Christmas quilts 2013

Here is the order
1.   Joe
2.   Caleb (Done)
3.   Betsy
4.   Sarah
5.   Ben
6.   Abby
7.  Julian
8.  Hannah

 VAL This quilt is called O + O and is 64 inches x 78 inches

BETSY  This quilt is called Cardinals and is 63" x 71

 SARAH This quilt is called Moving Time (since I made it while I was trying to move), and is 77 x 77

DEANNA This is this years monster 95 X 78, called Blue Stripes

 Gramma KarenThis is teeny tiny 50 x 60 called Cupcakes

ABBY This quilt started out as the back to another quilt, but then I decided it deserved to be a front.  It is called Back to Front, and is 65 x 88.

 ANDREA This quilt is called Wonky Churndash, and is 80 x 66

Hannah This is called Geese in the Neighborhood and is my original pattern. 63 x 81

Fun Anniversary trip

Sometimes when you get older it's just too much trouble to celebrate things.  I was feeling like that for our 39th wedding anniversary this year.  Jim, on the other hand is much more sentimental than I am  and made reservations at the Salt Lake Marriott City Center so we could at least get out of our routines a little and check out the new City Center Mall.

OK said I, when I found out there was a swimming pool and hot tub also.

In the course of conversation when we checked in, the cute boy at the desk found out we were celebrating our anniversary.  He upgraded our reservation from "nobody cheap" to "Uptown Chic".  We had to use our room key in the elevator to get to our floor.  The ordinary riff raff  were not allowed. I was so tickled.  We went to see the City Center Mall which was beautiful but there were only 2 or 3 stores I would dare enter. I would be too afraid of bumping into something uber expensive in the others.When we got back to our room, there was a tray of fruit and cheese and crackers with an orchid and expensive water on the table. That Darling boy at the reservation desk had sent it to us to help us celebrate.

That isnt the right tray, i didnt get a picture of it, but it's close. Our room was actually fancier than this one.

Any way, the pool and hot tub were very relaxing and I felt pretty special every time we got in the elevator and had to make a big show of using our room key and pushing floor 11. Fun time.

Caleb's Graduation

My 3 youngest children, none of them are very happy people........NOT!

My baby, Caleb, Graduated from High School Last Thursday. Where did the time go.

 
Caleb and his Andersen Nephews.

 Jim, Caleb and I.

New house

We were thinking of refinishing our hardwood floor and extending the wood throughout the main level. When we got the estimates, I looked at them and asked Jim if we had to live here forever, because if we were going to move, I didn't want to spend the money to put all that wood in. He surprised me by saying, "We don't have to live here forever, lets move".  That started an avalanche of events and work and money spent to make our house the best it's ever been. It was on the market for one week and we accepted an excellent offer.
We looked for the perfect house, talked about building, re-imagined house plans, and realized that we could not get the "perfect house" within our price range. So we found the best that our money could buy, and will have to work on it over the years to make it perfect.
This is our new house.  The pictures are already gone of our old house.

We thought that once we accepted an offer and had an offer accepted, the stress would be over.  I guess we forgot the headache of finding all the little nitpicky things the bank wants in order to process our loan.

Throughout all this, Caleb is graduating from High School, Going to the Temple, and Leaving on a Mission.  We have to be out of this house 6 days after dropping Caleb off for his mission. I hope we survive this.