day trip.....

We met my Mom, my sister & her husband in New Ulm (Minnesota) yesterday. It is all very German.

Growing up, we spent lots of time here, visiting our grandparents. 

Everyone spoke German to each other. As kids we never learned what they were saying to each other. I am  thinking they liked it that way.

We had lunch at the Kaiserhoff, they make the best ribs! 

Across the street is this little park and historical house.

This must be a touristy thing to do...take your picture with this guy. We werent' the only ones doing this.

When we took it, Jane said, "I better see this in the blog."

If you click on the picture it should get big enough to read.

Downtown is full of buildings with character and history. 

There are more cool buildings, but this is the short, quick tour today.....

While Jane and my Mom went into shops, I wondered down to the clock tower. It has a fancy German name, but I don't know how to spell it....the spell checker went crazy trying to figure out what I was writing. It will be on the sign below.

A different sign posted said the shows were at 

12:00, 3:00 and 5:00 pm....we missed out on the bells playing.

We did decorating out at the cemetery and putting stuff into my car for me to take home. My great aunt, who just turned 102, has moved to a care center. Her house is getting cleaned out. I was asked what I would want from it. 

I said "sheets"

My Mom said....there wouldn't be any....

she was always sewing up the old ones for Meta to keep using.

and I said....I bet there are unused ones in the closet!

Sure enough there were.

(this is the picture Karen is waiting patiently to see,

 we will share these for quilting)

When I think of Meta and her house, I think of these women's heads.

If no one wanted them, I would take them. So I got a few of them too.

postcards...

I wanted to make a postcard for my aunt. She had cancer surgery back in March. That turned out way better than anyone expected...but....she would still need chemo. She started that recently and of course, it make her sick. She thanked God for smoothies and noodles....

I cut a Wheaties cereal box up to use for postcards. It is advertised as the breakfast of champions. I messed up on the wording here though.....it should have said..."the breakfast of real champions"

oh well. 

As I am cutting up fruit I found other words and pictures that said "use me"

Lovebirds

Ann of roadtrip*treasures had left a comment that her anniversary was 29 on the 29th. As I was working on smoothies and noodles I found things that could work for Ann....so here is her postcard.....

I also received a "ready for cutting" picture of Lauren in the mail. I will be working on a "spead your wings and fly" card for her! 

maybe it wasn't a good idea.....

Crispy came home from school (on one of the last days) and said they had put together a time capsule. They wanted to bury it here. It had deflated balls, t-shirts and letters to themselves and other things.

Okay.

We pictured something the size of a shoe box or ice cream bucket or maybe even something as big as a 5 gallon bucket.

NOT a 55 gallon tank!
Tractor joe told them they could never dig a hole big enough...it would be to much work....it wouldn't stay in the ground....they would break shovels digging.....

Crispy thought his dad was being negative, that wasn't allowed..... and they were going to have fun! On Monday they had their fun. About seven boys started digging in the late evening and the digging continued well past sunset. Flashlights were found.
They quit digging when they hit water, threw the tank in, buried it and called it DONE!

They wouldn't see it for 10 years!!

Two days later, it rained and rained and rained and rained some more. I looked out the kitchen window at supper time....there was this mound of dirt.....what the heck is that?????

When it quit raining, I walked down to get a closer look.....

OH NO!! The time capsule was popping out of the ground.....

Crispy came home from work and went down to survey the damage. There wasn't much he could do.....he took some pictures for facebook. He needed to show his friends what was happening to all the hard work.

The sun was out nice and bright the next morning and so was the tank....

The earth was done popping that invasive tank out of the ground. There was now a nice big hole filled with water and mud....and a tank floating on top.

New plan....Grandpa has some farmland with an old shed. It isn't being used for much. Seems like a nice place to store a time capsule for 10 years and no digging is involved!

...and then there is tractor joe walking around muttering about how, "no one listens to him"

because I was cleaning......

Dang...I have some actual sewing and this picture is blurry. While cleaning I found some blue squares and 30's print triangles. I sewed them to a few of the blue squares...

