Country Easter & Girls Annual Trip

I love sitting on the deck of the Mini Mansion and looking SW out across our neighbors property. Its so beautiful and relaxing. Sometimes his cattle and their babies are there to entertain me but mostly it's just this serene view.          Then when the west sun gets too much I turn around and enjoy the view of our beautiful property that one day I'll get to look at everyday not just on a weekend. Builder has been decided, bank picked for the construction loan and approved. 

Now we're waiting on the appraiser. But in the mean time I sit on the Mini Mansion deck and enjoy the views of our property. It's funny when we pull up our property on Google earth, it's easy to find ours. Ours is the property with very green pond.  The water for is clear but I'm sure if we put a few cows on the property it'll become a muddy mess.   

Prior to say 2014 this is how the Rock'n K looked as a tree farm and the pond was a normal shape and a pretty green color.  

Then when we bought the Rock'n K the prior owner had kept altering the shape of the pond to get dirt needed for the trees.

This satellite isn't so great but look the crazy shape and we are talking a dark murky.

Then David hired a company to come in and dig the pond out deeper, bigger and shape it back in a circle.  And we got the pretty clear green color of the pond back.  The pond is almost an acre big and about 13' deep in the center.






I came up with David to help him in the Mini Mansion. The tin ceiling is now complete so he's working on the wall panels.    He's working so hard on the cabin. 

He's trying to decide what it will be used for once the house is finished.  It could be a rustic very rustic guest house, man cave, wood workshop or whatever. So many possibilities. Once he finishes the panelling he's trying to figure if we just leave the plywood floors as they are or put down the vinyl/laminate flooring we already have.  I decided this weekend we should just stain the flooring that's there and save our money and not put down vinyl or laminate flooring. He's got about a 1/4 of the cabin wall panels up as of today.    He's thinking he'll finish the cabin just in time to move into the house. LOL  I think he'll finish before that.

  You know Spring has finally hit the farm when the Star Jasmin (I think that's the kind we have here) are about ready to bloom. They're in pots that we had on the patio at the house we sold in September 2017.    And now they sit in front of the porch of the Mini Mansion. 

Are you ready for the annual Mother-Daughter trip? Well we were. The first Thursday in April we left David with the girls, Lilley and Sophie, and we were off for the Hill Country. 
We had a nice brunch at First Watch in Cypress. 

Had to have food on the tummy before we get the Wine Hop started so we had breakfast at First Watch. So yummy good.

Saddlehorn is one of our favorite wineries and it's always our first stop. It's located just outside Brenham, Texas.  It's 5 o'clock somewhere.....
They always give us wine bottle boxes for our precious cargo as we do our winery hop.


We make sure it's strapped in. LOL


The drive was a smooth one until we got to Bastrop. WOW we wasted an hour there on the freeway due to construction. 
I don't think they understand they are messing with our schedule. To be honest I doubt they cared. 



Once the traffic cleared out and construction was out of the way we were rolling down the road again to only come to another complete stop in Austin just before I-35 where Hwy 290 ends.  This is ridiculous.  Something different needs to happen here. No matter the time of day this is what it looks like until you get about a mile pass I-35.

 Another 30 minute delay. Grrrr

We were pushing it to get to Dripping Springs before the Bell Springs Winery closed. I even passed on my usual stop at Valli and Kim Quilt Shop in Dripping Springs. Ughh but I didn't need anything at the time so I figured that was a good decision because if I stopped I'd buy something.  We made it to Bell Springs with 35 minutes to spare. We got a tasting in and we were back on the road in about 45 minutes.

We got to Fredericksburg finally around 7ish and decided to stop for dinner at Mammasita's. We were shocked to find a parking space up front and no wait when we walked in. After dinner we drove on down the road to Kerrville where our Hotel was.  We saw lots of deer and bluebonnets on the drive. 
Got to our hotel around 8:45 and called it night.

On Friday, April 6th we got up and cruised through Kerrville checking out the sites and finally headed back to Fredericksburg. We always go back to Fredericksburg on Friday to hit the wineries because on Saturday  everyone is off work and all the wine tours make it really crowded. To start the day we went to lunch at The Peach Tree Cafe. A former co-worker Pam told me about this place. And she didn't lie This place has such delicious food and plenty of it.  
Pamela ordered a sandwich with a salad while I ordered their special of quesadilla's with black bean soup.  

                  

Definitely worth a try if you're ever in Fredericksburg.
Now we're off to try some new wineries and some old. We stopped at Baron's Creek, Mendelbaum, Grape Creek and then to Pedernales. Pedernales has one of the best views when you sit outside on the deck. Pamela and I got a glass of wine here to just sit on the deck to relax and enjoy the views.   I enjoy spending this special time with Pamela and making memories and documenting with photos.

Time to move on to the next winery for the day. Another place we love to stop at is at Fat Ass Winery. The name alone made us stop the first time but we keep going back because we do enjoy they're wine.  After a tasting Pamela had a Wine slushy and we snapped more pictures.


