Wishing all a Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!

Phil and I are very blessed people.

In a year of hardship we have seen kindness, mercy and love all around us

We are very grateful

For all of you we are grateful

Kodak gave a bunch of us some free product. I choose Christmas cards for my freebie and

here it is lovely and nice. If you didn't get a card your's is here, twenty cards don't go very far

Merry Christmas everyone

Please celebrate

We have a glorious reason to do so!

(Give Kodak your online business I've always been pleased with every order and they ship very fast if you are needing one of those photo books as a gift.)

Our first holiday craft sales in a good many years

I was a big crafter from the beginning! I loved to sale my bears and dolls and baskets. I stopped some years ago when my kids got older and I got too busy to make dozens of the same thing.

But now I can join Phil and help him with his sale of beautiful wooden tops. Here are the photos of his first event. Clint made our great sign, thanks a bunch.

Awe yes on those cold, in the teens, dark mornings

you just can't go out without your reindeer antlers and sunglasses!

what happens when 11 cousins all meet?

HAY COUSIN!

Thanksgiving was amazing.

We had all 11 of our grand kids together for the first time.

Photos were hard to take. Someone always had a problem including the person pushing the timer on the camera and running to get into the photo. So enjoy how we all look believe me we know it's pretty crazy.

Reindeer lilly




Everyone except far away daughter!

Little boys cutting down trees

Little girls cutting trees down

Our son #1 kiddo

Our daughter #4 kiddo

Our daughter #5 kiddo

Our daughter #2 kiddo

good luck Clint...now get all four of them to smile!

Natalie, Flynn, Logan now who are brother and sister?

Papa's hand, Clint's hand, Flynn's' hand

Three generations playing in the frost :]

Ooh some nice fountain ice

too pooped to pop!

mom's and daughters

papa and the grand kids

I think this is a trust issue

A big loud machine

But he always wanted to get on it.....

I trust you papa!

Bye for now!

Oh what do we do in the fall the fall................

Oh you guessed.........We fill the compost bins full!

Good-bye Oct Hello Nov.

It has been crazy! I don't under estimate! Not a day goes by when I don't feel that day was too full, too complex. I don't mean to say it hasn't been fun. Yes here are some photos to prove it has been fun.

Traveling daughter was here for a visit. She proves that you can dress in too many layers

Her arms won't even go down to her sides!

She was up and down the West coast doing college higher education fairs for The University of Geneva. A couple of days in each city and as life would have it she has family in all those cities, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland. It works but the visits were short.

Hello Laureen Good bye Laureen and Leo good luck!

Then we were off to see youngest daughters new home

And of course make a trip to the pumpkin farm

I think there are life lessons in the straw bale maze.........

some paths work

Some do not!

Logan has nearly gone under in this end of the maze. See him in the middle of the photo? Barely

Some how the song from the jackalop short from Pixar kept going through my head......

"And when you're up you're up and when you're Down you're down!.........or something like that.

So on to the straw pyramid

UP

Up

UP!

Up

The top!

More to follow...........



Now Sometimes you're up and sometimes your down

when you find that you're down well just look around.........

Get your head in the right place and hay your complete.......

you can reach great heights in fact you can soar

you just get a leg up and you slap it on down....

you'll find that you're are up in what's called a bound........bound bound bound and re-bound you

bound bound right up to the sky...............................

I like to record the moment

I like to catch people or events in tiny moments.

I used to go around the house and take a photo of each family member doing what they were doing at that moment. Those are some of my favorite family photos!

So this fair the time was moving so slowly on the last day. It was raining hard and it was hard to figure out if there were people around or not as they came in waves. If it rained the barns would fill, as soon as it stopped everyone was GONE!

This is one hour before the fair closed at 7 pm. Superintendents all wait differently so here are those happy people waiting for the end and what they were doing at exactly one hour left!

At the back door is our wine and home brews super he looks like the waiting isn't bothering him!

Linda is over the educational posters we know her from all our years in horse 4h

She doesn't like her photo taken at all!

She is spending her last hour behind the displays...now that's an idea.

This little person came through my end during one of the rain squalls she looks ready for anything. Way to go!

This is the needlework's superintendant

I've watched her grow up so I can tease

you will see some more of what she did in her last hour

Our new lace super, right between Rene and I

Boy did we give her a work out this year

She is also over the food contests

Busy lady now is this last hour bugging her or what?

rumor is they are out of her favorite food

Here are my two most devoted demonstrators.

They are with me from the beginning all the way to the end.

What are they doing in their last hour?

Another great find from the reclaim Queen.

She never lets anything go un-recycled

Beautiful quilt!

Now Rene does some needle punch she will get full use of this last hour

The spinning and weaving and basket Super is off doing what I am

Say "Cheese"

Oh the poor tired livestock super

looks like he's visiting my department in this last wet soaking hour

Looks like bleach boy is heading back to the animal barns

But not without a check on those rain catching buckets

over the needle work tables

I made it to the spinning dept and they had a lime green thing going on

My first car was this color!

Wow even the spinning demonstrator is in lime green

What's going on here

A little last hour madness!

What's the spinning super up to?

I wonder

A lot of us go for our favorite foods in the last hour

Looks like it's Carmel apples for the canning super and the fine arts super

I sent out for Carmel corn!

