THE HOLIDAY SEASON

So maybe it is genetic or maybe it is because we drug our two daughters around to all those art shows during their young years, but here they are a couple of decades later with their own Etsy business. AND, they have done this while never living close to each other. In fact for a while, they lived in different countries. Anyway, they share the work and the success of The Blue Agave Studio.

They use beautiful and trendy fabrics to sew an assortment of items. They specialize in reusable gift bags, Christmas advent calendars, pillow covers, zippered bags and little girls' dresses.

Here are a few samples:

If you want to go to their Etsy shop, just click on this link;

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueAgaveStudio.

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SUMMER FUN

So for the fun things we did this summer and fall...

Both daughters' families were here this summer. And these were the five little creatures that kept us all busy and happy:

Then in July, our oldest daughter and husband both found out they had job offers here in our area. So, they made a hasty move here and it only seemed practical that they take up residence in our big house and we moved into the smaller house on our property. This used to be Philip's parent's home, which we recently had updated. We moved from about 3000 square feet to 1200 square feet. Talk about down sizing!!
But we love it. We have let go of lots of "stuff" which has been a good thing.
We went from the house in which we raised our girls;

  to the "The Little House" as we call it.

We still have work to do - finish painting, put in some grass, hang curtains, etc, but we ARE IN.
The bell shop is still the same, still the first thing you come to when turning into the property. We just have to walk a little further to get to it and we have to watch out for a grandson on his bike!!

Catching Up

So, I decided I was going to quit posting. I thought there really wasn't anyone reading this blog. Therefore, I didn't post anything about the Rockport art show in July, the Midland art show in September or the Huffhines show in October. Nor had I written about things that we  had been doing for work and for pleasure.

But recently, I have had two actual people tell me that they DO read the blog. ARGH!!! Now I feel guilty. So, here I am tonight - playing catch up.



Hot as usual, but the crowd was good.

Poor Philip had gone to Septemberfest alone for years, but this time I was able to go with him. The weather was great, the museum folks took great care of us and the crowds were great. 

And Huffhines Art Trails was wonderful, especially the weather. For anyone who has ever done this show, you know that the weather is usually cold or rainy, but not this year. It was quite pleasant!!

Now that is all of the shows we have for this year. We are ready for the Christmas season to start up soon. Hard to believe it is almost Thanksgiving.

SUMMER IS HERE !!!

Well, we finished up the spring shows. Fayetteville was great. The people who live there as well as the customers were wonderful as usual. AND, the weather was very nice this year.

We have been busy with home stuff - actually having to mow grass because of the rain. However, we had an unwelcomed visitor to the area right behind our house. Thank goodness Carla and family were visiting and they brought their dog Ava. This is what she found in the area of grass right behind our house.

He/she is so lumpy looking because there was another whole (poor thing) snake that had apparently just been eaten for breakfast.  Yuck.

Here is the SuperHero of the day taking a snooze after her diligent work.

I have signed up once again to walk in the AIM at Melanoma fundraiser in Houston in September.
http://www.aimatmelanoma.org/en/aim-for-action/1158/1159/houston-2014/7687.html

 

Here we were last year. The walk is held at night to combat the Houston heat and humidity in September. It is held in the MD Anderson area so is it well lit and they block off the streets of course.

 

Carla and family are visiting now. Jenny and her family have moved back from Morocco to VA (for a year). They will be down here in TX visiting soon. So, we will have grandkids everywhere!!  In a couple of weeks, we will head down to Rockport for the July 4th show. It is always a fun show. It is a hot one though. Bring your bathing suits and come on down.

http://www.rockportartcenter.com/art-festival/

 

See you there!!

 

King William Art Show Was Fun!!

We had good show, as usual, at King William last weekend.

 

These two ladies were our very first customers that morning.

 

 

Our good friends, Jon and Dave Piper were at the show. In fact, their booth was on the parade route, so that's where I went to get the best view of the quirkiest parade in all of Fiesta.

 

 

This sign at the beginning of the parade tries to keep the King William association out of any trouble for anything that happens in the parade.

 

                                                    There were people marching for good causes.

                                                                    Plastic bag man.

 

Bands...

 

Zombies on a firetruck,

 

Ladies from Southtown.

 

 

The show was great. The threatened rain did not appear.

So, now we are on our way next weekend to Fayetteville.

 

 

Woodlands Waterway is Done

Well, we are finished with this show and are now home. As usual, the Friday night party was great. The food and company were good. Here is Philip chowing done with Dave Piper and Sally Maxwell.

 

Now, the main event of the evening is the ART DASH where patrons of the arts have paid for a chance to run and grab the piece of donated art work they lust after.

 

Philip had made a new display for the three bells to be donated.

 

The money made at ART DASH goes to art education and scholarships.

 

 

So... the person who grabbed up the three bells this year was Dana Tyson. She is a host on "I Heart Radio of Houston". She had helped host the event and apparently is a big art supporter. Very nice person.

