The Season of Fun

These two cute girls have been with us for the past couple weeks, my granddaughter, Danielle, and her friend Mabry. It has been rather busy around here. Along with the girls, my son and his wife were here and also my dad. We had a great time together. Fun at the beach, riding bikes, reading, and food from the grill. After a week all the adults went home.

And then we took the girls to New York City for the weekend. Pictures of them are on my family blog, but this one is about ME! So we were walking down Broadway in the Fashion District and I had to have my picture taken with this guy at the sewing machine.

We took the girls to Soho shopping. There are some really great shops there for teens, young adults, and for those who need to be trendy (not me). The shop I loved the most was All Saints Clothing, and it was not because of the cloths. I loved the decor.

All Saints Clothing had walls of old Singer sewing machines! 

And huge spools!

I just basked in the environment that I love. And you know it is not trendy clothes!

IN A NEW YORK M-MINUTE

Why do I wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and toss for an hour, then decide I'm not going back to sleep? Why? Is it my age? This used to happen to my mother and grandmother too. Maybe it is because I really don't tire myself out during the day like I used to. But dang, I sure feel tired. So here I am again, blogging at 4:00am. I will go back to bed later and sleep the morning away. What a life. I am just glad that I can go back to bed! At least I am catching up on reading blogs. Bloglines shows I have under 1000 posts left. Ha! Mary at Mary Quilts has a new system for reading blogs. When she reaches the point where she can't keep up, she purges the system and starts again. Seems to me she runs the risk of becoming a bulimic blogger, but it might be just what I need.

I thought I would post a couple more pics from NYC. This is my grand-daughter hamming it up with her grandpa in front of the Bank of America in Times Square. I had them pose there as a joke. DGD is actually picking grandpa's pocket and he is pretending he doesn't know it.

Next, we have the girls at the theater. They love to take random shots, but I prefer just a little organization. You have no idea how many photos they took of their heads together like this and with an arm outstretched, camera in hand to snap the shot. We went to see Mary Poppins and my husband and I sat directly behind the girls in the theater, so I was able to get this photo with the stage screen behind them and their Showbills in hand. This was a great show! Practically perfect in every way!

Across the street from our hotel is what has to be the worlds largest M & M's outpost. You can buy a bag of your favorite color! Did you know that someone sits up all night and separates the colors into those pretty tubes. What a job! But such pretty results! They kind of look like silos, don't you think? Definitely food for thought.

DO BLONDES STILL HAVE MORE FUN?

I know you are all asking, where have I been all week? Well, my 16 year old granddaughter and her friend came to visit for Spring Break, so we have been busy! They arrived a week ago, Friday night (3-21-08). They had tickets on the only through flight from Minneapolis to Norfolk, and it was late arriving, so it was after midnight before they got in. My husband decided he wanted to take them to New York for the weekend, so Saturday morning we left early and drove up (about 6 hours). We had hopes of going to a show or two, but of course they were mobbed over the weekend. We raced all over, from theater to theater looking for tickets. We ended up going to Legally Blonde on Saturday night. It's a musical! Who knew? It was not our first choice, but we saw the movie and figured it should be OK. Well, it was more than OK, it was great! Talk about the perfect show to take high school girls to see! Be sure to click on the link and play the video clip. That show was so high energy I know I must have lost weight just watching the performers work so hard! We were in the 4th row in the center and I am sure the cast would recognize us on the street. Anyway, it was very cute and funny and had lots of great dancing and music that will be ringing in my ears for a long time. Naturally we got the CD. It is not Rodgers and Hammerstein, but it was lots of fun! (I buried the CD so they couldn't play it all the way home in the car. It didn't matter, they sang it all the way. It is permanently imbedded. "OMG, OMG You guys!" Who can forget lyrics like that?)

We did lots of touristy stuff also. FAO Schwarz, the big toy store, was a bigger hit than we expected. The girls loved it and I enjoyed it too. The soldier was in front of the store and he was adorable. My granddaughter is on the left and her friend on the right. Great weather for running around. We were so lucky!

We drove home Tuesday and the weather in Virginia Beach could not have been any nicer. Yesterday it was 80 degrees (today is 45!) The girls had lots of fun running around on the beach. We live close to the Chesapeake and the beaches are wonderful! The tourists are all down the road on the Atlantic. In the photo behind the girls you can see the huge container ships lined up out on the bay waiting to go through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. This bridge is 20 miles long and parts of it go under water so the ships can pass over.

Early this morning we took them to the airport and when we came home I went back to bed and slept until noon!

If you came by for quilts today, please come back again. I will soon be back to my normal routine, which is much slower paced, by the way. This week was really a fun change and my husband and I had a blast, and the girls did too!