WOO HOO Goin' to State!

Yup! We're goin' to state! Michelle sure did it! We thought she had a shot in the 100 breaststroke, but she floored us all when she made it in the 50 freestyle too! Not bad for a freshman! And she is the first swimmer ever from her high school! So she has been in the papers and on the local TV station. They came out to the pool to tape her swimming and interview her the other day around 4 pm. But then it turns out that the disk in the camera had a scratch on it. They were able to save all the footage of her swimming but they lost all of the interview. So the reporter came to the house and redid the interview. She finished about 6 pm. The first time the spot aired was around 6:20 pm!

We're here in Austin and she's got her "tattoo" to get into the pool area. That's how they do the admission for swimmers now! It won't wash off--only comes off with alcohol. I'm nervous. Let's just hope she isn't!

Numerologists would have a heyday with her schedule! She is in events 7 & 21! Lucky numbers! And in her first event she is in heat 1 lane 1 and in her second event she is in heat 2 lane 2. And you'll never guess what room we're in at the hotel--221, of course!

Thanks to everyone for all of their good wishes. We have passed them all on. And will give her many hugs from all of you! Check the UIL website later today to see how she does!

Keep Cheering,
Wasie

Eeek! I won!

I won the Happy Blocks this month. There were 4 winners this month; they split the blocks up by 4 as there were so many participants. I am not sure how many I will be receiving, but I should have them by the end of the month. I need to get mine sent in. I'll post a photo of the blocks and then I'll make a quilt with all of them! What fun! It will be very exciting to see what everyone comes up with! The theme for Feb was "Anything Goes" so I figure I'll get quite a scrappy quilt out of this swap!

We're going to be out selling girl scout cookies as they came in at the end of the week. Here I am getting over the flu and now I get to sit outside in the cold! It started to warm up and then promptly cooled back down for cookie selling! Fri evening we sold around 45 boxes outside Belk and 6 of those were for our Troops overseas! Today we'll be at WalMart and Gander Mountain. Hope it's a warmer day.

Have a Happy Sunny Day,
Wasie

Cowboy Quilt #2

Here tis a pic of the quilt top of the 2nd "cowboy quilt". I actually have had it finished for a week or so, but have been so busy with swim meets etc. that I hadn't had a chance to get a photo up! This is based on a a pattern called "All About Me." It's 45" x 56".



The first cowboy top has been quilted. After I get the binding on, I'll put another photo up. I have to come up with a third one. I am thinking about something with stars--lone star and all. Any brilliant ideas? I have some cute fabric I want to use and I think it would be great background and I have some nice matching colors for the star points. So I am looking at star blocks. I need to get these quilts finished!

My youngest daughter went to the doctor this morning and found out that she has the flu. This undoubtedly means that I do too. Of course, it is too late to start the tamiflu medication. At least we are not doing too bad. But this is a particularly bad time for her to get it as she is swimming in the state meet in a week! She wants to go to practice tonight, but her dad & I think staying home is the best thing for now.

I stayed home from work yesterday as I had virtually no voice, and I worked on some simple blocks that I needed to get done for a swap I'm in on Block Central. It's a "Happy Block Swap." The blocks are very simple and quick to make. I needed to make three more and ended up making about 5 more. So my "new plan" is to make a couple extras each month and save them up. Then at the end of the year, I can make a scrappy quilt with all of the happy blocks from all of the different themes of the months. January's theme was valentines. February's theme is anything goes. March's theme is ocean. The rest haven't been chosen yet. Then they draw for 2-3 people to split up the blocks between depending on how many enter.

Here's some photos of some of my Happy Blocks.




Happy Day & Stay Away from the Flu Bug,
Wasie

Going to State!

I've been pretty busy lately attending the end-of-season high school swim meets. Both of my daughters swam in the district meet. There Jess, the oldest, swam best times in her 100 free and 200 free and her 200 medley relay made it to regionals! Michelle the youngest, also swam her best times of the season in the 50 free and 100 breast and made it to regionals in both of those events plus her two relays, the 200 free and 400 free. She won silver in the 50 free and gold in the 100 breast while the relays each won bronze medals. Overall, the girls team took THIRD PLACE!!

At regionals unfortunately Jessica's relay didn't make it to finals (top 8 go to finals), but she seemed to take it in stride. She was just glad to be there. If you go to regionals you get "a letter."


