August-September

Slower months and yes, I blame the heat - I mean, who wants to go outside?

Raider, as always doesn't care...

Laying on the guy is a GOOD thing!

Laying by the lady is okay, too!

We met up with other members of the Cedar Hill Genealogy group for dinner - and when we came out there was a complete rainbow! (wasn't where my phone could get the entire thing, though!)

On the 10th,  I met Lu and Julie for lunch and then we all went to the Plano Quilt Show - it was nice and it was wonderful being with and seeing friends -

I took pics of some of my favorite entries and we saw a lot of people we knew.

Later in the month, Val and I had a "crafting day" with Sandi -

it was fun, even if it was a long day -

In September, we only had a few highlights - 

Dave and I went out to dinner at Maggiano's to reward us for a hard day of adultingl A few days later, I got new gloves for colder weather:

We went to the Istanbul Grill for Dave's birthday lunch on the 13th and on the 15th we had Movie Night to celebrate his birthday with friends -

watching "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"

Rob has been accepted into the pack, at last!

On the 21st, we were going to the Greek food festival in far North Dallas, but storms were predicted, so we found a Greek restaurant in Cedar Hill that was just as good (we were only going for the food, after all) -

and on the 22nd, our power went out from 1am to 4:15pm, so mid-morning we took ourselves to IHOP for lunch -

and on the 26th, Shera came in to house-sit/dog-sit for us.

Next stop - France!

July

July was great -

it started with a visit from the Hawkes!  Ms. Tiersa wanted to go to a museum, so we went over to the Kimbell in Fort Worth...

me - Tiersa - Shera

 It was nice to see all of the art again - especially two of my favorites -

"Portrait of a Woman" - (probably Isabella d'Este)
Gian Cristoforo Romano, c 1500

"Composition" - Piet Mondiran (oil) 1914

We titled this "Waiting for Tiersa"

 They were only able to stay the one day, but it was great to see them!

 On the 6th, I took a class from Julie on her wave piecing technique -

On the 14th, it was TAQG Rally Day - good attendence -

 and our speaker was Deb Tucker (website here) - very entertaining and informative -

On the 18th I joined former co-workers from Blue Cross Blue Shield for lunch -

And on the 19th, Dave and I went to the Arlington Museum of Art for an exhibit of movie costuming - a lot of stuff to look at - a few of my favorites -

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)
Curse of the Black Pearl
Designed by Penny Rose
(just had no life without Mr. Depp's presence)

Catherine of Braganza (Shirley Henderson)
The Last King
designed by Mike O'Neill

First Lady (Lara Flynn Boyle)
Land of the Blind
designed by Phoebe de Gaye

 A quick word about the red one...I hated this dress in person - the silk organza looked dry and stiff, the netting awkward...but when I looked at the photos, I readily agreed that the dress filmed beautifully - which is the point of movie costuming, I guess - it has to look right, even if it wouldn't have been done "in period"...

Aftwerwards, we went to Prince's for lunch - worth leaving the house for!

On the 21st, our friends Ann and Sam got married and we were able to catch up with some old friends! Unfortunately, it was 114-degrees outside, so we left pretty quickly after the vows.

successful wedding!

and on the 23rd was DAFA - we had a Mad Hatter Art Swap Tea Birthday Party - it was a blast!

It was just too hot to do anything more!

June

June was active...certainly if you go by the number of pictures I took!

A group of us met for dinner before Quilt Guild

Lu and Julie working on notebook covers - always busy!

The speakers was Margie Lawrence (I couldn't find a website for her) but she's into Round Robin quilts (where a group does quilts by each person doing a section and passing it to the next in the group)

This was one of my favorites - too cute!

I managed to un-bury my sewing machine -

and Dave got all of the movie posters hung over the corner table.  LOVE it!

Jules and I met up at the Sew Expo/Arlington Quilt Show - what a blast!

This was one of my favorites (although there were other awesome quilts at the show as well - I took a lot of pictures!)

"Crazy for Crazy Quilts" by Cindy Hardgrove

On the 9th, Daphne and Jared brought Elena up from San Antonio to see Great-Grandpa!

I mean - how cute is she?!?!?!

On the 13th, Val and I went out to celebrate her retirement.  We decided to go to Northpark - which was great because I got to see two of my favorite kinetic scupltures -

"Hammering Men" by Jonathan Borofsky
and "The Diffracted Symphony" by Sebastien Leon (a sound sculpture)

The orchids were all over the mall and so beautiful

We stopped to see the small (very small-only about a dozen outfits in total) fashion exhibit from the Texas Fashion Collection at Univ. of North Texas -

Wasn't that impressed with the fashion, but enjoyed watching the ducks and turtles in the fountains -

We then went to Maggiano's for lunch -

where they put a candle in Val's desert to celebrate her retirement!

The only artsy stuff I finished was a small wreath to leave at the cemetery at the next Sons of Union Veterans memorial service (they always have to take away the large ceremonial wreath).

On the 18th we ended up having to go to the Apple store to get a replacement for Dave's phone since his had turned into a paperweight - no one could get it to turn on!

You can see how enthusiastic he was about the entire affair!

On the 25th was DAFA - which brought a presentation by Lu on the Japanese mending technique of Boro - it was wonderful and well-attended!

And, last but not least - Dave bought me a new A/C unit for the studio because the other one ceased to function (I mean, really - it was only 17 years old!)

And throughout the month, Mr. R has been his cute self and taking it easy...