Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 From our family to yours, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Blessed and Happy New Year.

This house is in Naperville.

I showed this same house with Halloween decorations, now it is on display for Christmas.

Santa is getting ready for the big night.

So are some of his reindeer.  Have to eat for energy.

This display is two blocks long and tells the whole Christmas story.

The nativity is beautiful.

Snoopy is getting ready too.  Woodstock has a red nose to help guide the sleigh.

The Red Baron sends his greetings too.

Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year
Mary

Thursday sew Christmas Party

Yesterday was our little Christmas for our Thursday sewing group.  We meet at the quilt shops class room every Thursday to work on quilting projects. It is always a lot of fun.  We decided to have a pot luck would be in order, and of course a gift exchange.  The food was great. We quilters do know how to cook!

Our presents were wonderful.  We bring them wrapped and get to draw a number, and pick a present.

Donna was number 1 and picked this darling table topper made by Cheryl.

Jan was the next and picked mine.  I had made a Tammy Bag, a pattern by Mdm Samm,, from "Sew We Quilt". I love making this bag.

Cheryl picked this darling pillow from Marilyn. It is cross stitched with Merry Christmas and made with gingerbread fabric.

Marilyn received Jo's gift of a darling wool snowman candle mat with a snowman light.
Jo does wonderful hand-stitchery.  

Jo received a neat zipper pouch that has a vinyl front to see what is inside the bag and a cute Christmas wallet, that had a Dairy Queen gift card in it. Donna makes such cute pouches.

I received this gorgeous table runner of Jo Morton fabrics from Jan. Jan is a wonderful and prolific sewer and quilter.  I love this table runner.

In the mail yesterday I received this adorable mini Tammy Bag from Mdn Samm. She even embroidered a sweet flamingo on the front.  It is an ornament for now.  It is a treasured reminder of a lovely friendship that has grown in the past year.

Tuesday of the road trip

Some of the snowy view  from the Starved Rock Lodge in Utica, Illinois.

There is a porch all along the backside of the lodge, overlooking the Illinois River.

According to the weather report we were supposed to get another inch of snow. It was a bit hard to tell.

This is a top view of the visitors center down by the river.  There are all sorts of trails to hike. There are caverns, waterfalls, and lots of wildlife.  There is plenty of forest, and prairie.  I was surprised at how large the area is.  I want to go back and explore more.

There is a great room in the lodge with this inviting fireplace.

This is the lobby.  A lot of the furniture is made from the wood from the forest.

To top it all off, there was eagles.  They have started coming back.  I sighted at least 8 along the river.

We went to the lock and dam that is part of the canal system on the river.  As we arrived this barge was just interring the lock. You can see how low in the canal this one is.

See the eagle flying!

Here are the gates getting ready to close.

The gates are closed.

Now the water is being allowed to fill the canal 

See how much the boat has risen.

It is at the top level, and getting ready to be let out of the canal.

Here are two of the eagles watching the action.

The barge is now going out of the canal.  There were several  other barges waiting to all be hooked together. Each barge that goes through can only be so many feet long.  I think there were 6 that this boat was pushing up the river. It is such a simple method of getting a ship from one level of water to another. I love to watch this procedure.

Then we had to stop by the house being built for the sequel to the Superman movie.  This is going to look just like the house in the current movie. They are supposed to be filming in February.

There I had to see my favorite barn quilt.  It is here in Oswego!

These little road trips we take are so much fun.  We get to go to some awesome places and do fun things.
Have a great day.
Mary

A little overnight trip

On the spur of the moment we decided to do a little overnight trip.  On Monday morning we started our drive to Arthur, Illinois.  Ron says it is about a 130 miles.  We were going to take back roads like we usually do, but we had had snow, and he was concerned that some of them may not be real clean.  We started out by taking route 47 south, to Mahomet where we did pick up an expressway.  This cool barn quilt was not far from the interchange.

Once we got to the Arcola interchange, off we got and headed toward Arthur.  There are a lot of Amish that live in the area.  After we had lunch at Yoder's Kitchen, we went down one of the county roads.  The Amish use draft horses for their farm work.  These beautiful horses were sharing a field with the cows.

Laundry needs to be done.  It was interesting to see it hanging outside.  We are so used to having our dryers and modern conveniences.  

The whole time we were in the area, there was fog.  It gave a strange quality to the day.  This is the country road we went down to get to our next stop.

This place is so neat. They sell all sort of bulk merchandise.  Someone makes the best hard candy that is sold there.  We had to replenish our supply from the last time we were there.  I also got the ingredients to make a pretzel, nut, mix to serve for company.  They have it in small or large quantities.

You can purchase all sorts of great things, pic filling, all the ingredients to bake, or make soup.  There is all sorts of candy, nuts, jello, things needed for making pickles.  I think they are everything! It is so much fun to see what they have.  There is no electricity in the building, lighting is by kerosene lamps.

The whole day was so strange with the fog, The trees looked like they had frost covering them.

We headed north again as we were going to stay in Utica at the Starved Rock Lodge.
On our way we ran across this quilt on a silo.  I did make Ron turn around so I could get pictures.  This was a first.

Don't you just love this quilt.  It was worth the turn around.

Ron is in our room.  The original lodge is going to celebrate it's 75th anniversary.

When Ron made the reservations, he found out that there was going to be trolley ride to see Christmas lights in the surrounding towns.
We had a two hour ride.  The fact that we had all this snow made it so magical.  It is so pretty to see the lights shining through the snow.  After we got back we did run into town to get a bite to eat. Andy had told us about a great little bar in town to have burgers.
We had a super great day. I will update our Tuesday morning in my next post.
Have a great evening!
Mary

Christmas lights

Time to see our favorite Christmas houses.  Each year we have to see of this house has been lit. This family "encrusts" their home on all sides, including the windows.  This is the back of the house.

Here is the front and one of the sides. The only things not covered is the front and garage doors.

Charlie found a warm cozy spot to take a snooze.

At my one of my favorite walking and birding sites, I came upon this small herd of deer.  They were feeding by the edge of the woods and did not seem too concerned that I was watching them and taking pictures.

At one of the parks in our area, a Christmas light show to benefit area youth programs, was ready for viewing. You drive your car though through and can give a donation at the end.

It is so nice to see the display. It has become a yearly drive through. They are adding displays as they get get sponsors.

The view from our kitchen area.  I am keeping my bird feeders full.  The mourning doves depend on the smaller birds to flick the seeds to the ground, as they are ground feeders.  They had decided to take a time out and perched on this tree. It seems they were waiting for the next round of feed.

I have been working on all my projects from my last post.  On Thursday at sewing, I prepped them for quilting and embroidery.  Several are done, and more are being worked on.
It is fun to sit in the evening, work on the handwork, and watch some pretty good Christmas shows.
It is cold and snowy outside, what better way to spend your time.
Have a great week.
Mary