Fall and school starting..................(Part 3)

Picking up where I left off..............................

We were sad at the end of the summer.  B's swim coach took another job down in Florida.  Don't blame him as he will be closer to his family.  Everyone of the kids just loved Coach Chris.  It was very heartbreaking to see him go.  He did wonders for Brandon on his technique's in the pool.  He is very much missed.

Now it is the end of August and school is starting.  Both of my boys love school.  They are in 5th and 7th grade this year.  Yikes.  How did they get to be this age.  First day went very well.   And since then has been great for both of them.  Straight "A's" so far for each.

Then both of them decided that they were taking up another sport besides swimming for B and soccer for R. So I am a cross country and football Mom also.

B is number 640.  In between the 2 boys.  He does real well running long distance and it helps a lot with his swimming. 

R liked football but I think his speciality is soccer. 

All this time not one stitch in anything and November is getting closer all the time for my classes with Merry Cox.
Continuing on............It was a mild Halloween and both boys dressed up as usuall. Weather was perfect and they got lots of candy. 
So now it was time to go to Mesa.  I was supposed to be going with my SIL as she was going to med school out there and had a house so it would be like a girls weekend typ thing.  Anyway that fell through as she transferred up to Portland and the house went up for sale.  So now what.............Bring husband and kids along for the ride.  DH was really not wanting to go.  I told him since we did not get a summer vacation, to chalk it up as a mini vacation.  After it was all over and done with he had a blast.  Kids went to the science museum and I had my first day of classes.  Merry taught her Le Nouvou Palasis Royal class. ( You can see a better picture of it at her website.

 The next day boys went to the Nascar Races.  They had a blast again and I was "stuck" in my class with Merry teaching
So Dear To Thy Heart.

Then the final day the boys went Geocaching (treasure hunting) and still had a great time.  And the final project was Sweet Little Blossoms.  

Merry's classes are so great.  We do the finishing part in class and over the years I have learned so much from her that I am very comfortable to do my own finishing.  She makes it so easy.  During my classes I sat with the ladies from Oklahoma as I was taking this class by myself.  No one from Arkansas was with me.  I also got to meet Cathy from Utah and Stephnie from California.  Also the Ladies from Texas was there and visited with them.  I had met the ladies from OK and TX here in Arkansas when Merry taught classes in 2007.  They are so wonderful and I had such a great time.  I am hoping to get to see them in the future and plan on getting together with the ladies over in OK as they are only 1 1/2 away.  So I defintley see some stitching time with them in my future.  Here is a pic of the lovely Merry and I.  I have taken several classes from her through the past years and I can say Merry is a beautiful person inside and out.   

So now we are back home and Thanksgiving has come and went.  Lovely dinner with my DH's family as always and now it is time to get busy with some stitching time.  YES!!! Finally!!!
I have been stitching on ATS and Halloweenie.  (Picture's to come in next post).  I also updated my side bar with projects that I want to start stitching, finish stitching on and also do the finishing as well for the 2013 year. 
And in the mean time of all of this thing called life....I do have a full time job as well.  So the next post will be current with new pictures of what I am stitching.  And hopefully I won't be on a very long hiatus of sorts. 
Thank you for stopping by and visiting.

Summer....................(Part 2)

   After Brandon broke his arm, the summer started to really heat up.
Arkansas weather was terrible...the rain stopped at the beginning of May and all the farmers were cutting at this time.  They usually have to wait til June.  So no rain May, June, July or the first part of August.  Needless to say farmers took alot of cows to the sale barns these months as they could not afford to feed them.  We only have 50 head of cattle and was able to feed plus buy 11 more from a friend that needed to sell.
We finally got rain the end of August and the grass started to green up and grown again. We also got one more cutting of hay.  We usually can get 3-4 cuttings a summer.
So we were good to go with hay through the winter.

In the mean time we were trying to stay cool along with no rain temperatures were up in the 100's and we broke some records.   We stayed cool by going to see "Montgomery Gentry" at the annual Poultry Federation Festival held each year in June.  This is one group that I have always wanted to see and we had great seats.

Next on our summer agenda was my Mother and Niece came to visit in July.  We went to Crystal Bridges Museum.  This is the museum that Alice Walton built to house all of her art that she has collected through the years.  It is a beautiful museum and I would highly recommend that if you are ever in the area of NW Arkansas that you plan on seeing this. She has the famous "Rosie the Riveter" by Norman Rockwell.  My boys just loved it as they had studied her in school.

