I'm still here!

Since my last post it's been a busy 3 and a half weeks. We first went up to my parent's cottage to spend a week working on a variety of DIY projects. We painted the living area and the upper cupboards in the kitchen. It took the better part of the week to accomplish (we had to prep, sand, prime and paint everything), but I'm glad we did it. My parent's summer home now looks much more attractive and up-to-date. Since we left my parents have had a new kitchen installed (lower cabinets) and a new floor put down. We return to the cottage later this week and I'm looking forward to seeing all the changes.

It wasn't all work and no play though - we did spend time on the nearby beach and paddling around in the kayak. The boys had some fun with sparklers and I played with the camera and got these neat shots of the kids:


After the cottage we had a quick 3-day stop at home to do laundry and prepare and pack up for a camping trip. In the middle of that we had DH's annual family golf tournament - it's comprised of DH's father and his 5 brothers and all of their respective families. Not everyone manages to attend each year, but we do get most of the crew out - I think we had at least 35 or 40 people here this year. DS#1 decided to play regular golf this year (most kids just play a round of mini-golf) and won the award for Most Honest Golfer:


There is a trophy for the mini-golf winners too, but neither DS#2 nor I qualified this year. We had fun playing mini-golf anyway.

We left for camping two days after the golf tournament and had a relaxing time of it. We mostly stayed at the campground and had fun playing ping pong, tennis, basketball, horseshoes, shuffleboard and bingo. We sunned ourselves liberally on the beach and just generally enjoyed hanging out together. On the way home from camping we stopped at a museum that was having an Egyptian themed Lego exhibit. There were all kinds of different Egyptian images made out of Lego - they were stunning:


I believe the Sphinx took almost 24,000 Lego bricks to build. There was an enormous re-created of King Tut's burial mask, another large copy of his sarcophagus and lots of scenes depicting Egyptian life and belief systems. The boys got a free Egyptian education along with looking at the cool Lego.

In between all the fun, I have done a little stitching. Here's an update on Poppy - I'm just working on her wings, then it'll be time for beads and backstitch:


I wish I had more hours in the day to spend with Poppy. She's just so darned pretty!

I've been working on an ornament too, but had to stop for a while - stitching over one in a moving vehicle isn't the brightest idea I've ever had..... But now that we're home for a few days maybe I can polish it off.....


No, your eyes aren't deceiving you - I've just got the ornie mounted in the Q-snap funny. It really is straight. Really. I mean it. :-)

Well, I think I'd better go battle the laundry demon and try to find the kitchen again - I think it got buried under camping stuff when we got home yesterday!