"The Reunion"

The sister's arrived on Monday afternoon from Houston, Texas and the first thing we did was something we all love to do.  Present one another with gifts that we either hand made or purchased that we just know the other will absolutely love!  I made travel case caddy's for all and placed them in "Quilt in a Day" zippered project bags.  Little sister, Shirley, made us all koosie's with our first initial embroidered on a wrap around cloth that she did on her embroidery machine.  She also made us "Sister" key chains from wide ribbon! Adorable!  Big sister, Kaye, presented us with the cutest little scissors and shirt magnets that we can wear on our clothes to put those cute little scissors on while quilting.  She also gave us a gift from her daughter, Joni, a bottle of wine with a "sock monkey" (yes, I said sock monkey) cover.  On sock with button eyes!  Very adorable! Beth gave us a variety of wonderful treasures to pick from.  I chose a book by Jennifer Chiaverini which I can't wait to read!  Then the grand finale of the evening was the presentation our our round robin quilts.  They were all so incredibly beautiful.
This first one is Kaye's, then mine, Shirley's and Beth's.  They are all so beautiful!

We never made it to Paducah or the AQS quilt show.  The weather was atrocious! We did however, decide to head in the opposite direction and go west to Santa Fe!  What a beautiful city!  I love the adobe houses and old Spanish style, so serene and enlightening.  We did a quilt shop hop along the way too.  First stop was in Oklahoma City at the Quilt Works Quilt shop.  The ladies there were so nice.  Then it was onward to Amarillo.  We got in to late to go hopping that evening but had to eat at the "Big Texan" restaurant.  Here's yours truly posing for a picture "as if I ate one of those humongous steaks", Not!!

We left Amarillo bright and early to head on to Santa Fe.  We stopped at the Santa Fe Quilts shop and decided that we had so much fun there and still had so much to see in Santa Fe that we stayed an additional night and shopped at the same place the next day.  Those ladies really loved us! The art in Santa Fe is just incredible. We saw so many beautiful sculptures and jewelry!  Here is an Indian Woman wearing a quilt.  This is all done in bronze!!

Friday morning we headed back to Tulsa (decided to go all the way) and did make our quilt shop stop in Amarillo.  We decided on 1 out of 3 shops to stop at and it was a good choice.  It use to be called R&R Quilts on Teckla Blvd. but now has changed hands.  I don't remember the new name but they were so nice.  We just loved those ladies, very helpful and friendly.  Of course everyone loved our "Paducah" story and were glad we decided to drive away from the tornado's and rain. God bless those poor people who lost their homes in Alabama and all the other locations.  I'm glad we decided not drive into that mess.  And God Bless my sister's!  I can't wait until next year's reunion.  It will be my turn to head south and meet up with them!