On my solo trip home

After I dropped my daughter off at school, I headed back to spend a little more time with my parents and sister and then came back to visit my daughter one more time before heading home. 

On my way:

Manti Temple a few miles south of Ephraim

In the mountains at Salt Wash

The Vietnam Vet Memorial

Also at the Vietnam Vet memorial

AT MISSOURI STAR after one l-o-n-g day of driving and 1 shorter:

Decorations made of fabric strips.  New use for jelly rolls!

Hamilton abounded in murals

Some of MSQC's eleven shops and I visited ALL of them and very thankful I was for summer hours.  I didn't get there until after noon and stayed until they shooed me out at 7!

Back to the Kansas City temple near my hotel.  This is a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  My kids were able to participate in the cultural celebration right before the dedication services two days before we moved.

Travelogue and family

It was nice to spend some time in Utah with my family.  My daughter spent a few days visiting before I took her to see my husband's family (translation: I shopped for last items and she spent time with her cousins).  Then it was off to Snow.

My sister and I

My parents and I

The original core of my family, just the four of us

Repeat

My sister and parents.  I'm not too good with these selfie-style photos!

My mother and I

My father and I

The three of us

My parents

My mom relaxing and reading the newspaper on the porch, her favorite activity.

My dad

On the porch

I realized we had taken off with NO family pictures.  We had rushed to get pictures taken the day before we left home so Jim sent photos to the local Walmart near my parents' home for developing.  Walmart's machine wasn't working right so he resent them to Walgreens.  Much better!

We finally made it to dinner and raspberry shakes at Bear Lake, Utah!  Almost to Logan!!!  Two long days of travel!

Shaundra inside the covered wagon.

We detoured in Wyoming to visit the Mormon pioneer memorial at Martin's Cove where some of the handcart pioneers holed up briefly after being caught by early winter storms on their way to Utah.  Some of our ancestors were in this bunch of people.  (That's an actual organ.)

Somewhere in the midwest we saw this tiny house traveling down the road.

Go west, young lady, Go west!

The long-awaited day came to take my daughter to college.  Snow College is a small (5,100 students), two-year college in central Utah in a town called Ephraim.  Ephraim has 6,135 residents and includes 3.6 square miles.  A super Walmart is on the outskirts of town and Snow College is approximately in the center of town, about 7 blocks south.  Another grocery store, Market Fresh, is close to the other end of town approximately 7 blocks further south from Snow College.  Ephraim boasts Anderson Drug and Floral, a Hawaiian restaurant, and a library and a few hotels.  There are other businesses and eateries as well but those were destinations we visited while I was there.

The Ephraim Cooperative Mercantile Association from the pioneer era.  Today it's a craft shop.

The Hawaiian restaurant, Kalama's Hawaiian Style, where I ate an excellent meal.

We also found the driver license bureau that operates in Ephraim, the Sanpete County seat, two days a week.  After some challenges getting two items showing that my daughter lives where she claimed, she was later able to pass the written test, produce required citizenship forms, and display TWO items proving her place of abode.  That was particularly difficult because Snow College requires students to get post office boxes and never reveal their physical address.  In fact, she received a document with a firm injunction that she NEVER receive mail addressed directly to her domicile.  They would, in fact, destroy anything that tried to be delivered that way.  They are very protective of their students living in on-campus housing.  We found a way to game the system, and those letters were delivered and the state driver license office accepted the posted envelopes.  (I sent her a card with both the post office box number and physical address listed.)  The first item, a letter provided by the college, was easy.

First week of classes.  This is a very pretty campus with helpful administrators.

The bell tower.  My daughter says the internet signal is strongest directly underneath.  (Verizon's signal stinks in this town.)  

The gateway to Snow College

The front desk of the dorm

At her desk in her room

The kitchen.  The only thing you can't see is the microwave and the front door and table across from the sink area.  There is no stove or oven.

Our creative solution to covering her closet, a shower curtain and rod.

My daughter and I in back of her dorm.

Registering for a class at the Institute of Religion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  The building is conveniently located kitty corner from her dorm.  She's chatting with her dad, who just started a new job, on the phone.

The reading/studying lounge in the Institute.

Half of the multi-purpose room in the Institute

Looking down the street after unloading the car into her dorm room.

