I'll always eventually get around to it!

We are home from Florida! And we no sooner unloaded the car but got back into it and went straight to Columbus to see our kiddos and our sweet baby Cate! Who's happier in this picture - Cate or Pappaw? It was pure delight getting in on those precious hugs and kisses.

We drove home on Saturday and Sunday, arriving here around noon on Easter, for perhaps the strangest way I have ever spent Easter morning. We played old-fashioned hymns on You-Tube in lieu of church. 

I did make a March collage. The highlights contain only one sewing/quilting photo. Most revolve around our Florida fun.

TOP ROW: The first picture is dinner with a big group of 11 at a yummy seafood place called Dan's Crab Shack. Outdoor dining, sunshine, and shrimp - what's not to love about that? Next is from the Floral City Strawberry Festival. Much like what I know as a county fair atmosphere, we walked around collecting freebies, listening to live music, and taking in the gorgeous sunny day. The final picture is from an antique car show held in Inverness. We really enjoyed walking around the historic downtown area and looking at the cars. They have car shows often, we discovered; this one featured Corvettes and Camaros.

MIDDLE ROW: We joined friends on the pontoon for a beautiful afternoon on the lake. We stopped at an outdoor establishment, Sleepy Hollow, where we enjoyed live bluegrass music and icy cold beverages. The center photo is a screenshot of Cate while we were in a FaceTime session. She is so dag-gone adorable! Being in Florida for 3 months gave us several opportunities to visit Kevin's brother and sister-in-law, Eric and Lisa. We posed for a photo-op with their dogs, Baxter and Blazer.

BOTTOM ROW: My one sewing picture shows a portion of the 600+ 4-patch blocks I made using 2.5-inch squares. Believe it or not, even with all those, I still have not used all the 2.5-inch scraps. The middle picture on the bottom is of the full moon over Tsala Apopka Lake. Our resort is called Moonrise, and I definitely wanted to experience the full moon rising over the lake. Mother Nature cooperated, and gave us clear skies. Finally, our last ride on the bikes and the Withlacoochee Trail afforded us a chance to see this big turtle sunning himself trail-side. We'd observed the hill and hole several times, but never the turtle. On our last ride, we got lucky and saw this big guy.

One more highlight from our final few days included my learning that two of the ladies I'd been playing shuffleboard with are quilters! I hadn't been able to find anyone who quilted, yet on the last shuffleboarding day, I learned there were two in our midst all along. Wow. You can bet that I will be reconnecting with them next January for some sewing time!

The shuffleboard crowd is a fun group, yet the topic of quilting had never come up. Most of the time, if we aren't talking about our game, we talk about where we are from and what we did before retiring. Strange that I'd find quilters at the very end of our stay.

Well, back here at home, I have most everything put away. I've spent a bit of time perusing the sewing room and revisiting projects that I plan to start. Coming up soon is a 4-day retreat and I need to pull together all the necessities for that. 

More to come!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne