what i've been doing

finished the quilt for Alex. it's a gift for xmas, but i'll give it to him next week when i'm in Duvall.


and Zylie's quilt is finished. it's her birthday present... but we'll be gone when her bd comes in Nov. (in Crete again!!), so will give it to her next week!

other than that, i've been harvesting good stuff from the garden, making pesto ... and will probably be able to harvest at least one more batch... trying to keep my flowers alive and happy with our fickle weather extremes. In the past week i've about gone over the top of my tolerance for human contact. Last thursday we had a dinner party of mostly grape/wine related youngster (ages late 20s to late 30s) friends.... 10 adults with 5 little kids. Ryan and Sonia have been helping with tending our grape vines, harvesting, crushing etcetcetc.. to bottling and drinking the wine. Sadly, for us, they will leave in about 2 weeks for 2 1/2 years in Africa in the Peace Corp. and they are SO excited about this life-changing adventure!! Jason manages the vineyards at AnneAmie, and he brought Amy, to whom he recently became engaged... and she is lovely!! Jason and Chris were friends in high school, so that's the connection there. Travis manages vineyards for Elk Cove Wineries, who bought my folks' vineyard, and he and his wife, Nicole, and kids live in the house in the vineyard that my parents built. Also here was Jessica (Jason's sister) with her husband and 3 kids. We've known her since she was a kid, and i was her mentor for her senior class project in HS. She learned all about care of sheep, lambing, shearing, wool processing, dyeing and spinning.... my kind of project! it was a greatly enjoyable evening... with lots of wine consumed, of course!

and then there was Monday..... Dinah and her partner, Jonica, let me know a while back that they'd be coming down to see Pop on their camping trip down the OR and CA coast, so we planned a family dinner for last night (here at dome central). it was the usual chaotic event, minus my grandchildren and their parents who were on a camping trip. lots of contributions to the dinner table.. esp. from Judy who brought a turkey!! bravo! Pop made the dessert (2 pies), but this time he forgot to cook the crust... the peach filling was yummy, tho.

my new mantra: "is it nap time yet?" and yes, i believe it is.....