Solvang

After Ostrich Land, 

we headed a few miles down the road to Solvang for lunch.

We weren’t sure if we would be comfortable eating there

 Leia,“you took a picture without me?!!??”

but it wasn’t crowded; 95% of the people we saw were wearing masks (yeah!);

and tables were set up on the closed street so there was plenty of distance between patrons. 

Jac and Peacock were bummed 

at not being allowed to go with Pop and the big girls to order food, 

so they moped a bit 

while I amused myself taking pictures. 

My little cutie.

Let Me Out!

We’ve been very conscientious about staying home during California’s Covid lockdown, and wearing masks when we must go out. 

But being unable to travel - even short day trips - has been grinding on us.

So today we packed up the three girls, along with their masks, 

and headed north to Buellton’s Ostrich Land USA. 

Leia and Leanne have been here before

but I think this was Jac’s first visit. 

She wanted *nothing* to do with feeding those weird dinosaurs birds,

carefully staying well behind the sister-cousin wall of safety. 

Ostrich (and emu) Land isn’t very big and, 

once you’ve given the birds all your pellets, 

there’s not much else to do.

But it is definitely worth the $19 admittance 

(for all 5 of us, including ostrich food) 

for an hour+ of entertainment. 

We hit the much-downsized gift shop on our way back through the parking lot.

 Jac and the peacock

The big girls found nothing of interest 

 Look at those eyelashes!

but Jac fell in love with this little guy. 

His name is Peacock. Peacock Ostrich. 

Suspiciously Quiet

We had four grandkids visiting this morning and it suddenly dawned on me that it was much too quiet.

Went searching and found this. 

Awwwwww.

And then Matt posted this tonight.

Big D is such a sweetie!

Cookies and Quilts

I finished this top today

and still had time to bake cookies. 

Kidding! While I sewed, Leia baked cookies without help (almost),

put away her ingredients (mostly)

 Mickey Mouse ears 

and cleaned up her mess (kinda). All without being asked. 

My favorite tween baker is growing up.

On the quilt, I added the 3.5” sashing between columns to make it wider, then added a 10” border to the top and bottom. It’s now an acceptable, wrap-yourself-up-on-a-cold-night-and-be-comfortable 49.5 x 70”.  

And how close did I come to running out of fabric? I have one 6” x wof piece leftover, but I came within half an inch of the border pieces being too short. That’s close! (Whoop, I won fabric chicken!)

Progress

In between all the baking-with-grandkids projects, I’ve made progress on my Go Fish! quilt. 

It’s taken three weeks, but the blocks are finished

 Jackie: "Those sharks are really big.”

and sewn into columns.

It’s much too narrow for my tastes (32” wide before adding the 6” border)

 Testing my plan

so tomorrow this weekend I’m going to add 3.5” sashing between columns to widen it. If my math is correct, I have enough of the orange for both sashing and borders. And if it’s wrong? Not going to think about how old this fabric is and how I’ll never find a match. I’m not wrong; it’ll be perfect. Right???

Strawberry Jobs

Leanne wanted to make muffins and I wanted to use up some strawberries, 

so we searched for a new (very delicious) recipe and got started. 

Jac washed the berries (and only sampled a few)

and Leanne diced them, carefully using a sharp knife for the first time.

Jac put the papers in the muffin pan and Leanne made the batter before filling them up.

I put them in the oven (grandma has to do something, right?) 

while Jac made the icings,

one plain and one flavored with strawberry preserves.

And then we gobbled them (almost) all up. Sooooo good. This recipe is definitely a keeper. 

Glazed Strawberry Muffins recipe