The next day I added some 1 1/2 strips that were near the sewing machine because they were the right length.....

I picked the dark purple because there was enough of it and the binding is some boxer shorts I cut up.

It is quilted with that wavy stitch....and finished at about 9 x 16

I found one red, one blue t-shirt. 

I tried bleaching the red one, but it didn't turn out very exciting....so I went in the opposite direction.....I threw it, and the blue one, in some blue dye. That was better.

and while cleaning out things, I found......

This art kit. 

I have no idea how old it is or where it came from exactly. I have fought the urge to go sit at the kitchen table with some paper and color.... with the paint, water soluble crayons, oil pastels, colored pencils and markers!

i will eventually

summer school for me.....

School is done for the summer, sort of..... I just signed up for Introduction to Braille, an online course. As Mr. B learns his braille, I will too. (I would hope faster, so I am ahead of the game)
His Mom said I could post his picture......

I love this one, he is using the handrail and his cane, walking down the ramp at school, all by himself! His Mom is also a sewer/painter/crafter....on the last day she had gifts for me and the teacher.....

She made table runners. I only have pictures of mine though. We opened them, squealed in delight, then went back to our last day activities. It was a half day, we found ourselves wishing it was a full day...the morning was going so fast.

.....anyway, here is a photo of the whole thing, on my kitchen table...

I love that dotty fabric. It reminds me of selvage edge quilts. I am cleaning closets and cupboards. I am digging through the clutter that collects on every flat surface around here. Eventually I will get down to the tops of tables, and my new table topper will have a new home!

graduation display boards...

It was the last graduation EVER at our high school. I really didn't want to go, I thought it might be too sad. But Karen wanted to go, so I went with her. It was all very nice and there were no tear jerking moments.

Crispy and some of his friends were ushers. Next year his class will be split up. Some will go to Forest City, Crispy will be going to Algona. No more Tigers. They will be Bulldogs now.

This is Crispy ignoring me....at least his friends were smiling for me.

My display boards.....

I agreed to make boards for "the triplets" and of course they needed to be done for their party last night.

I work with their mom. When it was in the talking stages of planning, we thought 4 of them.

But when push came to shove, 3 was a better number.

their little sister called them "the guys"

4 years times 3 dresses for prom....that's 12!

I wasn't the only one helping out. It takes a lot of friends. Ann of roadtriptreasures was also busy making artsy fartsy decorations for the party. They were so cute. Lots of different things. Lots of good ideas if you need some. She also has a good picture of the girls!!! (click on roadtriptreasures to get to her blog)

Is it common every where to have these big big parties at graduation??

A person doesn't even need to cook at home....you can just go from party to party and eat!

graduation cards.....

Yesterday was the last day of school and graduation last night. I would have been happy enough to sit, drink some coffee and page through a magazine. Somerset Memories (spring 2011) to be exact.

Then something caught my eye on page 144.

It was a scrapbook page with the words....

spread your wings and fly

how perfect would that be for cards????

Next thing I knew I was at the kitchen table cutting up invitations that we had received.

Gwen, my cousin called while I was working. Her daughter graduates this year too. I told Gwen I didn't want to cut up the nice big picture of Lauren she had sent....or she would be getting one like this too. 

I am pretty sure we decided Gwen would be sending a smaller picture to be cut up.

Anyway, tractor joe grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of me on the phone, me and all my morning glory.

The first two are twins. Their party started at 9:00 am. It had already started when I was snapping photos.  We got there about 10:30 They were serving breakfast and was that ever good!

Anne's photo was already doctored on the invite...made her card look cool!

I've got more stuff.  Keepin' things short and sweet. I'll be back.

bird watching....and playing with my camera....

The birds are coming back. We have this bird feeder out front. I have been trying to get a pictures of them feeding. Hard to do with our camera. Not a lot of zoom on it and you need to be very still when snapping the shot to avoid blurriness. 