Michelle made finals in all of her events. She finished 3rd in the 50 free and the 100 breast swimming personal best times in each! Then the 200 free relay finished in 4th and the 400 free relay was 5th. Then we had to go home and wait to find out if she made it to state. The way it works in Texas there are 8 regions and the winner in each event in each region are automatic qualifiers for the state meet. Then the next 8 fastest times from the 2nd, 3rd & 4th place finishes get to go on the "Call-Up" list. That way there are only 16 competitors per event. Finally after midnight, they posted the list on the web and Michelle had made it in both of her individual events. She is the first person from our high school to ever go to the state swim meet! And she's only a freshman!

Here she is diving in for her 50 freestyle.


On another note, her and I both have head colds--not good. And I stayed home from work today as I had no voice this morning! I have been constantly coughing. Aaargh! This is so frustrating. I dislike being sick. I do not have time for it! I am waiting for hubby to get it and hoping that Jess doesn't!

Well, hope you are well!
Wasie

It's raining; it's pouring, and we're not snoring!

AAARGH! I just wrote this whole posting, and I did a preview to make sure the photo was correct. And then when I went back it took me to the dashboard and lost the whole thing! So I will not preview this time. I will just post and edit if needed.


It is pouring down rain here and we're hoping to be out of drought status! It is a great day to get lots of stuff done. I drove down to McKinney for the "strip club" meeting at the quilt asylum this morning. The new strip set is tans & browns. Good for me cuz it is very different from what I usually get. The pattern is appropriately named: Hash Browns. (So of course I had to have hash browns for lunch! I think it was subliminal.) You can view the completed quilt at The Quilt Asylum Clubs. Anyhow, this photo is of my strip set, background fabric (dk brown w/strings), inner border (cheddar w/little red & green) and outer border (red w/large print of gold, brown & green). Unfortunately, I can't get to it today. I have to work on the cowboy quilts. When they are finished, I can do other things. I am hoping to have the second one pretty well finished by the end of the weekend. I'm still debating on how to do the third one. I need something fast & easy. I'll see what fabric I have left.

I also attended the FROG meeting following the Strip Club meeting. FROG is an acronym for fabric reformation and organization group. Everyone just talked about stuff. Susan had made a block for the heartstrings quilt project. It is a group that is collecting string quilt squares to make quilts--or quilt tops--or finished quilts--or whatever for donation to charitable organizations. Their website is here: Heartstrings for more information and guidelines for making squares. Susan also shared with us some of her scrap quilts one of which was made with "leaders and enders." It has slews of fabrics in it with each piece finishing to 1" x 3". Here tis at: The Quilt Asylum's Blogspot. Check it out as it's awesome. It is all quilted and bound now. I am just going to have to try my hand at this "leaders & enders" thing. Now if I can only get started...

I just have to report that this past week, the attendance of my organic/biochemistry class increased by 50%! Word must be getting out! Well, hold onto your hats. Enrollment went from 2 students to 3. (It's all in how you report the numbers.) This course is only an elective for environmental science and the students don't seem to plan very well as it's only offered every other year. But just think of the individualized attention! These kids will learn lots!

Well I better get...
Back to work,
Wasie

Brrrr - An Icy Day

Here's some photos of our beautiful icy day on Monday - MLK Day. It might be pretty, but, baby, it's cold outside!







There's a weather prediction that we might even receive some snow flurries tomorrow (Wed) morning! Wouldn't that be pretty!

Today, we checked in the organic/biochem lab & Katie (my lab assistant) was a great help! We had to get all of the keys and locks worked out for every drawer & cabinet in the lab room. Then we worked out who gets what set so that the students end up evenly spaced out and each student has a faucet. I ended up getting mechanical and changed out 4 lock that I couldn't get to work properly. Those camlocks just don't hold up well in a lab environment plus they are not really made for these drawers. I think we finally have all of it worked out though. It doesn't seem to matter what I do at the end of the previous semester! It's always a chore the next. Tomorrow we check in the first section of organic II.

Hope you are staying warm & dry,
Wasie

What to do on an icy day?

We're in the middle of an ice storm here in North Texas-in case you haven't heard. We have been pretty lucky here at our house--no loss of electricity so far and we even drove to church this morning, slowly, I might add. (There were several vehicles abandoned in the medians and ditches off the highway!) The ice is pretty gorgeous outside on the trees. Tomorrow, I am going to take some photos. I decided to wait one more day as it is supposed to continue to keep drizzling and sleeting through tomorrow. However, after we skedaddled home from church this morning we definitely stayed in the rest of the day! So what's a quilter to do? Well, sew of course!