What I think is so neat about this museum you can actually get up and close to a picture. There is nothing blocking you from the picture...but let me tell you there are people (or guards) watching your every move.  My boys were getting a little bit too close to a picture and they were right there to let me and them know about it.  It was a great experience to see.  Had a great time with my Mom and Niece.

Next on the agenda was Brandon's State swim meet in late July.  I told you about it in the previous post...so no use in typing it all again.  By the time August got here with no rain and very HOT.  We were ready to get back to school and hopefully some cooler temperatures.  Which was just around the corner.............

Stay tuned for part 3.................
P.S.  All during this time I did not pick up one needle even though I had received the 3 kits of pre-stitching for my Merry Cox classes in November.  It was so hot and just plain exhausting that all I wanted to do was come in and lay around in the air conditioner.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.
I sure did and I am so Thankful for all of my Family and Friends and even my stitching friends who I have met along the way.
Thank you for visiting.

Picking up where I left off..................(part 1)

So where did I leave off.............hmmm way back in May it looks like.
At the end of May were were clicking right along with the farm.  Almost all of our calves were born, I think we only had two more to go at the time I stopped posting and they did finally come.
Since we had a very mild summer kids got out of school way early.  They did not use up one snow day.  They were excited to start camping, fishing and just being boys. 

June started off real well.  The first weekend in June, B had a swim meet which he qualified for 3 events for state competition.  He was elated and so was I.  Finally going to state.  Now he was really pumped up to get qualified for a couple more events.  He was bound and determined to get them too.  
The next weekend we went camping with the cousins.  We have a lot of fun when they come and camp with us.  Lots of fishing, swimming and relaxing in a beautiful setting.  We always bring the boys' bikes with us.  I had a bad feeling of the camp site we were at because of a big hill and the kids would all fly down real fast.  I knew someone was going to hurt.  Lo and behold it was B.  He wasn't really going fast, he just looked behind him to see if his brother and cousins were coming.  When he did this he let go with one arm and lost his balance and down he went.  He let out a scream like I have never heard before.  My husband I ran to where he was.  He said his whole left arm was numb.  We walked him back to the camp site.  Was looking at his arm and putting ice on the spot just below his wrist.  He could still move his fingers.  So we were going to wait and see how it was going as it was around 6-7pm in the evening.   He was doing fine so need to rush him to the hospital quite yet.  He said it felt much better with the ice.  So for now all is well.  Went to sleep that night got up early the next morning and B said he could not move his wrist at all, and when I looked at it...his forearm had a dip in it.  I knew then that he broke it.  So we packed up and headed to the ER.  Sure enough he broke his inner bone one his forearm.  Can't remember if it was the ulna or radius. I get them mixed up. 
Doctor said he would have this one for 4 weeks...all the while I was thinking in the back of my mind....He just qualified for state...How is he going to swim.....YIKES!!!!  So here is B with his pretty "Orange" cast. 

When we got home he smiled for the camera and then sat there for a minute...and said "You know Mom I really screwed up".  I said "How"? And B said "Because now I might not get to swim at state".  Then tears started to well up in his eyes.
I told him not to give up.  He was only going to have the cast on for 4 weeks and state was in 7 weeks.  So he would have 3 weeks to put in a lot of hard work to get prepared.
Well during the time with the cast we were able to wrap it up and B was able to get in the pool and work on his legs with his kickboarding.  So he was not entirely out of water for that 4 week period.  Then the cast came off, Doc gave him the ok to swim and off he took.   He actually did well at state.  He had an 8th place in his 100 Breaststroke and two 5th places, one in 50 free and the other in 50 Breaststroke in his events for the entire State of Arkansas for the 11-12 yr olds.   I say that was pretty good with having a broken arm and he even dropped time in all 3 events and got a "A" time in his 50 Breast. 

I was still stitching on my nieces piece for her birthday until the broken arm incident.  After that my stitching came to a complete stop trying to deal with getting B settled in with learning how to take a shower and all sorts of different things.  I did get my niece a present but the stitching one will have to wait for another time. 

To be continued..............................................................
Thank you for visiting and hope you come back for part 2.



                                                        

Found Stitching Mojo!!!

Well I have found my stitching Mojo again.  I think it was lost between the heat of the summer and all the kids activites with starting school.  I actually found it around the end of September but was so busy still with kids activites and getting ready to go to Mesa here in November, that I really have not had any time to post on my blog.  I am going to do a quick "Hello" and "That I am back" reply and then get home and take some pics of what I have been stitching on and just in general what has been happening this summer, kids and stitching at Mesa with Merry Cox. 

So.......I will be back with a new look (for the holidays of course) and lots of going ons........

"Stay Tuned"........................................................................