Turtle Trax Too

I get back to the Stash quilts. I wanted to share the 3rd Pink Posse party.I am SO behind on posts! Not good not good. September was the month for our 3rd party. we take turn hosting it and it was mine and Lissa's turn. The last one was all about Redneck dinner. So we had to outdo that! We decided it was time to turn back the clock. What a fun time we all had in the eighties. Or for some of us (meaning me) what fun I wanted to have in the eighties but didnt get to have.Lol We had fun. It was ALL about the Retro.(can you believe we are talking about the 80s as retro!) I love how my girls take the theme and go overboard like I do :) Dawn was rocking this rocker babe look. The guys hid. Chickens. :)..The pizza guy thought it was hilarious! And of course the FUNNEST part of the evening was embarrassing our children by going in public. Hahahahaha... I can tell you my kids are probably counting down the days until they can lock me away!

I never forgot about my goal of 16 quilts by Sept....A little flooding, a few evacuations, cooking for relief workers. It put me back a little but I didnt forget! I have completed and given away two of them! The first one I do not have a finished picture of. It was the John Wayne log cabin. I loved this quilt. The second one I completed last week and it went out to a dear friend who is still housing an evacuated couple.I made her the tea cups. She loved it :) I have the next one pulled out and ready to go on Gracie. After I get the MAMOTH customer quilt off the frame. I am happy to be stash quilting again. Very very happy.

You know there is a story behind this :).....Keep in mind I still have some city girl tendencies. When we moved here I got the bright idea that North Dakota meant farm.For me! Yay me right?...First thing on my list chickens.Check! Next on the list hmmmmmm I know a cow! Hubby was going to be hard to get on board with this though. Most of the time he just shakes his head and laughs. A cow is a little more serious though. I ALMOST and I mean almost had him convinced until a friend busted my bubble. Evidently (you may have already known this) you cannot train a cow to be milked at noon. See I have my chickens trained. They know I bring their food after noon. They sweetly greet me clucking and provide me with delicious eggs (BTW wish ya'll lived closer to give you eggs)...From what my friend tells me though you cannot do this with a cow.The actually expect to be milked at like 4 a.m.! They cannot be trained to a later time. No amount of wishing can change that....Dangit.. So no cow for ...

I was so happy to see that all my dreams and visions of what it would look like came true! My girls showed up to help the night before and by the time I had the tables decorated they were done! They knew exactly what I wanted and had even better ideas for things then I imagined :)... We drank out of mason jars with red neck glass markers....twine and western tags we put our mark on our personal glass. Straw bales everywhere with a table for party favors and the cake....Party favors were gold chocolate coins wrapped in burlap and c.d. with music from the old westerns. One of my girls painted a beautiful desert backdrop.We borrowed wagon wheels and antique farm tools,equipment,and a real cow skull. John Wayne came from a great novelty store that sells cardboard stand ups. I used a few of my quilts to hide the walls of the shop. Half the tables had chips and salsa and the others had peanuts with galvanized buckets...I cheated on those :)...Bought buckets at the goodwill and other thrift s...

To celebrate the ending of a horrible summer and the rebuilding of 7 houses we needed a big big BIG party. I dont know how well ya'll know me but I love throwing a big party.So I and my posse took control and threw a HUGE party. :) ...We decided on a Barn Dance. It just seemed to fit the bill. But that started a large ball rolling. Where to have it and how to pull it off. I thought we had the location covered but it fell through.Thats when WH came through for me. He had a brand new shop he was very happy to let us use. One thing I love about my WH is that he knows I love to go overboard!...Such a good man. He gave me full control of his shop :). He did this knowing me too! So the preparations were underway! The timing on this actually started a few months ago. We started haunting garage sales (in Bismarck) , thrift stores and even Hobby Lobby :)...Oh how I do love Hobby Lobby. Decorations took control of my house, my garage, my car.....It seemed we were never going to be normal aga...

