My Vacation from Wednesday-Friday; Newton, Minneapolis, Sylvan Grove, Emporia, and Madison, Kansas

Wednesday I planned a trip to Newton. I invited the officers of KS My Stitch to join me; Susie and Donna were able to join me, but Kaye had prior commitments. We were all excited to hit the stores in Newton.

Our first stop was at Charlotte’s Sew Natural Quilt Shop. I always enjoy looking around and finding just the right thing for some of my creations. This time I was looking for fabric to go with two pieces of lace trim that I found at a thrift store a couple of years ago. There were two pieces exactly alike and they came off of pillow cases.

I found Amy Butler’s Soul Blossom fabric and I think her fabric will make some really cute pillow cases and especially with the crocheted trim added to it.

I also found this piece of fabric and thought I liked it with the crocheted yoke that Jackie had given me some time back.

Our next stop was the Ecetera shop. I loved that Donna had never been there before and I knew that Susie loved shopping there. I was still kind of scared that Donna would be bored, but then I turned around and seen that she had her arms full of lots of good things, that made me very happy.

Here’s what I found:

A cool purple sling bag,

a black crocheted bag with long strap,

a cute straw bag,

a fun crocheted granny square bag,

this funky garden hat that I’m sure will look so much better on someone else,

this red hat that has little purple hat society hats all over it, and (again will look totally better on someone else)

this fun black hat. I’m sure you all already know that all or some of these will end up with a little crochet embellishment or a lot of crochet embellishments depending on my mood.

I found some more wooden hangers, some of them have crochet covers on them already and some of them will have crochet covers after I get done with them,

and a set of 4 embroidered linen napkins.

Next stop was the Creation Station which has been turned into mostly a yarn shop. We all loved that Catherine (the owner) carries the full line of Aunt Lydia’s size 10 crochet thread. She also carries some of the Aunt Lydia’s No. 3 yarn as well. It was fun visiting with Catherine and learning all the fun things that she has planned for her shop. After leaving the yarn store we ended our day with lunch at Acapulco restaurant. When we arrived back home I packed to be ready to leave for the trip out of town with my Mom on Thursday. The plan was to leave after my Mom got her hair done at 8:00. As I was getting ready for bed I found that my CPAP machine (sleep apnea machine) had stopped working. If you have sleep apnea and have a CPAP machine you know exactly how I felt knowing that I would stop breathing many times that night. Anyway to make it short I didn’t sleep much. As soon as I could (8:00 am), I called the Sleep Center to see if they had a loaner CPAP machine that I could use. Thank God the Sleep Center understands that the CPAP machine is the most important machine to a sleep apnea sufferer and had one to loan me. So I packed up my car with my trip stuff and headed there to pick up a loaner machine. I was so afraid that we would get a late start but we left at about the same time that we would have if nothing happened.

We arrived in Minneapolis, Kansas in time to visit with my Dad’s brother (my Uncle Oris) before my Aunt Barbara arrived at the Good Samaritan care home where he lives. Then we all had lunch together at the care home and then we headed out to Sylvan Grove, Kansas 45 miles away.

We had a wonderful visit, looking at new and old photos, had dinner, and visited more. Oh by the way I did crochet while I was gone. I made a washcloth and a cover for my Aunt Barbara’s K-Tag device.

On Friday, Aunt Barbara made us breakfast and we visited and looked at more photos, before it was time to head off to lunch at the local Hometown Café in Sylvan Grove. We had a great homemade lunch. Our next destination was to visit my brother who lives in Madison, Kansas. But as we were leaving Sylvan Grove we received a phone call telling us that Terry’s oldest son Jacob and his wife had just delivered a baby girl. So our destination had suddenly rerouted to Emporia, Kansas and the hospital there.

We arrived in Emporia and stayed long enough to let the new Momma (Kim) pick out a crocheted edge blanket and pair of crocheted booties made by Grandma Ruth.

And I gave the new baby her very first pair of crocheted cowgirl boots.

Please meet Charlie Elizabeth Kingery weighing in at 7 lbs. 11.3 oz. and 20 inches long. She was a little early and her Momma suffered from high blood pressure and early signs of preeclampsia. So they were taking precautions and keeping the baby in NICU monitoring her blood sugar levels, as they were low. Emporia hospital is a very small hospital and Charlie was the only baby in NICU. I still can’t help but think that they named their new baby after my Daddy (Charles) and how he would’ve loved bragging about that. 🙂

When we left the hospital we arrived at my brother Terry’s where his whole family had gathered (minus the new Momma and baby).

Here’s Miss Lily the big sister to Charlie. I couldn’t help taking these snapshots of Miss Lily being so cute.

Here’s Terry and his family again.

Jacob and Keegan like to wrestle just like their dad and Uncle Dean used to do when they were young.

I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity to spend time with my Mom, my family, and friends last week while I was on vacation. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.