A Visit With Mother in Virginia

Life ...

It's been so nice to have Dustin & Gina with us for a little while. And Tina, Talya, and Georgi think so too.

We had a Sunday lunch invitation to Darren & Becky Knepp's place. The children sure enjoyed the battery operated car. "Come on Ashton, give us a push!"

Becky fixed us a Belizean meal and made her own soft tacos. Delicious!

And now I get to spend some time in Virginia with Mother. She loves working with her flowers. I can tell by the whistle/hum of "Do Not Pass Me By" that she is happy.

She has a beautiful view of North River out her living room windows and loves to feed the birds and watch the ducks, geese, and wildlife. Today she saw 5 deer crossing the river down at the ripples.

I took her up the river to see the tree house that my nephew Josh Helmuth is building. It's going to be an Airbnb and is quite cozy and will be a beautiful place to stay.

Photo Challenge and a Flying Trip to Virginia

The photo challenge theme for this week is "garden." I thought I wasn't going to be able to make a quilt with all that I had going on and would have to use a picture of the "No Flowers in My Garden" quilt that I had on my design wall in the last post. ... But, I found some time while I was in Virginia and made "Three Flowers in My Garden" for the photo challenge.

The back is almost as pretty as the front. I should have made the bobbin thread match a little better instead of trying to just 'use up' the thread that was already wound on the bobbin.

Detail

I couldn't pass up a quick opportunity to fly to Virginia to visit Mother. Joel was going up there to pick up Sheila and their two girls and taking Perry with him. There was an extra seat, really 2 of them, in the plane for me, so I went along to visit Mother for 2 days.

When we got there soon after lunch, Mother and I went to Ruth & Etta Showalter's store. I forget the name of it but they carry fabric and a few notions, cards, books, gifts and there is a small thrift store in the back. It has lots of light and is very spacious.

From there we went to the visitation at the Bank Church for Joyce Heatwole. Our thoughts and prayers are with her husband Kenneth and family as grieve with her passing.

I was glad to go with Mother to the graveyard to see Father's tombstone. It's been over a year now that he is gone.

Mother enjoys reading the paper and watching the birds and wildlife from her rocking chair by the window.

She fixed me such good meals. One evening she broiled some salmon that Terry had caught in Alaska and given to her. Another evening she grilled us each a hamburger and fixed a nice supper.

I went with her to "Gift and Thrift" where she donates one morning a week. She measures and prices fabric and gets it ready to put out on the shelves.

At the thrift store I found a piece of tulle, some glitzy paper scraps, and a black pair of pants for background, thinking that I could make my photo challenge garden somehow.

The glitzy bits of paper just didn't work for me so I opened drawers in Mother's sewing room and found this pretty assortment of thread.

I chose red, green, and yellow and fashioned my flowers with the thread and laid the tulle over the top. Then I layered the top, batting, and backing together and machined quilted "Three Flowers in My Garden."

Barbara met us one day for lunch at the Dairy Queen. That's one of my favorite fast food places and we don't have any close to us in Mississippi so I like to take advantage of them when we travel.

All too soon it was time to pack up and go home.

We had to stop in Knoxville to wait for a heavy storm system to pass over. Joel went out and bought us lunch at McDonalds and brought it back to the FBO for us to eat.

When we got to Joel's we noticed the banana plants had blooms with some bananas growing. Here's Sheila checking them out.