Here's a quilt top I finished that I had been working on. I did have the attic window blocks already completed.


I'm going to try to quickly do a couple more "cowboy quilts" for a family in our church that is moving to New Jersey. They have 3 little boys and 1 little girl. We'll see how it goes!

Stay warm,
Wasie

What a day

Whew. I was so looking forward to today. It was the "Family Blessing" service at church where each family goes up to the altar and receives a special prayer and blessing from pastor to start the new year. It is always special to me especially since we almost lost Jessica a couple Christmases ago. It still was wonderful except I was getting this terrible migraine. By the time we arrived home I just collapsed in bed for several hours. I had taken some of my special migraine medicine and I finally went to sleep for a few hours. That really helped.

When I finally "came to" I helped my daughter make a "little purse". It looks so easy, but it has a ton of pockets! And two zippers. We managed to get it finished so she can take it to school tomorrow, but it certainly did me in for the night! Here are some pics of the purse. Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to get any of the cute lining fabric she chose.

The first is the front.


This is the view inside.


This is the outside & back of the purse.


You can sort of see all of the different pockets!

Well, I think I will veg out for the rest of the evening. I have to go in to work tomorrow. Break is over. sigh....

Rest up,
Wasie

What do Happy Blocks, Cowboys & a Tablerunner all have in common?

Hmmm.... I've been sewing them this week!

I joined up with a swap group on Block Central that is making "Happy Blocks"--8" finished blocks for swapping. (So they are 8.5" now.) The center is a 4" square of fabric surrounded by a 2" square of a different fabric. To make one you cut a 4.5" square of one fabric and a 2.5" strip of another fabric. Then crosscut the strip into 2-4.5" rectangles and 2-8.5" rectangles. Sew each 4.5" rectangle to the top and bottom of the square. Iron; then sew each of the 8.5" rectangles to the other two sides of the square. There you have it! Easy and quick--can't get much happier than that! I have now made 12 blocks! First I made 6 blocks of "anything."

Then I found out that they were supposed to be in a "Valentine's Theme." So I had to make 6 more! I made 2 each of 3 versions. But all is not lost as I can use the original 6 in the next months swap as that month's theme is "anything goes."

I also finished a "Cowboy Cuddle Quilt" for my little nephew Anthony. I will get it in the mail to him asap as it is a late Christmas present. I hope my brother and his wife send me a photo of him with his quilt! They live in the Chicago area. So I do not get to see them.



The tablerunner to the right is for my husband's sister-in-law. I was hoping to do it sooner, but that didn't work out. So I did it early January. I think it came out okay, but I had never turned corners on the binding that are obtuse before so I was not sure how to fold it. I also didn't do a traditional binding and hand-sewed it to the back either which I probably should have done cuz I was in a hurry and it would have helped the corners! The hands holding it up are my husbands! When I edited the photo with photoshop it looked silly with just his fingertips on the edges so I decided to redo it and leave his hands in! Now it's just funny with the disembodied look!

The coolest thing happened yesterday--we had purchased a table & chairs set for our kitchen from Haverty's about 6 months ago. My oldest daughter was doing crafts on the table--which she was NOT supposed to be doing, I might add--and she got a bunch of purple spots of permanent marker on the top of the oak table top! Needless to say we were not too happy about this. However, when we had purchased the table & chairs we also had purchased a leather recliner and being concerned about having a cat and leather together we bought Haverty's special protection package for all of the furniture. When I called them and told them about the ink they told me how to go about filling out the paperwork for a claim. It only took a few weeks and someone came out and looked at the table. They were going to try and clean the ink off. If they couldn't get it off they would replace the table! Well, THEY REMOVED THE INK without hurting the finish! I couldn't believe it! It looks brand new! I couldn't get them to show me the product they used either. (Being a chemist and all, I really wanted to look at that bottle!) They took before and after photos. Best money I ever spent on one of those deals!

I even was energized to clean out my refrigerator!

Happy sewing & cleaning,
Wasie

Mini Photo??

I am going to attempt to upload a photo and make it my "identity photograph."
Wish me luck!
Wasie

PS Hey, when I was pasting in the URL for the photo I noticed that my description said "husband of 23 years". It was time to change it! We celebrated our 24th anniversary this past New Year's Eve! Next year will be THE BIGGIE.

New Year Catch Up!

