This month, our daughter graduates from High School. Because we had some family members in town to celebrate our anniversary this weekend, we decided to extend the celebration to the next day and host a celebration barbecue in our daughter’s honor. In all, we had 14 people over.
Every great celebration starts with food!

Dana and her Dad were in charge of the cooking.

The weather was great! We timed the eating perfectly. Mid afternoon after we were through eating, a big storm blew in with wind and rain and chased us inside. We had already eaten and opened gifts so it was ok. It made it challenging for family pictures though as we squeezed into the living room to take the pictures.

This is Dana and her very proud grandparents.

This is Dana and my brother’s family.

This is a picture of our son, Matthew, Dana’s boyfriend, Matthew’s girlfriend, and Dana.

This is Dana and her godmother – my aunt, her great aunt. What a treat to have here here for a visit.

Our kids, with the help of their Grandmothers, put together the best Anniversary celebration you could ever ask for. I believe someone said we had a count of 67 in attendance! The atmosphere was casual and friendly. Everyone brought a pot luck dish and we shared a wonderful meal together. We are blessed to have so many friends and family that wanted to share in our celebration! A highlight of the evening was a slide show prepared by my son, complete with music – including the music from our first dance on our wedding day.
This is a picture of my family – my son, myself, my husband, and my daughter.

This is a picture of the members of my husband’s family that were in attendance. Quite a crowd–and they all weren’t there!

This is a picture of me, my mother, my dad, and my brother. My brother and his family traveled down from the interior of the province in order to celebrate with us. My brother did an excellent job of the role of MC. He was very gentle in the stories he chose to share.

This is a picture of my aunt and my mother–they are sisters. My aunt traveled all the way from Saskatchewan to join us. She was in the original bridal party so it was great to see her here!

Today was a rainy day – a great day to stay inside and quilt.

I worked on a quilt inspired by Bonnie’s Bricks and Stepping Stones pattern. I am making my quilt larger than Bonnie’s–mine should finish about 86″ x 104″. I am half finished piecing the top – 5 rows complete – 5 more rows to go!

I am determined to make this quilt from scraps. Placement of fabrics is totally random, no planning or engineering in this one to make it a “controlled” scrap.

This weekend is the Westcoast Quilt Shop Hop. Five of us who quilt together regularly on Tuesday nights got together, rented a van, borrowed one of the husbands to act as driver, and headed out on our journey yesterday morning.

The hop lasts from Friday, June 2 to Sunday, June 3. Thanks to the organization of Dot, we managed to complete 12 of the possible 14 shops yesterday. It was a long day, but very fun! Each shop had their own block kit with a garden theme available for $5.00. This price included the pattern. At each shop, we picked up our $5.00 block, had our “passport” stamped and did a little bit of shopping.

This is the 5 of us, outside the first shop at 9:30 yesterday morning. We arrived at the first shop before they opened. We are eager quilt shop hoppers!

This was my favorite block. It is a paper pieced humming bird. The shop that had this kit was Wineberry’s (Dewberry’s to my friend, Colette).

These are the treasures that I picked up at some of the shops other than the $5.00 blocks. I bought some floral fat quarters for my floral Yellow Brick Road quilt, some 1/2 yard pieces for my chicken quilt, a floral panel that I will use to jump-start another floral quilt, a bag pattern, and a kit to make a poppy table runner.

I am now off to finish the last two shops on my list. They are local and so I won’t have to travel far.

I was at another quilt show Friday night. This time the show was in Abbotsford. The venue is huge and so there were a lot of vendors. In fact with all of the quilts that were there to look at and all of the wares displayed by the vendors, I actually ran out of time to really see things as thoroughly as I would have liked.

This show featured the Worldwide Postcard Quilt Exhibit. In 2004, the Alaska Fiber Festival sent out a challenge to quilters around the world to submit a postcard quilt, with the theme of “My Backyard”. they collected over 200 miniature quilts from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, the UK, and the US, and Canada. They were wonderful! These are some of my favorites:

This quilter obviously had a sense of humor.