I sat down in a chair and stayed very still waiting for some action. The camera was out on my knee for stability. I took the picture this way, then cropped it right away in the camera for a closer look at the birds.

I put some grape jelly in the water dish. A bird came to inspect.

Ahhh....it is grape jelly down there, yummy!

Oh no, company has come. They squawk at each other and the baltimore oriole flies off.

They all want a taste of the good stuff.

This picture is more scary than it really is. This barn is about a 1/4 of a mile away. That night as the sun was setting, there was smoke in the air. I went to investigate, walking out to the corner of our property....it was a controlled fire in the grassy areas out at Union Slough ( read more here ) ... the fire was still miles away. 

It just looked like it was right there behind the barn.

I knew I needed a tripod to get a non blurry photo using the zoom. I don't have one. I did find a big rock and set the camera on it. That seemed to do the trick. This was probably the best of all the photos I took.

crayons in preschool....

For Christmas I bought the classroom a Crayola Crayon Maker.  Every chance we get, we have been making crayons with all the broken ones. We peel off the paper and I break them some more. The kids pick out 4 or 5 pieces to put in each tray. A light bulb in there melts them......

It is a big deal on who's turn it is to do the dumping. 

We have two hands turning the knob here, they decided they would share the job.

Next week, when school is almost done, we will sort them out. Every one will get about a dozen of these colorful crayons to bring home with them.

I brought home a couple of the smaller ones. There was some scrap paper on the kitchen table. I started writing the alphabet. I love the multiple colors that happen when drawing/coloring with these. 

I did the alphabet a few times and then I thought....

Hey, I can cut these apart and use the letters to make the names of the students for scrapbooking!

I'll have to make more letters when I get around to scrapbooking.

Who knows when that will be.

One more thing, a couple of the boys made pillows.....

I brought in some fabric for them to color on with crayons. Then I took them home to heat set them, and sew them into pillows. The boys stuffed them when I brought them back in.  They were so excited with the results. We could have made more, but these were the only two that showed interest.

Right now a big chunk of my spare time is been used making memory board type things. A gal I work with has triplets, & they are graduating next week. So, I am helping her get photos ready for display at the party.    

Eventually, I want to sew again too.

local weather conditions.....

I just checked my local weather, it is 99 (F) or 37 (C) degrees hot.
No wonder the mowing was miserable......
There were a few wispy clouds.

But it is done.

The trees have still not leafed out, just a hint of green.

block lotto blocks.....

I just finished posting these at blocklotto!

I have wanted to use this block, but never did, till now.

It really goes together easily. 

We are having a hot and humid day. I really prefer the cooler and no major humidity days....I am heading outside to do some mowing. Rain is in the forecast...and lower temps!

making cards.....

The kids are making mother's day cards. While they colored, so did I.

I wanted to make my Mom a card too. 

My master pieces were brought home. They got a squirt of my spray paint.

One became an envelope.....

...the other got cut up. It was about then I remembered tractor joe's mom!

I needed to make two.

The outside of the cards were painted yellow and orange. My tool of choice is a sponge that I cut up into small sections...and use over and over again. 

I was going to make the black and white fabric a border, but.... at the last minute, it became the stems for the flowers. It just seemed right.

Two cards, I needed another envelope. I found a scrap paper....and added more spray paint.

My envelopes are pretty basic.....

After cutting it square, I fold it in half, pinching only the very edges.

It should be cut at a nice 45 degree angle, I eyeball it and snip.

All the flaps are folded in. Here I decide which way will be up.

......and then glue down three of the flaps.

Wasn't sure what I wanted on the inside. I ended up with a heart, black &white fabric strip and cut out letters from the newspaper ads.

Found some stickers to add, and flowers that were cut from an ad selling flower arrangements.

When I had cut them out, I had no idea where I would use them, they became the perfect thing here.

The 'happy' is black letter stickers and I made a frame with a white ink pen.

This took me most of the morning to finish.

Here they are in the mailbox! They left this afternoon!

Mother's Day sure does seem early this year.