Ho Ho Ho and Happy New Year! It's 2007! Hard to believe! I hope everyone had a wonderful celebration of Christ's birth. We sure did. Our service at church was just beautiful. We had the best music. Our organist's daughter sang "O Holy Night" and put many of us in tears it was so gorgeous. Our pastor also has this marvelous tradition -- he arranges and performs for us a Christmas song on the piano. It was wonderful as usual. "It is our Christmas gift," he says, "for Jesus and for us."

My friend Amy played cello throughout the service and the choir did two numbers. My younger daughter and I also participated in the prelude music. Chelle played both flute and piano (not at the same time, I might add) while I held my own on the clarinet. It was an interesting time of it as I was to play in a trio. The week before Christmas, we lost one member and were down to two. Then on Christmas Eve morning I found out that member #2 had terrible back problems and was going to the emergency room! Oh dear. (She is fine, just on muscle relaxers, by the way.) But she could not play that evening! I really didn't want to do two solos! So I recruited my dear friend Sharon who whisked out her clarinet practiced that afternoon and joined me! We did pretty well! Must be those angels helping us along plus a great accompanist!

That evening we opened all of our gifts -- not our normal tradition -- as we headed up to Minneapolis to visit my husband's brother & family early Christmas morning. Our nephew was home for a month's leave from the army. His battalion had been deployed to Kuwait and Iraq for part of last year so we had a particular wish to see him before he returned.

However, we stopped in St. Joseph, Missouri on Christmas evening and visited with my sister & husband and grandmother. I finally was able to give my grandmother the quilt I had been making her. She was very excited when she opened the box. She said, "Oh a quilt -- for me?" She was just delighted! Here are photos of the quilt and her with it. She asked me what "pattern" the quilt was and I told her I called it "Grandma's Stars" and showed her the label on the back with her name on it. I also pieced the back of the quilt as I couldn't find enough fabric of one kind that I liked on the sale bolts!




MInneapolis was not too cold! We've been there when it was much colder! But there was NO SNOW! We could not believe the lack of snow throughout Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. It was a brown Christmas! Colorado had it all. We had nice time visiting with my husband's family and were especially glad to see our nephew Andrew. The girls were able to swim with a USA team at the University of Minnesota which was quite great of them! And all too soon we headed back home. The lack of snow did make traveling easier! We had a little rain on the way home. And here in Texas they are telling us it might be in the 70s on Friday! Whoa!

Stay warm,
Wasie

Race to the Finish Line...

Here's what's left to get done by Monday--Christmas Day.
•mail Christmas cards (Yes, MAIL them. They aren't even in the envelopes yet. I am getting the family to do this one...)
•bind Grandma's quilt (Yes, the quilting is finally finished! At least the binding is made, even if it isn't sewn on yet!)
•make quilt labels
•bake rest of Christmas cookies
•put together Christmas gift baskets
•deliver said baskets
•deliver any other gifts
•purchase last minute gifts: prayer partner (book? b&b?), books for hubby
•wash grandma's quilt
•practice clarinet for Christmas Eve service
•eeek, do laundry & get packed for trip!
•wrap wrap wrap gifts - note: none are done!
YIKES-better get busy.

Ho, ho, ho!
Wasie

Wow 2 in 1 Day!

I have never posted twice in one day before! This is a new record!

I realized that I have never written about Jessica getting her driver's license! Yep, the BIG day finally came! She managed to get all of her paperwork together at one time and go to the Department of Public Safety (that's what it's called in Texas) and received her paper driver's license. Then about 2 weeks to the day later she received her official driver's license. She does have restrictions as she is under 18. But she is so excited. She's doing pretty good too. However, she has very little sense of direction and is still learning her way around town. She and her sister are enjoying their newfound freedom. Mom, however, makes them call home on a regular basis. Especially during the busy Christmas season.

Drive carefully,
Wasie

I'm done....

The cry of the college professor: I'M DONE!

Sigh... But why do I feel so sad? I hate it when the students cry. There is only so much I can do. One must learn the material. It is sooo important to study consistently. Cramming just doesn't work well with organic chemistry. You've got to get the principles. Sigh... There's always next semester. And so the cycle continues.

Now I get to attempt to find Christmas! Where is the tree? Where are the decorations? And, oh, the gifts have to get shipped? What do you mean they won't guarantee delivery by Christmas? There's plenty of time! I still have projects to finish and Christmas cards to send! (If they get mailed, that is.) And dozens of cookies to bake for friends and neighbors, too. I guess I better get busy, tomorrow! Tonight, I'm putting my feet up. Cuz...

