Monday, May 28, 2018

Butterflies and Angels: Vacation 2018

Wishing everyone in the United States a safe and reflective Memorial Day.  We drove home yesterday, in part to avoid the end of the holiday weekend traffic and so we'd have one day to recuperate from vacation before heading back to work.  We had a fun vacation, though it was shorter than usual.  The Scientist in Training is heading back for summer school this year and My Guy has business trips in the works, so we didn't have a big window for scheduling things this year.   

Most of my stitching time this week was spent on one of my long term travel projects, the butterfly medallion panel.  I spent most of the week working on butterfly number 3 (out of 9 on the panel).


I keep planning to work on this while we are home, but I never remember to pull it out of it's case (hence all the folds and wrinkles).  

Since we got home early Sunday afternoon, I was able to get a good start on the laundry, then go spend the evening in my sewing room.  All the rows of the Christmas Angels quilt are now sewn together. 


Getting this to the finished flimsy stage is my OMG for May.  The plan is to spend most of today in the sewing room.  My Guy is off on a 70 mile bike ride and the SIT has plans with friends.  So I'll have the house to myself for most of the morning.  Hopefully I can get the center all sewn together, finish the pieced border, plus add the two strip borders before the end of May.  

That's all the quilty stuff for this post, so you can stop here if that's what you stopped by to see.  You can read on if you are interested in seeing a few vacation photos.  

Due to the changing dates of My Guy's business trips we opted for a close to home vacation this year.  We spent some time in Missouri Wine Country to start. 


A little wine is always a great way to start vacation. Stone Hill is one of our favorite wineries and we can highly recommend both the wines and their Vintage Restaurant. It's a must visit any time we are in the area. 

We spent the rest of our vacation in the St. Louis area.  Doing the expected things, like visiting the Botanical Gardens. 


Yes, I have lots and lots of pictures of beautiful flowers, but I really loved these leaves.  They look like someone tried to paint them green.  

My Guy and I are both from Missouri.  We were chagrined to realize a few years ago that the SIT had never seen the Gateway Arch.  It's such an iconic part of the state, we really felt it was remiss of us that we'd never taken her.  So we did that this trip. 


Now she's been there, been up in it, so that's checked off the list.  

We also visited the St. Louis Art Museum, but I don't have any photos from that visit.  It's not hard to guess our next activity from the below photo. 


I was amazed to find out the St. Louis Zoo is free if all you want to do is see the animals.  We had a wonderful time, it really is a great place to spend a morning. Schools in the St. Louis area had classes until Friday.  The zoo was really, really busy the morning we went.  I can't imagine what it will be like this next week.  


Our last outing was a place called The City Museum.  


Yes, that's a school bus hanging out from the 10th floor of the museum.  SIT said the listing for the museum said it was a place containing interactive displays of art.  It really was a cross between an art museum and an amusement park.  We had a lot of fun, but we were all a little sore that night from crawling around the caves and other exhibits.  If you have older kids (tweens and teens) this is a great place for them to burn off any extra energy.  

In between all the site seeing we ate a lot of great food (mostly, there were a couple of questionable meals), My Guy rode his bike on the Katy Trail in the mornings while the SIT and I shopped in Old Town St. Charles. It worked for all of us.  Now to finish off all the accumulated laundry and spend some much needed R&R time in the sewing room.    

Linking up with:
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15 comments:

Kate said...

Based on what's been posted on the Blogger Help Forum, checking the "Notify Me" box at the bottom of the comment box will send any other comments to my email. This is a suggested work around for Blogger's current inability to send comments to email.

Val's Quilting Studio said...

Hi Kate! Sounds like you had s very rejuvinating get away!!! Thanks fir sharing. I’m working to finish my May omg today too....lucky for us we have an extra day off from work this week. Enjoy!!! (I clicked notify me...let’s see if it works. I need to add that to my blog too. Thsnks for the hunt)

Val's Quilting Studio said...

Hint

LIttle Penguin Quilts said...

Your vacation looks like it was a lot of tun, and interesting, too! We enjoy visiting wineries on vacation - they are everywhere these days! Enjoy your stitching time today.

The Colorful Fabriholic said...

So glad you enjoyed your vacation in my town!

MissPat said...

We visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens many years ago and I was very impressed by the quality.
Hope you are able to catch up and rest up before heading back to work.
Pat

AnnieO said...

Pretty butterfly panel. Hope you pull it out more often to enjoy. My sister lived in STL for 25+ years so I’ve made a few trips to this exotic land. I have been up in the Arch but never to the Botanical or Zoo. It’s so pretty there in the Spring. Hope you make your goal for the Christmas quilt construction.

Alycia~Quiltygirl said...

What a fun trip!!! I got to drive by the arch when I drove through last summer - cool place!! Glad you had a good time!

QUILTING IS BLISSFUL, DI said...

How great was it that you got to a nice vacation altogether and by the sounds of it-even if it was shorter than normal--you did and seen alot--I wished our Zoo was free (runs about $20 for the day per person)--
your Angel quilt is looking goood--
enjoy, di

Marti said...

Sounds like a fun trip. I love St. Charles, but it's a little hot and humid there already isn't it?

Anne D said...

I love St Louis zoo. We lived in St Charles for three years while our children were at school so we spent a lot of time at the zoo!
We have been back in Australia for 8 years with one trip back to the states 5 years ago. We would love to go back soon. Our house backed onto the Katy trail and I ran on it a lot. It is great to holiday with your kids when they are older!

Alison V. said...

Your trip looks awesome! I went to St. Louis a few years ago for a short conference and stayed right next to the arch! My sister lived outside of the city for two years and actually got engaged at the City Museum.

Sandy Panagos said...

Oh, my gosh, you're making me homesick! I lived in St Louis for the first 58 years of my life, and I miss all the things you got to do there. Glad you had a good time!

Emily said...

Sounds like a great vacation!

Jennifer said...

Great progress and looks like a great vacation! I love St. Louis and we went through there on the last night of our vacation last year. We did the arch, but not much else, but we will go back again and will check out the city museum!