Recovered from Shower activities and I'm behind as always...

(9/23) So I've semi rested up after the bridal shower but no grass growing under my feet. LOL. My friend Sheryl asked if I wanted to go to a Phi Mu luncheon in Houston. Our sorority sister JoNell was putting it together so we could see one of Susan another sister who was in town for a visit. A majority of the girls were a class above me but I knew about half of them. We met at The Cheesecake Factory at Memorial City.  It was fun seeing the ladies.

I walked into David's office and started laughing because all I saw was a tail sticking out from under David's desk. It was just a swinging. The desk was happy to see me. Maybe LOL. Apparently Bruno loves to lay under David's desk while David is on the computer. I had a video of the tail but it had errors so oops. It might appear and it might now. Trust me on this it was a cute tail.

(9/24)  The next day it was time to run into Bryan to take my dress into the alterations shop to get it hemmed up.  It's only going to take her 7-10 days. I thought it was take longer but apparently not. Carolina the owner was super nice. She had me out of there in 20 minutes. Most of that time was me putting on my MOB dress. LOL.  No other alterations needed thank goodness.

On Wednesday (9/25) Debra a book club friend called me and we were talking and she asked if I was going to the estate sale about 10 miles away and I said I had thought about it so we decided to go together. Lots of cool stuff. The lady that owned the house was selling a large portion of her quilting stuff. Fabric, books, long arm machine and frame, 3-4 older machines, and a multitude of other items. And the husband had some old rusty vintage items, tools, ladders, etc.  I need to get David over here too. For now Debra and I browsed around.  She bought a few things and old singer machine in a cabinet. If I had room for it I would have bought it so instead I bought some fabric and a Jim Shore Angel. If your not familiar with Jim Shore's work, all his statues have a quilty theme to them. Here's the one I bought at the sale. See the quilt block pattern in her skirt. The second picture is of one I bought a few years ago.  

  

There's all kinds of Jim Shore statues, animals, boats, Santa's, and Halloween themed, etc. 
So I told David about all the good things I saw so we went back on Thursday. LOL  We were going to support this estate sale some more.

David bought me this tractor made out of a vintage sewing machine.  While there David saw some Rusty gold items and petrified wood. We couldn't take it home that day but would come again on Friday to dig it up and load it in the truck.

I saw this sink on a tree. Cool idea but we don't have a tree big enough to hold a sink to use for a planter or whatever. And we both loved this iron wheel and birdhouse pole plus there was an old bell but these things they weren't selling. They're staying with the house. But they were selling the old plow you can barely see behind the bell. We found another plow that we also bought.

We liked the flowers in the flower bed and they're called 4'oclocks. None of the flowers had turned to seed yet but they lady there told me to break of some and see if I could get them to root. So far they're in a vase and still hanging in there. Maybe I'll find some seeds eventually. Here's what the plows and the petrified wood looks like in our landscape. 

Right now this plow kinda blends into the fence but once we put some plants around it, it should pop out more. David had to work hard on digging this one out of its resting place at the estate sale. The owner knew the right way to anchor it in his flower bed. 

This next plow was easy to move and bring home. It's now resting in its new location at the Rock n K. And the rock behind it is a piece of petrified wood. And the other piece of wood is on the other side of the walk way to the house.

And check out all the roses blooming. They started blooming the week after the bridal shower.  

 

While at the estate sale I took advantage of the cloudy day and windmill back drop and took pictures of a quilt I just finished for my friend Barbara.

I made a trip into Houston and gave it to Barbara recently.

I thought a house quilt would be appropriate for a realtor. I met her when we needed a realtor to sell our home in 1993. Each door on the house has a different fabric for a door. One has batman and one has a frog.  

This is how happy the cows are when David feeds them Cubes or as we call it Cow Crack. LOL Not sure if this video will show up either. Something is off but I haven't figured it out. But The cows are running from everywhere as if they're starving but they are not.  Don't get in their way though.

Sorry if video doesn't load. Not sure yet what's up with the upload.

The Belinda's Dream roses are blooming. This single bloom was so pretty sticking up all my itself.

My friend Sheryl sent me a post she saw on FB about a wine called Threadcount made by Quilting Winery.  Well I had to have it since I was about to head to quilt retreat. I googled it and found Total Wine had it. I had no clue if it was sweeet or dry but I knew I wanted the bottle. LOL And I got. Sew fun.  I now know it's a red wine made in California. I'll let you know how it tastes later when I share it at retreat.

That's it for now...