I need this little tractor at the Rock'n K sitting up at the fence line. Love my sweet girl.  


Love what they did with this old feeder.   










Pamela is feeling silly and is letting me take her picture. I guess I just need to give her more wine and she'll let take all the pictures of her I want.

















Now this picture I am finally 

able to share. When I went to quilt retreat in March I made this quilt top, sent it home with the quilter and I got the binding on it right before we came on our trip.  The cows were very interested in what I'm doing with this quilt on their fence but not enough to get too close. 

Anyway I Brought it along for a photo opp somewhere in our travels. And this was my back drop.




I just gave this quilt to Baby Jeremiah Wharton just this past Saturday. The  Momma and Daddy are both graduates of Texas A&M so I thought this fabric very fitting for a future little Aggie. I used the Accuquilt tumble die cut. It's a fun die cut to use and fairly simple to piece together.

And before you say anything I know I took a quilt for the baby to a winery. What can I say. I'm always looking for good back drop for my quilts and this one was at Fat Ass and it worked. Hey I pieced it together while have a glass of wine during retreat. Jeremiah will never know unless he can read my blog at 1 month and I don't think that's a possibility. Besides I doubt he would mind.

This is the future little Aggie Jeremiah. He just turned a month old in this picture. I borrowed this picture his Momma posted on Facebook with her permission. Isn't he a little cutie? He slept the entire time Pamela and I were there with the quilt. Well he woke up briefly but I think he was a little hungry so he was a tad angry. LOl. 




While meeting Jeremiah we also met Elly. Elly is the dog. A big dog, it's a Great Mastif. She is as big as Jeremiah's momma but is so sweet. At one point I looked out on the patio and saw this huge bone and I do mean huge. Check this out.  Elly brings her finds to the patio but never in the house. Beatriz thinks this was a leg to a bull that died. She said sometimes the finds are fresh. This bone is as big as Elly.  WOW! 

After we left Fat Ass we headed to Fiesta Winery.  We're in their wine club and needed to pick up our quarterly shipment. As a member we get a free tasting plus a free tasting for 2 friends and we get a free glass of wine. They have all their bottles lined on the wall. It makes a pretty colorful picture. 


We each had a free glass of wine and our tummies said it was time to find some dinner. We decided on Italian and went to Pasta Bella . They have very yummy food. No wine for us. LOL I think Pamela has had enough.  Me too probably but there's no evidence of that here.











While out on our trip I found out that I'm going to be a great Aunt of a new baby boy coming in October to my Nephew Nathan and his sweetie Jordan.  Congrats to them. the Grandparents were present for the gender reveal. 

So that's it for the first 2 days of our Mother - Daughter trip. There's more but I'll save the next 2 days for my next blog post.  And to think I've had more adventures since then to write about. Woe is me will I ever catch up to myself....  LOL probably not.

Until next blog...  I have never been convinced there's anything inherently wrong in having fun. ~ George Plimpton

Big Event

This was Pamela's house the day she signed the papers in 2015 but now the landscaping has evolved. She loves her house and is slowing learning the care of her landscape and design from her Dad. Under that window was a small 2' wide bed with a line of plants.

In 2017 that changed. Texas A&M puts on this annual deal called the 'Big Event'. It's a really cool way for students to get volunteer hours and give back to the community to say Thank you. Pamela participated in the The Big Event a couple of times while she was in college.
The Big Event started in 1982. As a resident you can put in a request to get help for like yard work, house, etc. All they ask is you supply the workers with drinks like water and maybe lunch. I'm not sure how the selection process works. Maybe first come first service but Pamela has been lucky as a homeowner for the last 2 years. In 2017 they cut out her front flower bed to make it bigger and hauled mulch to her all her flower beds and around the trees.  
This year Pamela asked for them to come out to work on her flower beds again, put landscape rings around her trees, pull weeds, plant some plants and haul mulch again. She got the call that they would be sending out 8 girls. mmmm Girls are tough but can they plant the plants properly and do all the other stuff so with that question in the air David decided he'd plant the 8-10 new rose bushes and let the girls work on pulling weeds, putting in the tree rings in and hauling mulch.  

David had told the girls to put the rings around the trees and dig the grass out but didn't expect them to dig about a foot down. Like I said these girls were good.
They busted their butts. I think these girls could have planted those bushes with no problem. 
Pamela got chick-fil-A nugget platter and chips for lunch. The girls worked another 45 minutes or so and they were done. Great job girls.

Lilley loves hanging out in Pamela's back flower bed and with new mulch it's nice and cool. 








Front flower bed is looking good.



 Pamela can go later and fill in
 with small plants between the roses.




When I was heading back to Cypress the next day I decided to stop with Lilley and take a couple of pictures of her in the bluebonnets.  
She was having none of it.
So This was how her photo session went. She ignored me, closed her eyes and turned her head no matter where I held the camera.
I mean she's still cute but really.