 

The show started at 10:00 am on Saturday. The temps were good, a little windy though. We had a good crowd and met lots of interesting people, as usual.

 

 

Sunday's weather was "iffy" most of the day and seemed to reduce the crowd considerably. But, all was good. This was the ninth year for this show, so I would expect next year, being the 10TH, to be a pretty big deal. So, if you missed the show, save up and come next year.

 

We are home now, watched the moon eclipse last night and turn orange. Had to cover my plants - thought it might freeze. We now will turn our attention to getting ready for

The King William Art Show on April 26th.

 

Bells Along the Way

As promised, I am sharing just a few of the pictures we took of bells in Morocco, Gibraltar and Spain. At the end is a picture also of a stylized cross seen in Park Guell, which might be and idea for a new sail ... see we did think about Windsongs on several occasions!! I can't post where each of these bells was from without digging through my travel journal (which may not have been detailed enough for this) and our memory banks (which don't work all that well). So just scroll through quickly and enjoy.

 

The End of theTrip

We left Valencia on Sunday morning and traveled by train to Barcelona. Philip had booked a room in a "romantic, boutique" hostel. Here is a link:http://www.anticespai.com/en/home. Very cute and packed full of antiques. Truly, this hostel is one floor of a four or five floor building. But it was charming and the hosts were wonderful to us..

 Best of all, it was located in a prime location. We could walk to lots of Tapas restaurants. Here's just one.

 

 We walked several times to the "old city". There were shops of every kind and lots of art work, art museums,

                                                street musicians,

archeological digs going on right in the middle of the old town,

We walked on through this part of town and reached the port. This was a very busy place on a Sunday afternoon. Tourists, families, young people.

lots of boats,                                                                      

                                                           and  lots of art work.

Look carefully at the middle section of this bridge. It had just moved open to let a boat pass through.

This was an open market set up in one of the squares. There were so many cool things here. Most of which we had no appreciation for because we couldn't understand where many of these items were from, but lots of old pieces of jewelry, iron works, art, books, magazines, etc.

We had seen these street performers in Valencia as well. They are "movable statues"? This one was a Jurrasic Park type who would grab you, put your head in his jaws or strangle you while someone snapped your photo.

We also were able to check out several street arts and craft shows. Philip talked to several artists and got lots of good information on how they participate in their shows as compared to how we do over here.

                                       We even found the Spanish version of "Piper Sandals".

We found three shows in all but no other bell makers!!!

 

  

This area was back in the central part of town away from the port. It used to be the major bull fighting arena. Barcelona has done away with bull fighting, so now... this is a posh mall inside.

 

                                      This is a view of one of the main squares from the top of the arena.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


This is the square located at the end of the block by our hotel. Two views:

Now, you can't stay in Barcelona for any time at all without
getting an education about the famous architect, Gaudi.
This was just one of the houses he designed. We didn't
pay the rather pricey fee to go inside so just
stood outside with many other tourists and took pictures.
 

The next morning we took off for an all day adventure by foot and by bus. This is us in front of the track and field stadium at the site of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. A view of the city from the hill at the site of Montjuic Castle.

 

This is the view from the other side of that same hill - looking over the port.

... and we ate lunch at the top of the castle.

                                                                  The Castle.

Later in the day, we hit more Gaudi creations. This is the Sagrada Familia. This cathedral is still being completed by students and architects who follow Gaudi's teachings. These pictures do not at all give a true representation of the magnitude of this work.

There were many cranes around this cathedral where men are working to complete this by the middle of this century?

These two pictures show how all work is done first by creation of intricate models.

This is one room of the two room school house built on the grounds for the children of the workers who first worked on the project. It now serves as a starting place for educational tours.

 

On the last day of this wonderful trip, we went to Park Guell. If you are a mosaic lover, then you have seen pictures of this place in EVERY mosaic book you have ever picked up. This was originally supposed to be an upper class housing area in Barcelona. Gaudi was commissioned to create the plans for the owner/developer's home. He did so. A second house was built, but sadly no other people ever purchased land or built homes. Gaudi lived in one of these homes for a period of time. The rest of the area eventually became this lovely park.

 

This is the famous bench at the top of the park. Everyone has probably seen this wavy bench at one time are the other and never realized where it is located.

 .

Well, we have now sat ON it, along with a million other tourists

 

And THIS is the lizard that has also graced many a mosaic books and websites.

 

..... and we had our picture taken with him.

 

One last tribute to Gaudi...

 

We had a great time on this entire trip. Seeing our family that we only now see twice a year was, of course, the best part

 

 

 

We walked so much on this trip, we should be skinny. But then we did also eat Tapas late at night and drank wine with most meals. We learned to ride buses and trains. We learned about the history of Gibraltar and Spain and added to our knowledge of Morocco. And we did it all with one small rolling suitcase and a backpack for each of us. We bought very few souvenirs, but took thousands of pictures.

 

Finally, lest you think we totally forgot about Windsongs, I will post one more time with the pictures of bells that we took along the way. And then... I promise.... I'm through.