The Birthday Celebration has come to an End!

This morning we headed north and stopped in Peoria at Wildlife Prairie Park. I think the actual address is Hanna City. We had a beautiful cooler day, and a nice hike/walk around the park. And we did not climb up or down a gazillion steps! 

The park is pretty although it might be even nicer in the spring and summer with all of the flowers. 

I enjoyed seeing all of the animals and watching the otters, the cougars, the bear, and the wolves.

An otter

Mike the Buffalo

A black bear

As we headed on, we couldn't just pass by Tanners Orchard north of Peoria so we stopped. This is the first time we've eaten lunch there - my BLT with apple slices was really good! We picked up some Sweet Tangos to eat and some Courtlands and Jonathons for applesauce.

We arrived home late this afternoon and are now unpacked. I've had a great birthday celebration. All good things must end so this celebration is over. But we will continue to celebrate life - that's an everyday thing around here!

Still celebrating...

This morning we headed straight east toward Illinois and stopped in Hannibal, Missouri. It's a rather neat place to visit - we saw Mark Twain's boyhood house and then walked up to the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse. We didn't know that you could drive to where I was standing to take this picture - instead, we climbed MANY steps to get this far and then climbed the rest of the way up. It was a beautiful day for exercise!

When we walked down all of those steps, we decided to walk around Historic Downtown. We found Hickory Stick Quilt and Gift Shop - Wow! 

We walked in the door and I knew I was going to love this store! The display quilts were awesome - I was given permission to take photos and I'll share my three favorites.

This store covers 3 buildings and has lots of fabric - all displayed nicely.

The lady working was super nice and I just wanted to buy and buy and buy! I will definitely return to Hickory Stick whenever we are in the area.

Yes, I did get a few more treasures - I'll share after we get home. We'd better keep me out of quilt shops if we plan to eat next week!

On with the journey... Next stop - New Salem, Illinois. Oops, New Salem, Illinois is NOT Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site. That was only  6 miles out of our way. New Salem is a tiny village with no place to eat. So the GPS was programmed again and we were on the lookout for food. About an hour and a half later at 1:30, we found Morning Star Mercantile and Cafe  in Salisbury - they served lunch until 2. Whew! It was a unique place and we enjoyed a really good lunch.

Morning Star Mercantile and Cafe

On to the Historic Site - it was just a few miles down the road. 

We had a beautiful fall day with temperatures in the 80s! Ray had never been there before and it's been 30 years since I was there. It was interesting to see again.

I didn't remember the shingles on the roofs of the buildings - one side is shingled and the other side has shingles that are higher than the first. They are just left sticking up in the air. Can you see the shingles on the building above?

The fireplaces were also interesting. They were build out of logs just like the log cabin with the chinking. 

I enjoyed seeing the old quilts in some of the cabins.

There was a Saw and Grist Mill - I guess I didn't take a picture of it. We had to hike down MANY steps, across a bridge over a road, and down more steps to get to it. Who would have guessed we could have driven to it?! Of course we had to hike back up all of those steps. Did I mention it was a beautiful day for exercise?

Tonight we are in Lincoln, Illinois, and tomorrow we will head north. Who knows what else we'll find on the way home.

My Birthday Celebration Continues On

I celebrated my birthday on Sunday. Then we left for Missouri on Monday and spent some time in Kalona, Iowa, on our way. You all know that we believe in enjoying the journey. After seeing a few shops and the quilt blocks in the sidewalks, 

One of many quilt blocks in the sidewalks

we headed over to the semi-annual Belgium Horse and Buggy Auction. We've never been to an Amish auction and it was quite interesting - I checked out all of the sewing machines. We might have spent more time if the wind hadn't been so strong. We were in a dirt/gravel area and felt a little like we were eating grit. 

Buggies at the auction

We stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Chillicothe, Missouri both Monday and Tuesday nights. As luck would have it, they had a free meal Monday night! The motel was very clean and very nice - we'd definitely go back.

Tuesday we headed for the Missouri Star Quilt Company and arrived just a couple of minutes after the stores opened at 9AM. Rick met us at the door and explained the layout of the town with a map. Rick is the CEO of MSQC and we saw him many times as we wandered around. Although we arrived in rain, the rain stopped before we left the first store and we had a gorgeous, very warm day. I'm not sure which shop was my favorite. EVERY employee was so nice. It was FUN!

I didn't get a photo of every store we were in but this is most of them.

Main Store

Civil War, Kansas Troubles, etc store

 J. C. Penney's 500th store. Chillicothe was his hometown.

The Batik store

The store with the seasonal fabrics

We were able to wander around the retreat center - gorgeous!