   

So that didn't go well the little brat but I still love her and I had to laugh. 

Have you ever seen wild strawberries? I hadn't. Pamela and I drove to Mom and Joe's on the 30th of March to celebrate his birthday and while standing in the yard talking I looked down and saw these little guys all over the place. I didn't try them but it was neat seeing them all over their yard..

or how about a drooping Pine tree. Very interesting. 
Once inside Pamela played with the Snapchat app and taking pictures with her Mimi.

Her Mimi thought that was pretty funny.

   

I took a picture of us and the Birthday boy. Just a youngin.

After we left them to head back up to Bryan, Pamela and I made a stop at one of our favorite wineries called Peach Creek to take pictures. Well okay we couldn't stop to just take pictures we had to get a glass of wine too. The sun was blinding so the sunglasses had to stayed
 on.
Well I'm caught up to April on all our fun recently. Now for our annual Mother-Daughter trip to the Hill Country but I'll save that for my next post.

Until my next blog post .....“Every day can be an adventure.”

Retreats are sew much fun!

Have you ever been on a quilt retreat? If not you should go to one. I think some people aren't sure what to expect so they automatically say 'no' when asked or when they see retreats posted. At my retreats you can expect fun, laughter, productivity, maybe a little wine, opinions, and help if needed.  For my group it's a time to work on those Unfinished projects or start new ones and relax. Of course if there are questions about colors, fabric or layout we get plenty of input from everyone present. I know some retreats are set up to work on a specific project or is a class with a known quilter but mine is about friends with a love of quilting that love to get together and sew.  Every now and then we have someone join us that doesn't quilt but comes for the social aspect of it and they work on some other type of project like knitting or maybe even scrap booking. But best of all it's full of laughter.

On Wednesday 3/14 we took a field trip into Giddings to check out another retreat venue, have lunch, and of course wander through the local quilt shop called All Around the Block in Giddings. I don't believe they have a website but if you click on their name it'll take you to their Facebook page. We've decided to branch out and check out a difference retreat venue each time. We need a venue that can hold at least 10 if not 14 for our normal band of merry quilters.

While there we noticed the quilt shop had some Barn Quilts on the outside wall of the shop and recently I noticed one of the antique shops on 290 in Giddings had the same Barn Quilt signs. Anyway we asked the shop owner where they got them and found out they bought them at Tractor Supply.  

So 5 quilters took a field trip to Tractor Supply.

 While there I started texting David pictures of things for the farm. These solar lamps would look great at the farm somewhere in the flower beds. Then I found these different Welcome signs. My favorite is the tractor but I like the rooster too.While in Giddings we also stopped at Reba's Deli on 290 for lunch. The pizza and sandwiches were great.

Ok I showed you Donna Marie's quilt top called Love Notes and I really like it and I think I'm going to make one too but with Kaffe Fassett fabrics and a scrappy black an white background for another baby that is coming soon.  Here's my sample blocks.

This sweet block was made by Cindy. Had to laugh. She work on this block for quite a while and never could make it work until the light bulb came on. She was sewing them together wrong. Once she figured it out it came together with no problem.

Our 4th night at retreat I started working on the binding to my Texas Flag quilt. And I worked on another glass of wine. 
I couldn't decide whether to cut some blocks for my next quilt or finish the binding. I decided on the binding. Donna Marie in the back ground was finishing up her Love Notes quilt.




Here's a few other blocks some of the girls were working on. Both these are by Sandy.
Donna Lynn was working on a pattern with Easter Bunny and floppy ears.

So Jim had posted this picture on Hilltop House Facebook page saying the ladies were asking for a wine shelf in the shower. I had to laugh and it wouldn't have surprised me if someone really had asked. So one night I decided to do a spoof on this picture and            Thanks to my friend Linda @ Linda's Life Journal she doctored up my picture with words.

So before it got dark and dinner I decided to to back my car into a parking spot near the front door so in case it was raining it would be easier to load up without getting to wet. Well I should have left well enough alone. And don't ask how i did it but I managed to back into a fence post.  The fence was still standing. My bumper hugged the post. Not the way I wanted to end our last night at retreat but I did. CRAP!!! I've had my little car like 10 years and the is the first time I've hurt my Maroon baby. Besides being upset I was embarrassed.

Here's a few more pictures of blocks being worked on and the layout process of another.

 
 Sandy was/is my over achiever

 

So ends a small but great retreat with great quilty friends. Everyone was loaded up and out the door by noon that Friday. I jumped in my poor little car and headed to Pamela's house in Bryan so I could hang with her one day and go to the farm and help David at the farm the next.

All the bluebonnets are coming out in bunches everywhere. Pamela and I hung out that Saturday and we stopped not far from her house where there was a big patch of bluebonnets to take some pictures. What better background for my Texas Flag quilt but bluebonnets.
Great ending to spring break.

Until next blog .....Many faces, many smiles/ Remember me across the miles