Painting and a visit

As you may have realised, I do like orchids and on Friday when I went to visit my friend Alison, her orchids were also in bloom so I had to take a couple of photos.

Alison's daughter, Leah's school was having an inset (teacher training) day so she was at home when I went round for coffee. I've known Ali since before Leah was born so Leah is very used to me arriving with my camera and taking photos while I'm there. She decided she wanted to do some painting on Friday morning so I took the opportunity to take a few photos ;o)

Waiting for Ali to get the paints out, Leah was sitting on the kitchen floor with the light from the window catching her. This is one of my favourites from the day.

This cat pot was what was going to be painted.

Love the concentration.

Here she was watching a fly on the window

On Saturday, Jon's brother Simon came to spend the night with us. He had been over in the UK from Chicago since last Sunday but working up in London. We always enjoy his visits and at the moment I'm trying to persuade him to bring Liz with him on one of these trips. We went out for dinner on Saturday night but because it was Valentines day we couldn't get in to any of the local restaurants so went to The Broadway instead. Jayson (the pub owner) cooked some beautiful steaks for us and it was a really delicious meal.

This morning, after breakfast, Simon and I popped round to see Mum and Dad before Simon headed back up to London and his flight home tomorrow morning. Mum and Dad also enjoy getting to see Si when he's in the area and today I took a photo before we left.

Simon, Mum and Dad

Emily is on half term this week so we don't have to be getting up at 6am. Looking forward to an extra hour in bed in the mornings :) Hope you have all had a good weekend

Until next time.

xx

So, what's happening ...?

Not a lot is the easy answer to the above question. I'm not good at going out and doing things when it's so cold (for me!) outside. My fingers go purple and I lose the feeling in the tips so I tend to stay indoors. We did, however, go round to celebrate my neice Faith's 16th birthday on Sunday. Her birthday was on Saturday but the birthday tea was on Sunday.

Sweet 16 Opening cards

Blowing out the candles

Emily and Claire

Emily, Faith and Claire

Have to have a couple of Tyler as well :)

Too cute!!

Other than that, I've been in the mood for sewing lately but wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I have a small stash of fat quarters and a few larger pieces of material which I decided to go through today. This is what I ended up doing this afternoon ...

I cut out over 100 4.5" squares and then sat playing with them to decide how they would line up. I think I'm fairly happy with this final layout and have now made little piles of each row and numbered them so I know where they go. Now I've just got to sew them all together =) (once I've found all my sewing supplies - some of which are still in boxes from when we moved). I'm looking forward to doing this and seeing it finished.

What are you up to this week???

xx

Photo a Day Layouts / 22 years

Emily and I took Claire in to work for 9am this morning, did the little bit of shopping we had to do and then headed home. It's been on my mind that I hadn't done the Photo a Day layouts for a couple of weeks and, because it's still so cold outside, I thought it would be a good day to get them done. Fortunately I had the black cardstock for the background and I didn't have to go out to get any. So my morning, and afternoon up till now, has been spent sorting through and printing my photos and typing out the journaling. Journaling is not something that I find easy so these layouts literally tell what we did each day. End of!

Week of 22 - 28 January 2009

Week of 29 January - 04 February 2009

though I made a typo on this and didn't have any more patterned paper so I've left it saying

05 February 2009 :o(

I'm glad to have them up to date again.

Today is Jon and my 22nd wedding anniversary. I don't have any scanned photos of our wedding day to share but perhaps I'll look into doing that one day. We got married in Highbury Chapel, Hillcrest, South Africa followed by a reception at Kloof Country Club. It wasn't a big wedding, I think we had about 55 guests, but it felt just right. I can still remember it quite clearly and yet 22 years seems a long time! We've certainly had a lot happen in those 22 years including moving across the world a few times. I wonder what the future holds in store! We're going out for dinner tonight to celebrate. I'd also like to thank everyone who has left messages wishing us happy anniversary on Facebook, it was nice of you to remember.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

xx

He Did It!!!!

Hugh sat his driver's test yesterday and passed!! We're so proud of him - he's been driving to work with me in the car for the past couple of months and I've seen how much his driving has improved. So so pleased that he passed. He couldn't believe it when the instructor told him and said "Really!!!!". We knew it probably wouldn't sink in until he actually went out driving on his own. Today, he got to do just that! He bought himself a little second hand car (which we'd been told about by a friend) and got to drive it home on his own! He loves it!! Unfortunately for him, it started snowing again this afternoon so that slowed him down a bit and he's home tonight waiting for Sarah to arrive. Here are a couple of photos of him when he arrived home this afternoon after following Jon back from Caterham where they picked up the the car. Well done Hugh! Now I've got to get used to him driving himself wherever he wants to go - I could end up a nervous wreck in the coming week - until I get used to it and then perhaps he could become taxi for a while ;o)

And, because I haven't been doing an awful lot this week, a few more pictures of Tom. I've been going through the notes from an online photography course last year and trying to practice more with shooting in manual.

This was Tom stalking back towards the house after deciding he wasn't that keen on the remaining snow.

As he got near the steps Cloud thought it would be fun to flick some snow on him (see his whiskers and back) before I told her to leave him alone. He wasn't over impressed.

He decided he prefers looking at the snow from the bay window in the lounge (out of Cloud's reach!)

Not sure he was so enchanted at having a camera in his face!

So he turned his back on me - enough perhaps?

As for what we'll be up to this weekend, if the weather doesn't improve it'll probably be staying home and keeping warm. A good book and a cup of tea? Sounds good to me!

Have a great weekend.

xx