Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Create and recreate

It is the last day of January and it is sunny and warm...a record of 51 degrees here in Traverse City.  I took three walks with Riggs today to take advantage of the nice day.   Lots of snow has melted.  I rehabbed this calendar that i made for my parents many years ago.  It is a perpetual  calendar that  needs to be changed each month...fun to try and keep up with... which I will try and do.  

 I have been working on a wedding quilt for Gina Ahnen and it is now at the quilters...this is a sample of one of the batik fabrics i used...
I LOVE batiks and this is all in earth tones and turned out beautiful...I think I will call it River Bottom as it makes me think of our river...more later when I get it back from the wonderful and creative  Lynn, my longarm quilter friend.
 My friend Pam Carney gave me this pattern ...the little Monster...and I knitted one up and just love him!!
We have had tons of Blue Jays at the cabin...big and fat and bossy.. they love the peanuts that fill the snowman bird feeder.  Not sure if we will be skiing at the cabin this weekend with all the warm weather and melting snow.  It was perfect last weekend with three days of perfect skiing.  Kathy and Michael

Monday, January 16, 2012

Winter is finally here!

 We had a beautiful winter weekend at the cabin with about 10 inches of snow that arrived on Friday as we were traveling to the cabin.    Saturday was sunny and the river was so beautiful right out the front windows..crisp and cold!    It is finally winter and we took a long walk on Saturday and a long XC ski on Sunday.
It was a dog weekend as we have the Smith dogs for a few days while they are away.  Tess and Sage are Italian hunting dogs ...I could make a joke about them only liking Italian food but they will actually eat anything.  Sage is a counter suffer so you have to watch her every minute.


Life with 3 dogs is more of a challenge than with just one dog.
They all had fun together and really enjoyed to snow.

The birds were all over the feeders and I keep trying to take pictures...this one turned out good.  We have lots of blue jays, nuthatches, sparrows and woodpeckers.  Tess and Sage sat at the window for hours watching them..very entertaining.
I did lots of sewing and Mike worked on his end of the year books...and got them DONE!!  He hates doing this and feels great when it is finished.
We talked about our memories of MLK as it his birthday today...his death was such a part of our coming of age...we were seniors in high school.  Listened to a few of his speech's on NPR...what an inspirational speaker.
Winter wishes to all from the Winter Wonderland of Michigan
Kathy and Mike    and all the dogs

Monday, January 2, 2012

2112 Fun and Snow


Greetings from the second day of 2012. Yes we are at the cabin and it is snowing...6 plus inches and still coming. Mike shoveled the deck and ran the snow blower...love that snowman look...and we have been watching football. We sent Timothy on his way yesterday morning at 5 am and he drove all the way to Vermont...about a 15 to 16 hour drive. It was a great holiday weekend and week with Timothy and Casey. Patrick and Timothy had some brother time and they even took their Mom Geocaching with them...lots of fun as you can see from the pictures.


My goal for this Christmas was to get the train in the basement working again. The boys always want to get it out at Christmas but too much cleaning and purging needs to be done to make that happen. After our return from our trip I attacked with a vengeance and got it done!!! I was able to drop down the train table that grandpa made,he would be so pleased . After much head scratching by all of us the train worked but needs fine tuning...I have till next Christmas to make improvements!
We love the Sauna sign , a gift from Deb and Duane, it is on the inside door and looks perfect!

Christmas gifts from Patrick and Heather for the Sauna...Great basket with towels and the sauna temp and time accessories. The sand timer is fun to watch as the sauna and you heat up, it always seems like you are there longer than it says. The snow makes the sauna have an authentic feeling and we are enjoying it tons. We had a wonderful Christmas and hope that you did too....Kathy and Michael