A quick photo of a very cute jeans apron

Looks like Rene is back to writing

frog who has been busy doing good and bad antics all fair has joined her along with her mom who is the Heritage display super, she is just lost in this last hour.

Do you think those paper towels are for that leak over their heads?

I've been cleaning up my office which I share with lace

Most of the fair it's full of sewing machines and suitcases of projects!

We can barely walk in here most years

And so we close this hour with Rene back at the needle punch

I flip the lights a couple of times

PULL the big doors closed

Lock them and turn

and yell

WE ARE CLOSED

And everyone claps and begins taking everything down for returns the next day

Wow another great fair gone by

Catching up on Fair

Young Pygmy goats

The Evergreen State Fair ended on Sept 7th and I gave everything back on the 8th and 9th. When I got home I had a full pear tree of canning to do, a lot of pickles to make and rhubarb to can. Happy to say they are all finished and looking pretty in my shelves. Now I can add my fun fair photos. These are for my friend in Canada, who was a sheep rancher before they retired. She will enjoy seeing these 4-H sheep barns. Maybe you will too!

It was hot during fair and I know what heat does to sheep's wool so I question all these coats!

For my spinning friends I'm not telling you any breeds you have to figure them out

Hows' this for confirmation stanch?

Ooh these ladies are nice and cool!

it's either lunch time or they are giving me and my photo taking a message!

These are nice big barns.

I took my photos on a trip back to see bleach boy he was the livestock manager!

The baby goats are picking up moms spilled lunch

OK off to the cow milking contest.....now these are fast paced and fun!

The contests are all held in the arena in the middle of the animal barns

when I can't find bleach boy I look here.

He has set up and take down issues with each contest.

Warm up the cow, milk the cow fast fast fast

switch cows and do it again

You are looking at the winner of the milking contest!

The milk is then added to the first bucket and weighed for a winner!

I'm now leaving the arena (you are looking at it) and heading down the fairgrounds

to the quilt barn

At exactly 10am Tomorrow I open my doors and....

Yes Tomorrow is opening day at the 101st Evergreen State Fair!

At the moment 10 am hits I open the front doors to our open class building.

Here is my portion of the building in photos. You get an early peek.

Also in building is the lace, knit, crochet, needle arts, floral, bee's, photography, hand spinning, baking, canning, homemade brews, educational displays, the historical booth and the local granges put out a beautiful display of the produce grown in our area.

Here we are in my dept. Sewing and Quilting

Looking in the front door down the west bay of building 500

This is the glass room, usually it holds a wedding dress or two but not this year

This on the right just as you walk in

We hang the quilts down both sides of the center

one facing front, one facing back they go all the way down the hall

That's my table where I sit with my own little fan

I don't get to sit too often but there is a lot of paper work before people get paid. I am right next to the glass room

This glass case is next to my office and that display on the right as you come in the door

The two tables there hold lots of demonstrators

I run three groups a day for four hours each

This display is next to the demo table

This glass case holds all my small entries, little things to be carefully displayed

We hang quilts in every nook and cranny

This center three tables hold quilts this year, we guard them with a stapled sheet of plastic

I have three big bins to display the clothing in

On each item is a colored card. The violets, greens and blue are children, White is adult, pink is expert, gray is challenged, cream is over 70. The kids do a lot of the garment sewing.

This is on the wall of that first display area at the door

My office the hot spot for sewing machine storage

Haven't taken photos from the other end of the hall got called away to another Department and never got back for the rest of my photos so latter...................

I'll have a purple cow for you, eat an elephant ear, and drink lots of lemonade!

Update on Phil

UPDATE: Tons of appointments, classes, tests, now waiting for the bills. However it all told the Cardiac Dr. that Phil was doing good and could go back to swimming yesterday. He's a happy fellow now.

We are in our work season. Fair opens on Aug 27th. It's hard work so I'm not sure how often he will get out to swim but he felt really great on his first day back.

More later after a few more tests. But all is looking much better than a few weeks ago and we are marking major changes to our diet mostly very easily.

Rainbow fairy has a home!

The yellow spots are from an egg we did some polish painting on and one year it bursts all over the place!

I owed my sister a fairy top.

She was our first purchase many months ago. I let her have her pick of all the new ones and Auntie Georgia still choose the original one she saw when we first started these. Who would know I was in the mood for a rainbow when I painted her fairy.

It felt wonderful to be painting again.

My old worn brushes felt like dear old friends in my hands. Not the same hands as when I first bought some of these in college. I remember switching to night classes so I could think and finding that art just flows from my hands at night. I should try that again. I don't know if the paintings on the walls of my house were more fun or if these tiny fairies are the hardest, there by more fun. Something about capturing a face, a personality is ever so much more interesting.

I did a series of pencil drawings of women in all kinds of times and places and I love faces. Every now and again I ask myself "why am I not drawing?" Got too busy I guess. Sitting in the critical care unit hour after hour was made better by drawing fairy face after face on paper.

What are you forgetting to do that you love?

Maybe we should calendar it in so it's part of our schedule. I did that with the piano, I love to play and never gave myself any time. I have a beautiful studio grand and it should be played! Miss Lyndy are you giving yourself time to play? You are a very talented lady don't let it go......

So Monday I'll bundle up Rainbow Fairy and send her to her new home.