We missed a couple of stores that are opening next week - the sewing machine store, the bakery, and another restaurant. There are also more fabric stores coming soon. The Man Cave will open in a few weeks - theater type seating and big screen TVs. The knitting store will open mid- 2016. Guess we'll have to go back!

Of course there were quilts EVERYWHERE!

One of the murals

In the retreat center

Cameras were welcome everywhere - I was told that I could take photos of anything I wanted! Of course, I was a little busy shopping.

We ate lunch at J's Burger Dive right next to the main store. Great burgers and fries! 

We drove northwest to Jamesport, an Amish and Mennonite area. There were lots of antique stores downtown. We did drive around the country and visited a couple of woodworking/furniture shops, general stores, and a couple of fabric stores. 

The Fabric Barn, an Amish store

Shearwood Crossing, an Amish store

When we arrived back in Chillicothe, we stopped at Cuts and Bolts and found a few more treasures. The owner was really nice even though we interrupted her - she was watching the Royals game.

I did find more than a few treasures - enough that I didn't want to haul them all into the motel for pictures. I'll share when I get home. Mostly I am just adding to my stash, filling in the weak areas.

Today we are headed toward Illinois. We'll see what we can find interesting along the way home...

We are home and busy!

We arrived home late Monday night, just in time to see the Cubs win their game. We unpacked Tuesday, did laundry,  bought 1-1/2 bushels of apples to put up, and watched the Cubs win. I have lived my life with diehard Cubs fans.

On Wednesday, I finally bought groceries. I've been busy - the apples are almost done - the last crockpot will be done soon. I have these three apples left. I kept them to make Apple Pie Tacos, a recipe I saw online.

I've made lots of crockpot applesauce no additions, just apples, dehydrated sliced apples, dehydrated apple chips with cinnamon, and now I'm dehydrating applesauce. It supposed to turn out a little chewy. I made some plain 'blobs' and some with cinnamon. We should know how they are tomorrow.

I've tried a couple other recipes this week too. This Cheesy Baked Asparagus was good. We aren't big on asparagus but we'd both eat this again.

I also made Butternut Squash Au Gratin. We really liked it but it makes LOTS! We've had it twice. I'm thinking about freezing the rest for later. That's bacon on the top.

Two of the grandkids' quilts need to have the binding sewn down, another is pinned and ready to quilt.

We are leaving on a short trip Monday celebrating my birthday. We are headed to Hamilton, Missouri to the Missouri Star Quilt Company. I'm packing light - I might need room in the van for all of my purchases!

Country Roads ...

Almost heaven, West Virginia,

Blue ridge mountain, Shenandoah river,

Life is old there, older than the trees,

Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze

Country roads, take me home

...

- John Denver                

Tonight we are in West Virginia and today we traveled country roads most of the day - just the way we like!

Let me back up a bit. After we left our son and his family, we went to Charlottesville, VA to visit a good friend. Y is doing well and we enjoyed catching up. We enjoyed dinner at Bella's! Everything is served family style and the servings are huge. We had garlic bread, gorgonzola grilled salad ( grilled romaine lettuce salad), ragu bolognese, and tiramisu. If we lived close, we would just work our way through the menu!

While in Charlottesville, we did stop by Cottonwood, a great quilt shop with some very nice ladies working. I didn't buy much but I did enjoy seeing all of their sample quilts.

We also spent some time shopping in the Historic Downtown Mall. I found a great yarn shop, The Needle Lady. I restrained myself and didn't buy any yarn!

We stayed at The Suite @ Caty Lane , an airbnb.com rental. We were in the carriage house and it was so luxurious - we were spoiled with treats chocolate chunk cookies, croissants, Greek yogurt, sparkling water, apples, bananas,... and extra touches. We'd love to return there again.

Yesterday we drove to Durham to visit the rest of Y's family - A, J, K, and L. This family is separated geographically due to work right now and we pray that will change one day soon. We had a great visit but it is never long enough. We are hoping that next time we can see them all together on a weekend rather than a school night.

While getting caught up on things, we ate at Chai's Noodle Bar and Bistro. It was another amazing meal. I had Thai noodle salad with chicken. I really wish I could duplicate it! After dinner, J was really hungry for Krispy Kremes so she and Ray picked up some on their way back to the house. Warm doughnuts are so good!!!

We found a new place to stay while in Durham - another airbnb.com rental. This place is in the country, just outside of the city. Our apartment was above the garage. We loved being in the country and did not have enough time to explore the whole place so we have to go back!

