Beautiful Vacation in Spain

We recently returned from a long-awaited journey. We visited Spain! It was our first trip abroad, ever. I've wanted to visit this country since I was a young girl in Spanish class--way back when.  Our trip included staying in five different cities, and we also visited several others for the day.

It was a delight in every way. The country was beautiful, the historical sights were stunning, and the people were friendly and welcoming. 

A snippet of the places we visited:


Madrid in the Evening


The Stunning City of Toledo


The Alcazar in Sevilla


The Cathedral in Sevilla


The Alhambra in Granada


The Mediterranean Sea



Churros and Chocolate in a Valencia Restaurant



Calatrava's Architecture in Valencia


Cathedral in Valencia


The Mesquita in Cordoba



Guadi's La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona


Park Guell in Barcelona- designed by Guadi


More from Parque Guell


The Monastery at Montserrat



Flamenco Dancer in Sevilla

What a fantastic time it was. Now it's back to reality and responsibilities. Maybe some stitching today will ease me back into the routine?

Thanks for stopping by today!

It's Great to Be Home

We're back from another trip to visit my husband and also my aunt in the midwest.

It was a great trip, but it's good to be home.

I have some old stitching and fun stuff about the trip to share, but I'll have to do that later.


Again, it's great to be back! I've missed reading all your blogs, haven't been online in a week.

Until Later... a photo of another beautiful Minnesota sunset-

Country Skies

We recently returned from a trip to my husband's home state. While we were there, I did just a tiny bit of stitching. Here's the latest photo of my wee bit of progress:



And a close-up of the canoe:


I moved the canoe from a different part of the original chart since my husband did a lot of canoeing in that part of Minnesota when he was a teenager. I am enjoying working on this relatively simple project after some of the other ones I've stitched.

Tomorrow I'm starting three weeks of classes. I'm looking forward to getting this coursework completed! I hope to find time to stitch in the evening, but we'll have to wait and see.

I wanted to share some photos of our recent trip. It was a beautiful, relaxing time.

We took these photos after we left the city airport and headed towards our rural destination:




When you live in an urban area as I do, you simply can't believe the beauty you see in the midwest's open skies. The folks who live there seem rather amused at our ever present camera, but we truly marvel at the beauty we see there and we try to capture it on film.

A few more from our trip:






Finally, a photo my husband took of an old abandoned farmhouse. Our son-in-law also took some of this one, and he got treated to three ticks jumping on him and snuggling up to him after walking through the thigh-high grass. Good times!

It's interesting to look at an old house like this, and wonder how it once must have looked in its glory days of so long ago.



Thanks for stopping by today!

Time to Relax...

Exactly one year ago today, it was the last day of school. So today it was again the last day of the school year. Wow, what a year it's been. I'm glad to wave goodbye to this school year. It started shrouded in sadness with the passing of my father right before it began. He was very sick all summer, in fact. Truly it was hard to start the year with such a sad event in my life happening, but that's how life is, isn't it? We can't control much, really, can we?

This group of little children has moved on, and it's always bittersweet. I'm happy to have seen my students learn so much, but it's a bit sad to say goodbye and pass them on to the next teacher.

So just below you'll find a repeat of last year's photo from the end of the year. Last year on the final day of school we went out with our kids, and we toasted the end of the year. Tonight the two of us are staying home. I'm drained, and wiped out. My classroom is moving so this year we had the added burden of packing up everything into boxes before leaving for the summer break. When we don't move classrooms, we can shove it into a cupboard or place it on a shelf. Then we cover up the shelves with paper. I think in the end there were close to fifty boxes packed in that tiny room. I am aching all over, really!

I hope for a relaxing summer, if it's meant to be. I do hope to get some stitching in from time to time, but I am taking three graduate courses so we'll see if that happens.



Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all find some relaxation this summer.