Until next blog...  “Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.” ~Christopher Morley

Now the Fun Begins... Bridal Shower time

 Okay so I'm in full planning mode... Kinda. I'm out of my element. I haven't had anything to to do with Baby or Bridal showers in 30 years but I told Pamela they could have a shower here at the Rock'n K. What was I thinking and it got deeper. She had this inspiration picture of a cake.  And she would like it to be a white almond cake with raspberry filling.. Okay so I check on pricing for a cake and then I got this hair brain idea that I would bake it myself. Keep in Mind I am not a baker. So the research and testing began. I know a few bakers so I began asking them questions and then I started testing my skills.  3 cakes later I found the right amount of almond extract to use in the cake and icing and learned more about the icing and raspberry filling in between the layers. My A1C is probably up after licking the cake batter and icing off my hands and out of the bowls. My friend Kelli said thanks for the 4 pounds she put on.  She, David, Pamela and Kaleb were my official tasters. I even took one cake to book club meeting to share. Surprising it came okay and tasted alright even though I forgot the butter in the batter. I realized it 10 minutes into the baking process.

Pamela's shower theme was Vino before Vow's. Hence the wine bottle on top. I got the french Macaroons to decorate the cake from Shirley Mae's Bakery in Cameron. They were awesome. I added some gold edible paint to the macaroons and the grapes.  And below is the inspiration cake. 

I ran out of time and forgot to add some flowers to mine but I had the grapes. So how'd I do?  I made some boo boo's but everyone seemed to like the cake. Not too bad for my first attempt to bake a cake to feed 30-40 guests.

Pamela's bridesmaids (Chelsie, Pamela, Marlaina, Haley, Spenser, Lesley & Heather), her house party (Samantha, Pamela & Amanda), and my two friends Kelli and Sheryl were awesome. 

They provided food, prepped food, decorated, opened wine and helped set up.

 

Check out the wine glass and heart cookies that Sheryl made. Cute and Tasty.

And I put Lesley in charge of taking pictures unless she was in it like this one. Without her I wouldn't of had any pictures of the day.

All the ladies made it happen and the Momma even survived. 

 

We were well stocked with nurses. These ladies all work or have worked and a couple were in nursing school with Pamela.  

Pamela was showered with love and goodies to start her and Kaleb's next chapter as husband and wife. 

Several of Kaleb's family members made it out to the farm.

Her future MIL Tori on the Left and her future SIL Sarah on the right. And unfortunately I can't remember the names of the other two future family in the picture. 

Another picture of Tori her future MIL

So many people and my
brain was on over load. But I'm so glad they made up to celebrate. 

This young lady Marlaina has been Pamela's friend since elementary school and is one of the bridesmaids.

 Her cousins Kendall and Shelby with baby Ramsey came and so did her Aunts Lynn & Glenda from Houston.  And Pamela's hairstylist Brittany came up.

Another picture of some future family. 

       Figured since I'm on a roll I'd share a couple of Pamela opening gifts.

Have your senses been over loaded now?

I believe the shower was a success and Pamela felt the love.

Can't thank everyone enough for helping and coming to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of Kaleb and Pamela. 

I was pretty much useless on Sunday. LOL

And on that note I'll stop. I could continue posting pictures galore because Lesley did a great shop taking them. 

Until the next post... “Marriage is not easy but then nothing that is worth having ever is.”

Memories, Reminiscing, and a ReUnion (50yr)

Bri went to the groomers and as always Top Paw Pet Spa takes a photo of the dogs when she's done.  She's a pretty girl.                                                                                 Pamela's neighbor has a new dog and apparently she and Bri are good buddies because the Simba (new friend) found a loose board and was in Pamela & Kaleb's backyard playing with Bri.  

As I was working at my embroidery machine the other day something caught my attention outside my sewing room window.. I looked up and saw this big ole hawk.  The quality of the picture isn't that great since I took it through the window. I figured if I tried to get outside it would hear or see me and fly away.  It's pretty hawk.

 I think he was posing for me. 

A nurse friend of Pamela's was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery so I got in and made her the seat belt cushion, under the arm pillows and a neck pillow. 

Don't look to close at the stitching on the seat belt cushion because it's not pretty. I forgot how hard it was to sew all the layers and Velcro.  I snapped a picture of the under arm pillow just as Sadie walked in and caught her in the picture as if I planned it. And I didn't get a picture of the neck pillow. I was told that the neck pillow comes in handy if they have to sleep sitting up.  

Our book club G3 met up on 9/12 to discuss The Mark of the Assassin by Daniel Silva. Pretty good book. Come to find out there's 3 more that follow this book. Good thing it left us hanging and wondering about several of the characters and who is the Big Bad Guy. We went to Big Bob's Steak House in Cameron out by the airport. The food was really good and the company is always good. Pam B. took our picture 

I'm all caught up with my 2024 Color Block Challenge now so I'm waiting for the post of the October block. I completed July, August and September at the beginning of  September.  I'm actually going to complete a sew a long challenge for once. 

