Week 49

Another action packed week here in the snowy Midwest and, as usual, I have more than seven photos to share for Project 365. It's just TOO HARD to pick only one per day sometimes!

We were still in Michigan last weekend and my photo for Sunday is an odd one. I was too busy visiting with people to take photos at church, or at lunch with all the elders and their wives, or even at church in the evening. No, my photo is from the very end of the day when we were enjoying tea with our friends. I had too much fun reading all the tea descriptions :) Here's just one for you (I'll be writing more about tea later in the week):

You'd think from my photos we didn't see hardly anyone on this trip because I never seem to remember to get the camera out when we're WITH people. Does anyone else have that problem? So there are no pictures from our lunch on Monday with John and Jennie. I've known J&J since I was in high school. We were just too busy catching up on Monday to even think of taking pictures. Next time!

Monday afternoon we headed to Charlotte, Michigan. Richard is not only a friend but also one of the pastors at a supporting church, and he and his wife are always so gracious. Adrene loves decorating for Christmas and I snapped these photos of two of her village scenes, one over the kitchen cupboards and one on top of a cabinet in the living room.

Aren't they lovely?! This is just a small portion of her decorations; I'm not even sharing photos of the trees and other vignettes she's created around her house and she still wasn't finished when we were there. She said last year one little boy who came to an open house they hosted counted all her nativity scenes and found over 30!

But we did think to ask our waitress to snap a photo Tuesday morning when we went to breakfast. I totally adore American-style breakfasts! Good thing we thought to get the photo before I ate my blueberry pancakes or I'd have a purple grin :)

Tuesday night we were back in Indiana and went over to help Kyle and Tina. Well, Ivan helped by installing some shelves and a new shower rod. I just enjoyed sitting and watching everyone else work. Then they asked us to take some photos for their "Save the Date" cards. This isn't one they're using, but aren't they cute?

Even though the wedding is immediate-family-only, they're planning a big blow-out party next summer for extended family and friends.

Woke up Wednesday morning to this...

and decided it was a good day to stay home! I didn't go outside at all, unless you count poking my head out the front door to snap this picture.

Thursday we helped mom decorate her little tree. She has lots of lovely ornaments and we couldn't fit them all on the tree, but we did our best to put on as many as we could.

That evening we enjoyed a fabulous meal cooked by my sister-in-law, Sharon. For dessert we had a lemon cake she was "auditioning" for the wedding cake.

In the end she decided that wasn't the recipe she wanted to use, and we sacrificially offered to taste-test any and all recipes she needed to try :)

I finally finished the baby quilt top on Friday. It's a little bigger than I planned (this seems to happen a lot when I do the designing) so I had to piece the back as well. Now I need to get it quilted in the next two weeks so I can give it to the expectant parents.

Saturday was my birthday and I have to say it was one of the best ever! We spent the day with our son and his wife. They took us on their traditional Saturday morning shopping expedition... to the meat market, a farmer's market and finally a grocery store. It was so much fun! I especially liked the farmer's market. For lunch they took us to a great Thai restaurant in downtown South Bend (how did I make it to this age before discovering Drunken Noodles?!) followed by hot cocoa at the South Bend Chocolate Cafe (I have one word to say about the dark chocolate hot cocoa there: A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!).

Then we headed back to their house where they put together a wonderful birthday dinner. I helped out some in the kitchen, but also just enjoyed playing with the dogs. Bailey jumped off the couch before Ivan snapped this photo of me and Leo. Leo thinks he's still a puppy and he tried to sit on my lap. Bailey is so little he can literally walk under Leo, but they are the best of friends and are so funny together.

The cats aren't as friendly and Libby spent most of the day outside. Dickens is not quite so stand-offish and this is his favorite spot in the house. Weird cat!

Kyle, Tina, Alan and Sharon joined us for a fabulous dinner of Chicken Marsala over pasta, salad and bread followed by a TRIPLE layer devil's food cake with the BEST CHOCOLATE FROSTING EVER! As you can see from this photo, we were having a very good time.

We ended the evening with a game of Apples to Apples and LOTS of laughter. I totally scored with some great birthday gifts too :) Like I said, one of the best birthdays EVER!