Thanksgiving x2 🍽🍷

As much as I love everything pumpkin, I'm happy it's cranberry time!
Cranberry coffee with cranberry cake, what a beautiful way to start the day.

Thanksgiving eve brought DH and I to this new place, Sapwood Cellars. I had the Thanks and Giving, with cranberries of course! It wasn't bad, but definitely could have had more cranberry flavour. 

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without watching the parade... it's Toothless, from How to Train Your Dragon.

Oh boy, SpongeBob

Mini Bobs

That Grinch

Father Christmas!

The only pictures taken that night were of my chosen sisters, and we were colour coordinated!

Saturday brought us through the mountains to my parents house to have Thanksgiving with them.

Nathan reading an old annual while waiting for dinner.

Dad loves to get fancy for special dinners.

And you can't be there without having a "few" photos taken.

Mom is doing okay, although she seems to be in more pain from her arthritis, but she's tough. Dad was exhausted, so we took over prepping for dinner when we got there so he got to relax and chit chat.

Oh my, another picture! Gman2 spent the night with them so Dad could take him to the train station in Cumberland on Sunday evening to head back to school. He'll be back mid December for break, so it will be nice to have all the boys back home!

And in stitching news, I've finished this and just need to put it together. Maybe that's something Spike will do tonight since tomorrow is DECEMBER!

Stitchy Road Trips! 🚗

While the cat 🐱(Nathan) was away with Scouts last month, the mice 🐭🐭(Karen and I) played!

Heading across the Bay Bridge.

We made it!

Ready to walk the boardwalk!

The end of the boardwalk, wasn't too busy.

Karen talking to Mom and Dad, getting their popcorn order. 

We reached our destination, Salty Yarns!

 I love this shop, but sadly didn't find anything I had to have, but Karen did! I was going to get an Erica Michaels kit, but realized I had already ordered it.

Just a little something to read.

Dragon kite! 🐉

It was a breezy, beautiful day.

On our way home.

Gorgeous sunset 

The next day, we ventured to PA to visit the Strawberry Sampler. 

Apparently, my birthday and National Mermaid Day are the same day, awesome! They had a sale on all their mermaid patterns and I had to get a few! I had ordered these two and picked them up while I was there. Birthday money well spent!

This is the one I almost bought at Salty Yarns.

I haven't used gauze yet, so this will be a new experience.

 I also had another mermaid pattern ordered, but it wasn't in yet. That will be a nice surprise because I'm not quite sure what I ordered!

This is one I've seen before and seeing it framed on the wall made me want to stitch it. 

Karen had the perfect fabric for me to use, it's more green than it looks in the photo. I've started it and it's hard to put down!

We had lunch at McKenzie Brew House before heading home and saw this cute poster.

We'll be heading back to PA in the future to hit more shops, there's more out there!

Scenes from a... road trip!

On March 9th, we took a trip to Ohio to see the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Gman2 is interested in transferring there in the fall for his ministry studies.

We headed out Thursday evening, no work for DH and Nathan had off on Friday.

We hit some blinding snow in PA, but luckily it didn't affect the roads at all.

Still snowing a little in WVA, but not too bad.

And finally, four hours later we were in Ohio. The university is just inside of Ohio and we stayed in a hotel that night.

It was rather chilly and it flurried a bit so it was hard to take pictures, everything looked dark. But this turned out!

And, they gave us warm sugar cookies while we waited for the tour, yum!

The students attending there were our tour guides and they did a great job. So friendly and genuinely interested in all of us, they were even trying to recruit Nathan for the future!

What the students affectionately call, "Snowboarding Jesus" OR "Surfing Jesus" when it's warm!

The Portiuncula ~ "This small chapel, like St. Francis' original, has become a place of adoration, conversion, and prayer. The simple beauty of the small stone structure reverberates with the power of the Lord's presence. The stillness, imbued with the peace of the Lord's tender concern, draws visitors in and focuses attention on the Eucharistic Lord."

Then it was time to leave, the guys had the Italian meal to prep for with the CYM at church.

We went a different way home due to traffic that was shown on the PA turnpike.

It took us past Morgantown, into MD and... 

right past the lake! It's only about 1.5hrs away from the lake house, the perfect meeting place if Gman2 brings his car to school.

So it seems to be decided, this is where he wants to go! I wish it was as close as Mount St. Mary's, but I think this is a better fit for him.

Let the excitement begin!

Still catching up...

I certainly couldn't forget Kim @ Wisdom with Needle and Thread, with her  generous gift for HER birthday! She celebrated her 60th in July, and sent out 60 lovely packages to 60 lucky blogging friends. I don't have much patriotic stitching, so this was perfect! Take a look at her blog to see all the wonderful things she sent out. Thank you, Kim, what a wonderful way to celebrate YOU!

DH and I did a little DIY project in the powder room one evening and we're still married - no arguing or yelling or anything!

The paint on the walls is just a flat paint, no semi-gloss, so it looked terrible when water was splashed on it from the sink.

Heading over to Pinterest, I found these boards called Stikwood and thought it looked pretty easy.

So I measured, ordered,

and hoped for the best!

We started at the bottom, but most of them had to be cut because they were too long. Luckily DH got his saw thingy out which made it easier. The door had to be removed, it was just a bit cramped in there.

The end result? Love it! 
It fits in perfectly for the ocean theme there. The only problem? It smelled sooo bad! I don't know if it was the wood or the glue/tape on the back, but it was horrible. I had the fan on for days and the plug-in air freshener helped.

 We headed to Deep Creek Lake in October to see the colours.

Full Hunter's Moon 

Heading back home, passing through Sidling Hill, stitching away.

This was supposed to be for a friend's wedding and I was going to change the words, but it really wasn't her style. So I decided to keep it and make it smaller. The words are over one on 40 count, that was rough!

Now I need to decide if I should stitch some of the fence or place a "real" fence in the frame when I finally frame it. No rush, I can wait until next year now.