The main house used to be a horse barn and is now a clean barn on the first level used for exercise equipment, bike storage, pool and other game tables, etc and a 3000 square foot gorgeous home upstairs. We loved our tour!

The trees are changing and we have enjoyed some beautiful days this week. As much as we'd love to drive country roads tomorrow, we have to compromise because we need to arrive in Champaign, Illinois sometime Sunday afternoon. So I think we are going to drive a different route and try to avoid cities.

Disclaimer: Again I do not know why blogger is displaying different size fonts. Sorry.

Which blender is the best?

I'm not looking for a new blender but every so often, a friend on Facebook will ask "What is the best blender to buy?".  I didn't go looking for blenders to compare but the opportunity surfaced and I decided to go for it.

I used a Blendtec blender while we were staying in Basye, VA. It worked well but really bugged me that there was no way to tap down the contents while making a smoothie. I had to stop the blender and use a spatula to push the contents down. Then it worked well and chopped things up making a mean smoothie - my grandkids loved it!

Now we are in Charlottesville, VA and have a Ninja. Our host left us Greek yogurt, OJ, and bananas in addition to other things including chocolate chunk cookies, croissants, and apples; it was too much of a challenge for me to pass on so I bought frozen fruit yesterday to check it out! It made good smoothies but I had to pulse a button to blend. I did not like the way the container poured but maybe there are other choices; I don't know. It did seem to do a good job of blending.

I own a Vitamix and I love it. I make smoothies but I also use it to make and heat soup, to make peanut butter, and to grind wheat berries into flour. Sometimes I mix muffins and I do lots of shredding with it. In any event, I'm NOT looking for a new blender. I just thought it would be fun to compare the ones that many of my friends talk about. Of course, I only compared the blenders by making smoothies so my test wasn't the best!

When I make smoothies, I usually use

• plain Greek yogurt
• a mixture of frozen fruit usually including a banana If there is no citrus fruit or mango, I'll add the juice of an orange.
• milk
• Optional: carrots or spinach (which will not affect the taste but will affect the color)

Do you suppose I could be a little biased? I have lots of Vitamix experience and really know nothing about Blendtec or Ninja blenders. What I do know is that we've enjoyed a few smoothies on this trip and there will be more tomorrow morning!

A Great Week with the Grands!

We had a wonderful week in Virginia despite the rain, rain, and more rain. We met son Brad's family at Twin Peaks (a rental house) in Basye, VA on Wednesday.  It was a great home and the host left us treats - one was a coconut cream pie!

The rain limited our outdoor time but we still enjoyed ourselves. And we were very thankful that Hurricane Joaquin veered away from the coast. When possible , the kids were outside on the zipline, 

The adults tried it too!

in the playhouse, doing a scavenger hunt, painting rocks and shirts, and more. 

Vampire Teeth

3-D hand drawing

One day we visited the Shenandoah Caverns. We spent lots of time inside - I had lots of help in the kitchen. We also played games and sewed. Each of the five children made a donation quilt top. I took fabric strips along in kits - more than enough for each quilt. That way each child could design his/her own quilt. Sometimes a strip was borrowed from another pile. I think they enjoyed themselves. Of course, I loved sewing with each of them! 

Ivy sat on my lap and put her finger on the fabric to help me guide it. As we sewed - Ivy constantly told me that her quilt was very pretty. The pale pink isn't showing up very well in the photo.

Ivy and Grandpa with her very pretty quilt

Grace decided to add a little interest and cut up some fabric. Can you see Grandpa's hands?

Grace and her bright quilt

Jackson likes baseball and I thought he'd enjoy this fabric - he did! Grandpa's hands are there again.

Jackson and his baseball quilt

Colter worked with the frog fabric. I kept calling it the turtle quilt to bug him.

Colter and his frog quilt

Crosby is now 6 so this was his first year sewing. He was so excited! He ran the foot feed while I 'steered' the fabric. Because of the trucks and stoplights on the fabric, we talked in terms of red, green, and yellow lights. Grandpa's hands are busy again.

Crosby and his truck quilt.

Another big project was the paracord bracelets. I think everyone had more than one when we finished.

Brad and family stayed an extra day - our gracious host offered all of us an extra day, free of charge, because of the horrible weather and the fact that the house wasn't rented until the weekend. Thankfully Brad had taken an extra day of vacation expecting to have a day when they arrived home.

Ray and I left this morning because we had another rental house paid and waiting for us further down the road. It has been a gorgeous day - in the 70s and lots of sun. I'm glad Brad and all got a nice day. We enjoyed the day too. It was a great week.

I guess when I get home, there will be 5 more quilt tops waiting to be pinned and quilted! I've never added five in one week before!