Summer Dreams...Sigh

A year ago today we were on our way to Kauai for a wonderful tropical vacation. I can still smell the orchids on the leis we got at the airport that day, and at the hotel. I so remember this sunset view in the evenings when we were in Kauai:


Back to reality. This summer has been very different, and it's almost done. This week I have attended training all day, and thankfully I have just two days left.

I haven't had much time to stitch this summer, but that's just the way it is.

I promise to share an update soon of my sampler, as I have made a bit of progress since my last update here.

I hope your week is going well!

A Break in the Routine

Yesterday was the last school day of the year. We went out to celebrate the end of it as well as to celebrate a few birthdays. Even though this isn't my drink, you get the idea of the photo:



Enjoy your day! I know I will enjoy mine. :)

A White Wedding

We just returned from a short trip back to the midwest. As a matter of fact, I wish we'd have stayed longer as the trip was simply too short for the amount of travel time required.

The first part of our jaunt is about a fifty mile ride to the largest airport in the area, and that trip amounts to a few hours due to traffic. After that our flight is about three hours. From there it's a short ride to the car rental place, and onto our destination another 165 miles from the city to which we fly. All told, it's about 12 hours from our doorstep to our destination back in the small town we visit.

We were there only three nights, so that gave us two full days at our destination. It truly wasn't enough time, but our main goal was to attend a wedding and we got to do that so it was all well worth it.

We live where the temperature is about 60-70 degrees during the day, even in the winter months. When we arrived at our destination, the temperature was six degrees. Brrr... It's the first time I've been back in the midwest without snow in the winter. It was odd to see it bright outside without snow when the temperature was so low.

The oddity ended on our second day there when we awakened to this:



Naturally that was the day of the wedding we were there to attend. Our sweet niece got to wed on a snowy day wearing a strapless dress and strappy shoes. Her attendants also wore strapless gowns!

Here's another picture of the weather the day of the wedding. I think it's so lovely, even if it is cold.



Here are the attendants with our niece in the middle:



Here's a photo of the fathers of the bride and groom. They're attempting to light the gorgeous snow sculptures that will lead guests to the church ceremony. The constant snowfall prevented the lighting from happening at all.



It was a beautiful wedding, and we had a complete blast experiencing our first small town wedding. There were 350 people at the reception! We ate a wonderful meal and danced the night away. I even got to polka for the first time since my ballet days, and unfortunately I was a bit too exuberant for my partner. My partner fell on the floor, in fact. No one was injured, and the fun continued.

I loved the snow, but it's great to be back here where the temperature outside is over 70 degrees today.

Heading Back to Work, etc.

Thanks for your kind comments on my previous entry all about our trip to Kauai. I appreciate it a lot! This was our first trip ever to Hawaii, and we're both closing in on fifty. Our vacations have always been spent visiting family or driving locally for a few hours, so this was quite a big change for us. We saw many families while in Hawaii, but that's not something we were ever able to do while our children were living at home. My husband gets to travel a lot with his job, but I don't go along on those jaunts. Why am I telling you all this? I'm explaining my complete enthusiasm for our trip from which we just returned.

On to life in the real world! Above is a picture of Eddie doing a 'trick'with our daughter. She's the official trainer and handler of our 80 pound wonder. We took some photos of our canine companion per a request from a greyhound rescue organization. It's for their website since he won first prize back in June as "Trickiest Greyhound" at the retired racers' reunion picnic. Truly, greyhounds aren't known for their trickiness, so keep that in mind.

Happy Blog Anniversary to me! I have had this blog for just over a year now, and I do admit I haven't said much here. I try to keep it light and fluffy, as you may have noticed. In one year I have just under 40 posts, and I think that perhaps 1/3 of them are from this summer. (I'm too lazy to look back and figure it out, and who cares anyway?)I know that a lot of people must like reading blogs, and I know that I do. If you read this one once in awhile, thanks so much!

An Island to Remember

We returned from our trip to Hawaii. It was so beautiful on the island where we visited, simply gorgeous. In fact, it seems amazing that such places truly exist. I would love to return to Kauai again someday and explore far more than we were able to do in just about a week. Next time we'll stay a few more days, at least.