Rabbit Hash and long arm quilters

This summer, my son James and I went to see Rabbit Hash.  It was my first time there.  We saw the former mayor, Lucy Lou, a border collie who served as mayor from 2008 to 2016, when she went out for a walk.  She was 12.  She stepped down in 2016 to help her hometown raise funds to rebuild the Rabbit Hash Genral Store.  (The election raises money.)  According to the Boone Recorder, she raised $8,087 of the total $21,921 raised during her election.

The newspaper stated, "The question Mayor Lucy Lou was most asked during the campaign was:  'How does a DOG become mayor?'

"Her answer, . . . was, 'As with politics in every corner of the earth, the candidate with the most money wins.  In Rabbit Hash, we're just honest about it.  Anyone of any age can vote, you can vote as many times as you like, and we encourage drinking at the polls.'

"Lucy Lou's executive staff have been heard to say on more than one occasion, 'We bought that election fair and square!'"

While I don't have a picture of Lucy Lou or of the current mayor, I did snap a picture from the doorway into the General Store.

It occurred to me that old-time general stores aren't much different than fabric stores such as this one called Quilting Is My Therapy, home to Angela Walters of Midnight Quilt Show fame.  I visited here on my way home from taking my daughter to college.

While at Angela Walter's store, I met the Simply Sixteen longarm machine that has a 4' x 5' footprint.  I got excited about that because that could fit inside a tiny house!  (We are thinking about that possibility for our next home.)

Possibilities!

Graduation, Snow College, oh my!

Life has been busy, shall we just say that?  Time passes hastily it seems.

We've had some excitement here.  We traded in our family van for a BMW which promptly blew its transmission.  It went downhill from there and a month later we bought a used Toyota Venza, which my husband loved.  We had that about a month (one payment exactly) and my husband was in a wreck and that car was declared a total loss.  It protected him and got him home though!!!  Thank goodness for GAP insurance (which still hasn't paid everything off but will.)  Now we're back to being right-side-up in a third vehicle and praying for no nefarious incidents.

Yeah.  I haven't really been in the mood to write.

My son, however, got home from his church mission.  Yay!!!  He liked his room and quilt.  Double yay!

My daughter, my baby, just graduated from high school with honors.  We found a school with an AFA in Theater (specifically backstage) that she is interested in pursuing at Snow College.  Two scholarships later and one summer job, and we think she has her finances squared up for next year.

2,000 miles away from home.

So my method for dealing with the stress of having my daughter leave is by sewing and quilting.  Here are my latest creations:

Made these placemats for the 4th of July.

An apron from one of my sons.

And another apron for my other son.  Maybe I should make one for my daughter too?

A sewing machine organizer for my daughter's sewing machine.

A wallet. It fits my smart phone but doesn't have pockets for a credit card, license, etc.  I've been carrying it around and like it to a point but I'm still looking for one that really fits what I need.  The Online Fabric Store offers a free pattern for the wristlet (I skipped the wristlet part.)  https://www.onlinefabricstore.net/makersmill/how-to-make-a-phone-wristlet/

 The wallet folded over.  I played with magnetic snaps, and they're a little powerful for cotton even when it's reinforced.

Another set of 2-sided placemats for friends.

A makeup bag for my daughter to take with her to Snow.  Sewing around corners is tricky and downright hard!  This bag is from Denise Clason's book, Quilted Bags and Totes.  There are some corrections to the book online at http://www.deniseclason.com/p/instruction-fix-its.html

I really like the inside.  The anchors are cute, but the dots are so much fun!  I found these Waverly fat quarters at Walmart and fell in love with the anchors fabric and the mango shade polka dots!  It's as close as I can get my daughter to pink.

I've started playing with a pack of 10-inch squares for an Around the World quilt too, but that process has just begun.  In case you're wondering, I've stalled out on the Row by Row quilt because I'm taking Angela Walter's free motion quilting challenge that you can find here:  https://quilting-is-my-therapy.myshopify.com/collections/free-motion-challenge-quilting-along.  Most of the above projects were practice projects for FMQ!

So what should I do next?  A bag?  A messenger bag?  A better wallet that's lighter than the one I'm hauling around now?  A new apron for my daughter?  I wonder if I could find fabric with books and pencils on it?  I'm only halfway through the first FMQ challenge, and Angela Walters is filming the third one now.  The fabric is sitting there!