Dowdle Family Heritage

This quilt is a wall-hanging that I made to honor the Dowdle Family's Heritage. I designed the whole thing myself. The center is a hand-appliqued bust of Joseph Smith, a pattern designed by Jodi Warner. I titled the quilt "The Kingdom Shall Roll Forth" in commemoration of the 200th birthday of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the entrance of the ancestors of Kurt, my children's father, to the Salt Lake Valley subsequent to the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-Day Saints. On each edge is written, "Faith in Every Footstep - 1847", "Come, Come Ye Saints", "Faith of Our Fathers" and "The Kingdom Shall Roll Forth". The quilt depicts a wagon wheel and between each spoke are the names of each family, the year they emigrated to America, the names of the boats they traveled on, the names of the wagon company they traveled to Utah with and where they settled. It is machine-pieced, hand-appliqued and hand-quilted. Here is a sample of the detail between each spoke. This one says:

Thomas Jones White

age 28

Came with brother, George White

Left from

Dorstone, Herefordshire, England

on the Ship Ellen Maria in 1851

Ship sank on the St. Lawrence River

and George was drowned

Arrived in Utah in 1852

Walked while he drove church cattle

all the way to Utah

Settled in Harrisville, Utah

That is a detail of quilting I did in one of the corners. It shows 2 keys, representing the Aaronic and Melchezidek Priesthoods and an old pocket watch owned by John Taylor, an apostle who was shot during the same incident that killed the Prophet. His life may have been spared when a ball, directed towards his chest, was stopped by a pocket watch which he was carrying at the time. It showed the time of 4:16 p.m. which was about a minute after Joseph was killed.

I Love to Quilt!

I have made other denim picnic quilts, but this is one that I love! I like the Log Cabin pattern on it and it was very fun to make. I could have laid the blocks in so many ways, but I liked this pattern the best. I finished it last fall, just in time for the MSU football games. It came in very handy, I might add. The red centers and back are made out of courderoy. It is machine pieced and hand-tied.

I have always loved the Dresden Plate pattern. I actually made this block specifically for a challenge that my quilt guild had given us. We were s'posed to make a quilt using the material they gave, which is at 10 o'clock in this block, and it was also s'posed to have circles in the quilt.

I put the block into a lap quilt that I made for my new daughter-in-law, Amberly. A beautiful bride! She married my oldest son December 2007. The quilt is very feminine. It was actually a block-of-the-month project from a local quilt shop. It was so much fun to make. Anyway, I am glad it has a good home now. It was machine-pieced and hand-quilted with tons of love for the Newlyweds!The following quilt is also a block-of-the-month that I made from the same local quilt shop, just the previous year. I love the "homey" theme that came out of it. This lives at the bottom of my bed. It's called a Row Quilt and is a sampler of many different blocks.

Quilting is a creative outlet for me. As a mother, it seems that everything I do, GETS UNDONE! I wash a dish, it's dirty in minutes. I wash the clothes, floors, dog, tables, kids, etc... and all are dirty in seconds. I make food, which gets eaten in milliseconds. But quilting... ahhh.... it stays DONE!

Day 2 of Our Weekend

Yesterday was a very nice day. One of those days that are thoroughly enjoyable. We fixed a big breakfast of eggs and bacon. Then after Victor put the final repairs to the bikes, we took off at 11 a.m. and the whole family rode our bikes into town... even Megan. (Brooke was already at work and Clint spent his day working on the pickup.) Victor and I stayed back with Megan as she was still a newbie at riding. The other kids met us at the park. We rode to Pamida and bought some bottled water and a Frisbee.

At the park we all played Frisbee. I stink at throwing it, by the way. My shoulders aren't really great and it was painful. We left all the kids at the park and Victor and I rode off alone to the grocery story. We purchased a loaf of bread, peanut butter, honey, a bag of potato chips and some gluten-free breakfast bars.

We rode back to the park and had an informal picnic at a picnic table. The kids were starved. We drank out of the public drinking fountain which is really an old pump. The kids took the last of the bread and fed the ducks, swans and canadian geese who frolic by the lagoon.

The lagoon..... Since the city pool had cracks in it, the city closed it last summer. The kids decided, instead, to use the filthy, stinky, rotten-fish-smelling lagoon as their summer-time pool. That's where we found them yesterday, as well. They love it. There are rumors that the city dredged the lagoon a few years ago and found rusty shopping carts and a VW Bug in the bottom of it. However, even though it is quite murky, the kids claim it's only waste-deep, pun intended.