I like to relax a lot while visiting somewhere, so that precludes a maddening schedule of too many activities. I really don't like to stay too busy at all on vacation. We've never traveled much at all, so I chose to stay at a place that was very beautiful since we'd waited so long to travel. Like I said, I don't like adventure too much so I wanted the surroundings to be really pretty where we stayed. We got that, and more. It was delightful!

The flight there was long, I won't mince words on that one. As we flew towards the islands we knew that there was a threat of a hurricane, so needless to say I was very concerned about that possibility. Fortunately the hurricane downgraded but while we were there we did experience a lot of clouds and wind the first two days. We didn't see the sun shine at all until we'd been there a few days, but it was still beautiful.

We were greeted with leis at the airport, and also at the hotel where we were staying. That was a real fun thrill to me, as it's something I've seen in movies for years.

Here's what we saw when we walked into our hotel lobby.

View from our lanai off our "Mountain View" room. It was surprisingly private and shaded by trees, and there were walls on the side so you couldn't see any 'neighbors':


The room was large for a hotel room, and the bathroom was great. It even had a glass container with cotton balls, Q-tips, double vanity, and oodles of wonderful bath products each day. The bed was plush and cozy. We slept each night with the slider door open so we could hear the tradewinds and the ocean waves.

The resort was gorgeous, and I'd definitely go there again. Every morning we ate a huge buffet breakfast at a beautiful terrace that overlooked a pond with swans and koi fish, with a waterfall off to the side and the ocean in front of us to enjoy. This picture was taken on our first morning, and that was one of those cloudy, windy days I mentioned earlier. Here's a view from our table, enjoyed while we heard soft, live guitar music:


In the evening we had drinks almost each evening at an outdoor terraced bar that was located beyond the great big doorway shown in the top photo. Here's what we saw:
Looking left it was:


We walked around the hotel grounds the next morning, and I really love how this photo turned out.


The photo above is a view from below where we were sitting the night before. Isn't that lovely?

I think this is where they hold some luaus and wedding receptions. The ocean is behind it, and it's too cloudy to enjoy here:



I took this one on that same cloudy day, and it shows where we did a lot of swimming. The lagoon was sandy on the bottom, and full of saltwater. We also swam a lot in the upper pools that had a channel with a soft currents, but we didn't get a picture of that. It also had waterfalls with little secret caves for hiding.



A lovely hammock on which to relax, taken on a different day:


Here are a few of the sights we saw on our drives around Kauai. I wish that photos conveyed the depth of colors and textures one sees, but they just don't quite cut it.

Ke'e Beach, on the north shore:


Lawai Beach, taken on our Allerton garden tour:


Tree used in Jurassic Park where dinosaur eggs were found:


Moloa'a Beach:


Hanalei Valley Overlook, with taro fields:


We drove up to see Hanalei Bay the first day we were there, as for years I'd wanted to see the mountain (Bali Hai, but there's a real Hawaiian name for it, too) used in "South Pacific". That was the cloudy day though, but here's an idea of that one. We did return there again, but I didn't take a picture. Shame on me!


The last full day we were there we drove up to Waimea Canyon and beyond to the various overlooks that show the Pacific and the valleys around the Na'poli cliffs. This was stunning to me, to say the very least. If I ever have to picture a beautiful place in my mind, this will be it:





Here's one of Waimea Canyon, known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific:


We went to the luau at the Hyatt and had a great time! The food was delicious, and the drinks flowed like water.

Luau action:

Here's a photo showing a bit of the Kauai sky at sunset, taken from that same spot on the Seaview Terrace Lounge at the hotel. Sigh.
If you want to see some more photos of Kauai, just click on any of these photos and you'll go to the Flickr page that has that collection. I could go on and on here, but I realize that's not practical nor interesting, really.

Vacations are wonderful, but it's always great to come home. I am a homebody at heart, that's for sure.