Still January and Cold

It's the end of January. It's been cold, really cold and then warm.... and now cold.
We've been working on bells, home projects (more about this in the next post) and enjoying the birds who hang out right outside the front door of Little House.

First, the Cardinals and Sparrows show up...

                                   ... then come the Dove

                                              .... and finally, the Woodpecker.
                          There is another one of these that comes around too. It is all only red;
                                                     no orange  like this one.

We have a Crow that sometime visits down in the pasture. We can see it fly down there, light in the trees and spend some time "crowing" and then flies off.  I guess it is just passing through.  

2015

The Holiday season has come and gone. Thanks to previous and NEW customers, we had a good selling season. Shipping went well - only a couple of glitches with bells having a hard time getting to where there were meant to be.


As for our actual holiday celebration? Well ....see below for what we did.

                                         All five little "angels" ready for Santa to show up.

It was pretty cold Christmas morning, but they had to try out the new swing/clubhouse/etc anyway.

And then your bellmaker opened his present from Carla and Jenny.

It was hard to take a picture of this DRONE in action, but there it is on the ground. He has learned to fly it pretty well now. Not sure what it will be used for, but it was a good surprise gift. 

So, now it's January. Very cold. Next thing on the agenda SHOULD be TAXES!!

Hope you all have a great 2015

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.

.

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.