I've Taken My Traveling Shoes Off

No more long trips for me until Thanksgiving!  I will have some time to stay in the Bay Area and enjoy the Fall, make some progress on my sewing projects,  and see if the Giants can make it to the World Series.  (They won last night, after losing the first game and now they're on the road to St. Louis for game 3).  If you limit your blog reading to quilty topics, there's not much for you in this blog.  Today I'm writing about everything but quilting!

Since I last wrote, I have been in Reno for the little boys' 3rd and 5th birthdays.  That was the weekend of Oct. 6 and 7.  The birthday party was held at Pump It Up (a building full of bounce houses, bounce slides and other contraptions if any of you are like me and had not heard of such a thing).  The tiniest little bitty kids climbed up the huge inflated slide and came flying down at warp speed!

Here's a shot of Mason on the slide and the boys with their birthday cake:

 

 

 

 

Then the boys and I decorated pumpkins for Halloween.  We drew faces on pumpkins, honeydew and little watermelons and then applied Angry Bird and Piggy decorations on more pumpkins.  Their neighborhood is full of kids, so there are Halloween decorations everywhere, warranting several walks to see the sights. 

I came home Sunday evening and then took a red eye out to Philadelphia Monday night for an ABA meeting.  I had no idea Philadelphia was such an interesting city - I mean beyond the historical aspects of the city.  We went to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the Constitution Center, Betsy Ross's house and saw the oldest residential street in the country (Elfrey's Alley).  We had a Philly cheese steak sandwich at Geno's (no cheese wiz for me) and went to the Barnes Foundation to see the single largest collection of Impressionist paintings in the world.  Dr. Barnes had 181 Renoir's alone in his collection!  And his paintings had not been loaned out, so these were paintings that I had never seen before.  More Impressionists than at the Musee de Orsay in Paris!

We also went to the Magic Garden to see the mosaics.  My friend Jaye, from the BAMQG, had blogged about this place and I had to see it.  Amazing place where every square inch of the building and the garden (as well as buildings near by) were covered in mosaics made from throw away items - dishes, bottles, bicycle tires, spoons, wire, you name it. 

 



 This shot is from across the street. 

 



 This is the actual entrance.

 

This is some of the magic inside the garden.

 

 



 

And this is a shot of the ceiling of the Magic Garden building.  Truly a strange and wonderful place.

 

I'll write tomorrow about my limited sewing experiences.

 

Aaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.