Friends, Fun, and Family

We’ve been busy having a great time!

We spent New Year’s day with our friends Amy and Yoshi in Durham. Their three daughters enjoy being silly for the camera! All of today's photos were taken on my phone which I don't usually use for pictures.

We were playing Spoons. We also enjoyed playing Bananagrams and Peanuts. I had a great time learning to make rubber band bracelets, seeing the girls' new sewing machine, and helping the youngest learn to crochet. We visited, played games, the guys watched some football and, of course, we ate. The evening meal was a variety of Japanese dishes – absolutely delicious! Amy is a fantastic cook. This was my first experience using chopsticks with soup and I didn’t spill a drop!

Today, Thursday was a travel day - we moved 40 miles. We took all day and drove much further than 40 miles!

First stop was Yates Mill County Park in Raleigh - about a 25 minute drive. The Yates Mill was rather neat.

It was an overcast day and we wanted to see the Park before the rain. We started a hike and saw this sign. Yikes!

I really watched where I was stepping. Thank goodness I didn't see any snakes! This was the view on part of our hike. It is a pretty area and we'd love to go back in the spring or fall.

Just as we got back to the car, we felt a few sprinkles which soon stopped. We backtracked about 23 minutes to the Bernina World of Sewing. This was a very nice shop with some great ladies. There may still be hope for an embroidery machine in this life someday! I didn't buy a machine but I did buy a little fabric.

On to Cary for lunch at Mimi's Cafe. You can tell I took the picture - notice the handicapped parking sign right in the middle!

After lunch we backtracked a few miles to the Cary Quilting Company. This place just opened last January and it is fantastic.

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I loved their modern fabrics and the ladies were super nice. I used great restraint and only bought fabric for a bag. Oh, I could have bought bags of fabric!

I decided to forgo the yarn shop but after checking the GPS and finding that we were one minute away, we had to check it out! Warm 'n Fuzzy is also a relatively new shop I think 16 months old with a great owner and LOTS of neat yarn and inspiration. Again I used great restraint and only bought enough Island Cotton for a scarf. Island Cotton is a Tryon, North Carolina yarn and super soft.

As we were leaving the yarn shop, the drizzle became a steady rain. It was time to head for our next motel. We only had a 30 - 40 minute drive! 

We arrived at our motel about a mile from our son's house and unpacked in a steady rain. We finished wrapping some Christmas gifts, did a little laundry, called for pizza, and it was finally time to see Brad and our five NC grandkids. They have grown! Lots!

Tomorrow we'll spend all day with them so we might be too tired to write much...