We rode home about 5 p.m. In total we rode about 10 miles and it was so much fun. Megan loved it and did so well. We were exhausted and sun burned but had a great time. The kids made a bonfire in our fire pit in the backyard and enjoyed the evening.

We have 2 more days of our Memorial Day Weekend left.

A Weekend to Memorialize

There are only 10 more days of school left! Today was a half day and the kids wanted to celebrate the near-end of school by bringing half the 5th grade home with them. We threw a little party and Victor grilled burgers and hot dogs, and we served a jello salad, potato salad, potato chips, pop, popsicles, and more. What more could two 11 year olds ask for?

Megan has been so busy today. She found a caterpillar which is amazing that it hadn't blown away yet. I think she named it something, but I can't remember 'cuz I can't pronounce it and therefore can't spell it.

Heather was a bit bored so I gave her free reign of the kitchen. I told her to go bake something. She poured over the recipe books and I left the room. I just knew I wouldn't be able to NOT "help" and I wanted her to enjoy herself. I came in later and found this......

She made a shake.....

Then Meggie went out to the driveway to learn to ride the bike we gave her for Christmas. Yesterday, she was terrified and couldn't figure it out at all. Rachael, Victor and I ran around the driveway behind her holding onto the bike. You know how it's done. I think she must have dreamt about it last night because today she was able to finally get it. Now she just needs to learn how to stop by using her brakes and not the garage door or the cement.

Alex is in the maternity ward. Alex is our platy. Platys are fish and we have 2 males and 2 females in our aquarium. The Pet Smart lady told us that Alex is very pregnant and probably wouldn't make it home without giving birth in the baggy. Well, that was a week ago! She still hasn't gone into fishy labor, but we are still hopeful.
The reason why she is sequestered is because she and the other fish will eat her babies. After she has them they will slip through that slotted tray beneath her and she won't be able to get at them.

Memorial Day Weekend has just begun!

House for Sale

Well, we are selling the house and our adjacent lot. We've dropped the price $50,000 under appraisal and we will try to buy a house in town. The adjacent lot can go with the house or separately if you want to build. I have enjoyed watching the seasons here and the wildlife is a riot! We have Golden Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Hawks, birds of every kind, coyotes, rabbits, bunnies, deer, snakes (I won't miss them much), mice, horses and cows.

The longhorn cattle, on our road, are calving and the babies are darling. I have named one "Socks" because he is all white except for his little brown head and brown legs. The calves jump around and play like children.

We love it out here but can't afford it anymore. We'll probably sell the house at a loss but there are other things more important! The kids need family vacations, art and piano lessons, swimming lessons, soccer uniforms, decent health care, braces on their teeth, shoes and the list goes on.

I will miss this house. It's about 4,500 square feet, has 3.5 baths, 6 large bedrooms and tons of storage. We built a great fire pit in the backyard for roasting marshmallows. There is plenty of room for the kids here. But, it is not to be. There are advantages to moving into town, also. I will have to look on the bright side.

Someone, please buy our home! You'll love it here!

Alli

Alli, our beautiful, sweet, darling, energetic, loving Golden Retriever, is missing. We haven't seen her in 10 days. Her story began on a Thursday evening when she went prowling around and didn't come back for a few hours. This is normal behavior for her. Friday, she was sick. She relieved herself EVERYWHERE in the house (ask Heather... her room was destroyed!), barfing and pooing. It was horrible.

Alli, resting in my bedroom about 3 months ago.

Then we noticed she had a swollen belly and bloodshot eyes. She was very lethargic all weekend and we had decided we would take her to the vet on Monday morning, however, she ran out of the house about 8 p.m. on Sunday night. We were called by her favorite hangout, the Exxon station, two miles away. They had seen her crossing the highway to the Town Pump gas station.

We raced to get her but never found her. She hasn't turned up at the Shelter or with Animal Control. We have a theory.... that she chewed on a dead poisoned animal, got sick and has gone somewhere to die. We hope that she turns up at sometime, somewhere. She is such a sweetie and I miss her terribly! All we have left is her collar. The kids fight over who is going to sleep with her at night and even though Victor has told them time and time again, they remove her collar because she **clinks**.

To add insult to injury, we woke up this morning to find our goldfish.....

were leaving us, too...

Matthew named this goldfish, Swimmy, and he/she committed suicide by jumping out of the bowl. OR perhaps, Squirt & Fins, pushed him/her out. We will never know.