I'M DONE!

Merry Christmas,
Wasie

One down; three to go!

I finished the grades for my organic class today! Now all that is left are the 3 labs. With any luck I'll crank them out tomorrow. I very nearly finished one of the last two lab reports while the students were taking their finals. Unfortunately, I will probably be privvy to much weeping and gnashing of teeth tomorrow when all the students come by. sigh... I must admit I was disappointed in their scores on the final. I do not think they read the questions very carefully. First day next semester, I think we will go over a few of the multiple choice questions and discuss how to approach them aka read the question, look at the molecule, analyze the problem, etc. It seems that they just picked answers without putting very little thought into them.

I can't wait to be all finished so I can get on with the business of getting ready for Christmas! I need to finish the quilt for grandma for one thing. And after I finish that I was hoping to do a couple of other quickie projects. Plus we need to do sooome decorating! And I need to bake cookies for friends and neighbors. Sooo here's hopin' the students leave me alone tomorrow so I can finish up, and it goes quicker than planned! I only have 1 lab report and the lab finals left to grade (and the lab finals are fairly short as far as finals go).

Happy Grading,
Wasie

Topsy Turvy!

I completed the top to Grandma's Quilt last night! Here's a quick photo. The inner border is 1.5" finished and the outer border will be 3.5" finished. Now I will put together a creative backing--I purchased some cute fabric that was on sale and there wasn't enough left on the bolt of all one kind--so I bought two different fabrics and finished off both bolts. I also have some of the outer border fabric left that I might sneak in too. Then I am going to machine quilt it. I think I will stipple the stars and put swirls in between where it looks like hurricanes. I think the area between the stars looks like the weatherman's hurricane symbol. I also am hoping I have enough blue left for the binding.

My students took their last regular exam on Friday. I have to go and get busy grading it this afternoon and evening. They will be wanting to stop by my office and pick it up tomorrow. Their final is Wednesday. I still have to write it and grade it. Plus I am still finishing up grading the lab reports. sigh...

Of course, there is no tree up in our house. I have one Christmas decoration up. It's a hallmark singing snowman & penguins. All you have to do is set it on the counter. No lights outside either. Of course, the girls (teenagers, nonetheless) could decorate if they wanted too. It usually doesn't get done around here until I am finished with my semester.

Hope your decorating is going better than mine!
Happy Holidays!
Wasie

Quilting Snow Day!

Here in North Texas we had a little bit of ice yesterday which we don't get very often. On Thursday we all had a half-day of school/work and today I had a full snow day! So I was able to work on my grandma's Christmas present! And I got the top all pieced except the borders. It was a productive snow day for me!





The pattern is from a book called "Bundles of Fun." It's a great book; I like lots of the quilts in it and she shows them in many fabric combinations. I used 12 fat quarters plus 1 yard of the muslin for the stars. I wanted to use a color for the stars but I couldn't find anything that looked right with all of the colors. The one common thread among all of the fabrics was the off-white.

Here are the porch quilts I made for the girls. I call them their cuddle quilts cuz they are small and cuddly. I folded over one corner so you can see the back and how I sewed each strip on.

I finished Michelle's in July.


Jessica's I just finished here in November.


Well, I am going to do a little border work on Grandma's Quilt. She is 93 years old so I had better get it done for this Christmas.

Happy Snow Day,
Wasie

1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Quilts

Well, yesterday I pretty much finished my 3 little wall hangings for the church bazaar! I only have to put the sleeves & labels on the backs. The center squares are hand-embroidered from this book called "Love Covers" by Tricia Cribbs. She used her mother's embroidery designs and put them together into a large quilt. I knew that I would never get a large quilt done for the bazaar, so I made some small wall hangings instead. This way the joy can be spread around! All of the fabrics I chose to use around the squares are reproduction 1930s fabrics that I had been collecting in my stash. They are machine-pieced and machine-quilted.

The first one I did was "Jesus loves me this much." It is 13" square. used the regular embroidery outline stitch on this one. I wasn't sure how I liked that, so I didn't use it on the next one. I also did all of the straight walking foot quilting before the stippling and I had gone and quilted that line down the border and I sure wish I hadn't done that! I should have stippled it instead. Oh, well. Live and learn.



The second one I stitched was "Love is ..." This one is 18.5" x 12". I used a backstitch for the letters and liked the folksy look better. I think it complemented the letter style more. It is similar to what she used in the book.



