Great Wolf Lodge

With much anticipation, we embarked on our first family vacation with the Bartholomew/Moore clan. Our destination: The Great Wolf Lodge. Located in Concord North Carolina, The Great Wolf Lodge is an all inclusive vacation resort and water park targeting families with kids. Obviously popular, it was packed to the gills. The overall theme is log cabin with lots of wild animals such as wolves, moose, deer, owls and raccoons, both stuffed and animated, located throughout the resort. It really gave you a feel of being in a woods setting even though we were literally within rock throwing distance of I-85 and the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

On our way in the Moore family van

Here at last

 A young ham posing as we wait for our room to get ready. 

While the main attraction was a fabulous swimming area with lots of rides and slides for all ages, there was also bowling which the kids really loved. Notice the various stances and the "hip" action, it was hilarious. Not a lot of pins were harmed in this activity but the kids had fun.

The wind up

 the approach

body English

approaching the line

 granny bowling

 Curving that ball with body English; love the hip action

 Every evening in the lobby there was  an animatronic story about the woods and the animals who live in it. Loads of kids and their parents/grandparents showed up for the activities which included story telling, songs and meeting large, costumed characters for photos
and hand shakes.  Wyatt had no problem but Bayleigh was having none of it.

 Two guys enjoying the show

 Brave boy with his Meme meeting a bear

 Bayleigh keeping her distance in papa's arms

 The kids all came in their pajamas to watch the evening show.  It was definitely a crowd pleaser.

 The main event and all around hands down favorite was the pools. Both kids had a ball going down slides, swimming and spraying water at adults. We have to admit we had a good time too going on several rides that whipped us around in swurvy tubes that went in and out of the building before dumping us back in the pool. As Wyatt stated it "that was awesome!" It was definitely a blast and everyone slept well after all the exercise.

 a sky high view of the water park

 The next morning we headed back to the water for another round of good, clean, fun before loading up in the van for a trip home.  We arrived back home around 4:30 tired but happy we got the chance to enjoy time with the kids and their parents.

Fonta Flora Quilt

The ladies I quilt with here in Morganton have been commissioned to make a quilt for Fonta Flora Brewery.  This is a brewery here in downtown Morganton and one of the quilters knows some of the owners so that is how the contact was made. The owners wished to have a quilt representation of their logo so we presented them with an idea and they gave us the go-ahead. 

Some background history.......... Lake James is located in western Burke County and when it was made back in the 1920's there was a small community located in the area. Fonta Flora was the name of that community and it was flooded in the process of making the lake so it's remnants are still at the bottom of the lake.  So this is the namesake of the brewery and the inspiration of the logo details.
This quilt is roughly 8 feet by 6 feet in size. It is made of all batiks, a special type of dyed fabric. We love all the fabrics because they give the quilt such movement. We cut out a variety of colored houses and appliqued all of them; cut out all the lettering and appliqued them also. Bias tape was made to construct all the waves at the top. The borders are all pieced strips which tie into the waves on top.
One of the ladies in our group is a co-owner of a long arm quilting machine so her business did all the quilting.  When the machine quilting was finished we all got together and hand sewed the binding on.

This quilt is hung in the brewery on an old red brick wall.  We are very pleased with the results.
On February 9th all of the ladies who worked on the quilt went to the brewery to see it hanging. 

Sorry for the dark pictures....it is in a brewery after all.  Joan, the lady in orange in the picture above is the oldest person to work on the quilt, at 83, and she actually came in 2nd for the number of hours logged on this quilt.  She is like a machine and her house is covered in quilts.  She made the label which will hang next to the quilt.  Overall, we are all pleased with the process.  Some new friendships were forged in the process as not all of us knew each other at the beginning of this process.

Laundry Room Upgrade

Several months ago I saw a great idea for tongue and groove bead board on a laundry room wall. I showed it to Patrick and he loved the idea as much as I did.  Over Christmas we bought the boards but were unable to find the time to install them until recently.  This is the long wall before installation.  A variety of laundry hampers usually go along this wall. It is long and boring.

We set up the saw in the garage, just outside the laundry room door. It was a nice winter Sunday afternoon.

Very shortly we had a few boards up and level.  They went up really quickly with a little bit of paneling adhesive and small nails.

Within 3 hours we had all of them installed, including cutting around the electrical outlet.

We topped the edge with the same kind of trim around the door frames. We had to shellac the knots so the resin would not weep thru the paint. We put wood fill in the small nail holes and then painted the whole thing with the same white trim paint.

We are really happy with the final result.  Now I just need to hang some artwork or something creative above it.  It is amazing how much I like this room as I remember the laundry room at the old house............in the basement, with a dusty concrete floor and red flaky paint walls and poor lighting.  Spiders and cobwebs were the only decorations I previously had.  This is soooooo much better.

Wyatt turns 5 !!!

Wyatt had a wild and wonderful 5th birthday.  He started it off by spending the night before his party at our house.  When he woke up we sang him Happy Birthday.  He then got to choose his breakfast- eggs and toast of course.

 He likes making it into a "sandwich".  He got to drink hot chocolate and was excited as usual.  He cleaned up for his party by shaving...just like papa. 

 

The party was at our house as there were too many attendees to have it at his house.  He was very excited that his cousin Andrew was able to attend.  They had a terrific time riding the cars before everyone got there.  He got some wonderful gifts and then went outside to play with them all.  His favorite of the day........kites.

 

The wind was perfect for kite flying.  He got three of them and they were all in the air at the same time.  They were so easy to fly and everyone had a terrific time running around the front field. 

Toddler bibs

A great niece had her first birthday.  She received some very special bibs.

They were so fun to make