Do any of my MYSTERY ladies have the patterns anymore? One of our ladies would like to finish the quilt and I am having trouble locating it. She would like to finish it at a retreat coming up. THANK YOU!!! P.S...I havent given up looking! I dont know why I cant find it....ugh

We have reached a few! All of our friends that were displaced from the flood are back in their houses or are close. It was long rough, hard road! GOAL REACHED! Barn dance was a HUGE success and we celebrated the end of a disaster and the beginning of a new future. GOAL REACHED! Oak park was finally cleaned yesterday and they actually announced that soon it will be reopening to the public! Still work to do this summer with the money from Coca Cola but GOAL REACHED! Now to my personal goals. THIS week I will be sending out the prize packages. I am sooooooooooo late in sending them. But I wanted them to be special and not just thrown together. So it has been taking time. KAY I promise, yours in amazing :) THANK YOU all for sticking around this summer. My blog posts have not been happy or even frequent. That is another goal I am going to set. Happy more frequent posts.

I havent forgotten you! If you havent emailed me your address yet please do! I am working on them :)

Honestly this was one of the hardest drawing I have ever done. Not just because I had thousands of entries...And I do mean thousands.Thank HEAVENS for printers! I really should of taken pictures but my camera is packed for a camping trip this weekend and I just didnt have the energy to figure out which bag I put it in.....It was also hard because ya'll ALL deserve to get a prize. I am emotional this morning so please excuse that. You cant in a million years know how much this meant to me to help me out. As I said in a previous post our kiddos lost so much this year. Now they have started back to school and they are doing this from shelters. When the announcement came out that they won for their park it gave them joy. That is worth all my hours of staring at codes and double checking my cap lock.hahahah So before hubby has a fit that I am not getting the camper ready here are the winners. Yes I did pick 4...Like I said it was emotional...So 1 Grand Prize Winner and 3 Smaller prizes....

WE WON!!!!! Thank you so much ALL of you for helping us out.I cannot even begin to tell you what it means to us.It will take me tomorrow to gather ALL the entries since there were SOOOOOOO many :)...But I will announce a winner tomorrow before I leave for camping..... AGAIN I THINK YOU!!!!

MINOT, ND can really use your help! We are begging for help actually. I am not above doing that when its for the kids... Our beautiful OAK PARK has been devastated by the flood. I know we have bigger problems but this is one we can do something about! I've listed the statistics before so you know how widespread the flood was. I wont bore you with those details again. I will just tell you this. Oak Park was where we took our kids to play.Where we walked to enjoy the nature. Where families got together for a great picnic. More then that it was a Magic Smiles Park which means that its was physically accessible to ALL children. The only one we had. It is going to take so much money to rebuild this park....This is where you come in! No we arent asking for money we are asking for votes! Coca Cola is giving away $100,000. to the park that wins. Please help. There is no limit to how many times you can vote. You do not have to register either. I would really appreciate any help at all. Th...

Just a quick check in. The water has NOT hit the high levels yet and this is what we are dealing with. My heart breaks for this town I love so much. But so far everyone is safe. That is ALL that matters. Stuff is just stuff and CAN be replaced. Life can NOT! We are still high and dry. With "new " family living with us. And that is a good thing!

The city of Minot, Burlington, Sawyer, and Logan are under a mandatory evacuation. The dams in Canada have had to release double to almost triple the amounts of water they have been releasing. There will be flooding. Maybe up to 7 feet higher then has been recorded in history. We are high and dry but have a couple coming to live with us tomorrow. We do not know for how long and frankly I dont care. I am just heartsick for the many who are scrambling to get out right now. It is a mad house and frankly scares me. I will try and keep you updated as the flooding is expected to start Thurs/Fri peak by Monday and continue at that level for two weeks.

THIS is what you are supposed to do with water!!! ( I posted this because I needed the smile! My little man in Washington) THIS is NOT what water is supposed to be doing! We haven't really gotten a lot of rain lately. In fact our weather has been pretty good. This is all releases from the lakes and dams in Canada still. Amazing isn't it. You should NOT see a lake here! Spent all day yesterday helping my friends haul wet sheet rock, insulation, and flooring out of their house. Load after load after load. I discovered a few things. I am not 20 anymore ( I am so very very sore today), The smell of raw sewage is NOT something I want to smell ever again, I have a deep intense obsession with power tools, and last but not least you REALLY need to look before you leap... Evidently nails sticking up out of sub flooring will puncture cute rubber galoshes. Sheesh. Foot went straight into bleach water, quickly looked up date of last tetanus shot, then smacked myself for not being more awar...