The third one is " Joy" and is 15.5" x 19.5". It seems to be everyone's favorite! Both of my daughters really like it. My oldest one has brown curly hair so she says that's her singing!



I may try to get a 4th one finished before the bazaar BUT it is Nov 11th! And I do have to work fulltime and take care of everything else besides. So we'll see. That's why I totally finished up these three first. I'll put their sleeves and labels on before I start a fourth. Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Happy Stitching!
Wasie

From Paris, France to Hatch, NM

Now that I think I have finally figured out this photo thing, I am going to start posting some photos of the quilts I have finished lately!

Here is a "Turning Twenty in Paris" quilt that I made this summer--July to be exact--for my 16 year-old-daughter Jessica. She was gone to camp for a month and we sort of redid her room for a surprise. My family was so proud of the fact that I had this quilt completely finished in 2 weeks! Mary at Mary's Quilt Shop did the quilting on her longarm machine so I can't take credit for that. Oh, one of the reasons that we did this for my daughter was because she was not just attending camp; she was volunteering at the Juliette Low Camp for disabled girls near Kansas City. She really worked hard for these girls! They had all sorts of disabilities from quadraplegics to autism to deafness. All of the volunteers were girl scouts. I was so impressed with everything Jess and all of the girls did. Way to go gals!




You may notice a lot of eiffel tower fabric. She is into Paris these days as she is taking French III this year in high school. I made some window drapes for her room out of the pink eiffel tower fabric also. Oh and she loved it and was very excited when she came home and found all of the Paris paraphernalia.

Green Chiles are one of the favorite foods at our house especially since we lived in Las Cruces, NM for so many years before moving to Texas. We consider Hatch chiles to be THE BEST! I even did a postdoc isolating capsaicinoids from chile peppers at New Mexico State. So when I saw all of these chile pepper fabrics I knew I had to do something with them!





Here is "Yellow Brick Road New Mexico Style."




I just put the binding on it last week. And boy am I glad it is finally finished. It has just been lacking the binding for awhile. I am afraid I have a few like that. I just don't seem to like bindings for some reason. So I am trying to force myself to get them done. I tried a new method where you do the entire thing on the sewing machine. (Thanks, Susan.) It certainly went faster-so maybe I'll get some more of them done. sigh...

Well, I am nearly finished with some miniature wall quilts for the church bazaar. They have embroidery in the middle. I will post the photos when they are finished.

Happy Stitching,
Wasie

MINI Mania Strikes

Well, MINI Mania has definitely struck our household! In June we purchased our first MINI—a 2006 hyper blue checkmate cooper.with a silver roof and silver swoop. It is a standard, has premium, & cold weather packages besides the checkmate pkg. We all 4 are in love... Everyone wants to ride in it all the time. We ordered it in April and watched and waited for her to be born, cross the ocean, pass through the distribution center and finally arrive at our dealer at the end of June! Heres some photos. Her name is Lil' Lucy.





I started driving her to work when I went back in August, and so she went with me to Oklahoma every day. She pretty much is my car anyhow... But I guess my hubby just missed her sooo much he couldn't stand it. So he found one for himself! So now we have two! His is a used one. It's a 2003 electric blue cooper S with a white roof and white bonnet stripes. (He really liked electric blue when he found it; wouldn't have any other color!) It's a standard also much to our teenage daughters' chagrin! But hubby loves it. His also came with navigation and it's a hoot! It's a "she" as she has a British accent and uses all of these British terms. It is so fun. You want to program the nav even if you know where you're going just to hear her say, "200 yards straight on" in her lil accent. We were going to name his car "Ricky"—that was the original plan—but couldn't do that with that female voice! So he's named her "Sparky". Here's some pics of "Sparky".




If that all wasn't bad enough. We just had to take a couple of days off work—not easy for a college prof—and go play in the MINI Takes the States tour when it came to Dallas! We drove Lucy in the group for a couple of days. Unfortunately, that was all we could spare. I sure did want to go to St Louis and Indy!

MINIs in Memphis


MINI USA Tour Bus


Electric Blue Lineup in Memphis


Now that we have a cooper and a cooper S our daughters think we need to add the two convertibles to the family to "complete the set!" They'd be happy to each drive one! Only one is driving age and she is working on getting her license. She has even attempted the dreaded standard transmission! A friend at work said that he could just see us now...all following each other in our MINIs! sigh

Wasie