Quilt Progress & Father's Day Fishing

 I'm so far behind in my blogging.  But I've been enjoying a week of vacation, so I'll just have to catch up as I can.  Here goes.  Last week, I took all the blocks for my daughter's kaleidoscope quilt to the hotel where she works and played with the placement of all the colors.  I didn't take the time before sewing the blocks to figure where everything would go - kind of just wingin it, you know?

 She didn't want any of the corners that met to be similar - not the same color or pattern, and it was quite a fun puzzle to figure out how to avoid any repeats.  Then we had to choose a center circle for each block too. 

 Once we had it all as we wanted it, I put the circles in the top left corner, and pinned them in place, along with a piece of paper labeling where they would go in the quilt A1, A2, etc.  I intended to get it all sewn in place, and have the top finished and turned in to the quilter before leaving on my mini vacation, but it didn't get done.

 We've been having beautiful sunsets lately.  This was all from Saturday night.

 I had to laugh when I saw the baby sleeping all doubled over.  His three year old brother does the same thing.  Since the baby figured out how to sit up, he doesn't always fall asleep just laying down :)

The three year old put this little piece of plastic on the baby's head the other day.  It stayed there for at least 20 minutes :)

Saturday the boat club hosted it's kids' fishing derby.  They always have a picnic to go with it - pizza, hot dogs, watermelon, chips and pop.

It's always a fun time.

 The baby was enjoying being out on the blanket too.  He was eating strawberry oatmeal.

He had a good time with a watermelon rind too.

 They did a lot of fishing, but not a lot of catching.  And there were tons of kids there too.

The fish were taunting us.  We could see them from shore - nice big ones.  With the kids' derby, they stock the kids' pond at the park and some of the fish have clipped fins - those are the money fish.  They pay well too - with fish worth $50, $100 and $150 - and more than one of each.  They also have door prizes, freebies for signing in, and grab bag prizes for catching any fish.

 There's plenty of shade for picnicking.

 See all the kids?  It was like that all the way around the pond.

 Our three year old is cute ... and he knows it.  He was flirting with the lady in charge of the grab bags and she gave him one.

 Sunday the boat club hosts the Fathers' Day Fish Derby on a large lake near town.  The big fish in that one gets $1000.  So of course we had to try :)  It's a family tradition.  He has been fishing with his dad on Father's Day forever.  We got his Dad out to fish for several hours that morning, and he rode in the boat about half the day.  His father has Alzheimer's, so sometimes he prefers not to go, but Sunday was a good day.

The eight year old got in on the action too.

My husband caught four fish, but every time he would get them right to the boat and they would come off the hook right as we were reaching for it with the net.  Not a great gift for Father's Day.

 I, on the other hand, landed all three of mine. 

This one was the biggest - 23 inches long.  They had to be 24 inches to enter in the derby.

 My daughter brought the little boys up around noon for a little boat ride.

 The baby liked it, but hated the life jacket.  It was a little too big for him, so it crowded his cheeks :)

 The three year old loved it once he got used to it.  This was when he first got in, and he was still a little nervous.

 We dropped off my daughter and the eight year old and baby, intending to drop off all the kids, but the three year old wanted right back in.  He stayed with us, eating a whole large bag of chips and drinking Caprisun all afternoon.

Can you see the three fish?  It wasn't a great picture, but we were trying to get out of the way at the dock.

We had a picnic at the camp ground after the derby with my husband's parents.  It was a great day :)

 And a messy one...

 The next day (Monday) the boys and I headed to my Mom's in Colorado, where we still are.

 The eight year old was taking pictures, so here's the drive from his perspective.

 Know what these are?  Snow fences.  In the winter the wind blows the snow in drifts behind the fence, which keeps the snow (at least a little) off the highway. 

But who's thinking of snow? When we got to her house in Colorado, the temperature was 100!!!  Ugh.  By the way if you've heard of the big fire near Fort Collins, it is right near my sister and brother in law's house.  They have been evacuated, then allowed to go back, but left again because the smoke was so bad.