Where does time go? We graduated 50 years ago. Damn! September 13-15 was David's HS reunion at South Shore Harbor in the Clear Lake/Kemah area. Bruno and Sadie were booked to go to a kennel in Bryan but they called to say there was a kennel cough outbreak and they were suggesting we find somewhere else. Okay so I had to scramble and search for somewhere for our babies to stay. Got lucky and our Vet in Caldwell suggested SaPaHa Kennels there in Caldwell and to be honest that is closer to us and more convenient to get to so we went and checked them out.  The owners Paul and Sally are really nice. So we dropped Bruno and Sadie off on the 13th for a couple nights.  The first night Bruno didn't want to eat but he got acquainted with the place and settled in. They have several runs for the dogs to play in. We put them in a big run and they were checking it all out. The kennels are inside the red barn and is air conditioned..  As we drove off I could see Bruno and Sadie looking out. This is only the second time we've boarded them since we rescued them in 2022.

We'll be back I promise.

On our way to the reunion we stopped in our old neighborhood where we lived after getting married.  Back in I think 1993 after we had moved to Lakewood Forest the subdivision flooded real bad. Our house had gotten like 15" of water in it. We weren't in the flood plain but we always kept flood insurance on it but the people who bought it did not. That was too bad. Now pretty much all the houses have been bought out by FEMA bulldozed down. Our home used to be there on this bare lot. and that mound in the 2nd picture was out front of my daughters bedroom. Sad to see it gone.

 

Time to get down the road and stop reminiscing for today.

We stayed at the South Shore Harbor Hotel where the reunion was to be held.

Friday night there was a meet and greet at Jackie's Brick House Bar and Grill with a live band. It was fun and the food was good.

After we ate we moved into the party area and I go I know that person and walked over to say Hi to an old friend and his wife. I didn't go to HS with David so I didn't expect to see many people I knew but Ned lived across the street from my parents house over near Hobby Airport. 

David was always over to Ned's house and that's how I got to know my husband David. Ned's wife Olivia was really nice and she so pretty. Ned didn't realize my Mom and had passed but we caught and so did David.

Now this guy is Carter and he's one of the Bell Gang that David has known forever. His wife Lisa is great. She LOVES to dance and even sings.    Then I saw another familiar face... My sorority sister Cindy.  It was nice knowing a few faces.

 This was the view off our balcony. Too hot to sit out there in the afternoons but not bad in the mornings.  It was a little noisy Friday night when we came in. There was like 3 other HS reunions going on in the hotel and the people in the room next to us partied until 4am. Loud music and talking on the balcony and in the room.     When we go up Saturday (9/14) and got going we went back to Jackie's Brick House for some seafood gumbo. It was so good. Then we had to decide what to do with the rest of the day till the reunion started at 6pm.

So we decided to go check out the old neighborhood. Our first look was at David's first home where they lived until he was about 10 years old. The house looked pretty nice and the area was pretty clean. There was a few run down areas but for the most part it all looked good. And of course we had to drive by his elementary school

  

While driving around the neighborhood we found this house. Okay this place. You could not see the house for all the shrubs, trees and vines. Yet it still looked pretty neat and the house was a green color. It made for an interest mow I'm sure.

Next was his home where his family moved and lived when I meet him when we were in college. We were talking and actually passed his house up. It was pretty rough and overgrown looking. His parents took good care of that house. It was sad to see it like this.

Then we drove by all the Bell Gang family homes. Most of their homes were in pretty good shape. Their homes were on the west side of Broadway going towards Hobby airport.

David then took my back on the other side of Broadway to go pass Mom and Joe's house. We moved there from Spring Branch the end of Freshman year in college.

It's didn't look bad but things were overgrown. This was the side of the house and backyard area.

When I looked at the next picture I was like why did I take this picture and then I realized it was the side of the house where my parents and my bedroom windows are behind all those overgrown shrubs and vines. LOL. Even the shrubs in front of the house were kinda tall.

 

Sightseeing time was over. We headed back to the hotel for nap. You know we're getting old and all that sightseeing wore us out. Lol And before we knew it it was time to head downstairs for dinner and some more looking at people going "I know you don't I".  LOL Some people changed a whole bunch and others not so much other than the white or grey hair. 

We had a good time!

Sunday Morning we met Lisa and Carter downstairs for breakfast and we each headed out toward home.  We were ready to go see our pups and we were sure they were ready to be home.  Bruno and Sadie were very happy to see us. I think they slept 80% of the time for the next two day but they seemed happy when we picked them up. I believe we've found a good kennel.

Well I better stop for now or this will be a novel. 

Until my next blog.

.....

.Memories are timeless treasures of the heart. Happy times come and go, but the memories stay forever. A photograph keeps a moment from running away. A photograph is the pause button of life.