Hurricane Ike drops by

Guess who came to visit? We returned to our home after visiting with our son for the weekend, with grandson Hunter (2) in the car, to be greeted by this. We have very large poplar trees on our property. Sunday night, we had a tremendous windstorm courtesy of Hurricane Ike. A limb 8" around and 30' long landed on our back deck. It missed our house by inches but did damage the corner of the overhang on our upper deck. You can see in the next photo the damage to our gazebo. It also took out the canopy to my swing and the tabletop to our firepit set. The glass table that was under the gazebo was not damaged in the least.

And sitting quietly on the shelf, amidst the rubble was this ceramic frog light. Can you believe it? And now, we wait for the insurance company to sort out the damage and cost of repairs.

On to some stitching. I received news today that Mary Kathryn received the Fair and Square Halloween Squares I sent to her. She says the cat looks just like hers. This is from the 2007 Cross Stitch Pattern a Day Calendar. And of course, blogger has come by to turn this photo on it's ear or side LOL.

Annette also received her Fair and Square Round 9 squares. She said she was into Egyptian so I stitched these squares for her from an unknown magazine. It is part of a sampler. The name and place - Kathy and Canada are stitched in hieroglyphics. I found the alphabet online and then translated it into stitches.
As I mentioned earlier, we brought out little grandson home with us. My stitching progress was understandably small. It was stitch one - change a diaper, stitch two - find the missing Matchbox car, stitch three - Gramma I hungry - stitch one - Gramma train broken LOL. It was wonderful fun to have him here and to do some one on one bonding.

I did manage to get some stitches in Fairies in the Garden. Although the progress is small, there is some after so many frustrating starts. Tomorrow is my day to stitch on it so I am hoping to have some progress of note. And, of course, blogger did it's thing.
I stitched and finished a design for the MAW exchange so I cannot share it until it is received. It is going in the mail Thursday. I do have to show it off to my fellow Thursday stitchers before it flies off to it's new home.

I picked up Marjean's RR again and plan on making this my focus for the next few weeks until it is completed and returned to her. Can anyone guess which Mirabilia I am stitching?

To finish off my week and weekend in fine form, my children and I threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my husband Saturday night. His birthday is in March but we will be in Arizona and I wanted him to be able to share his birthday with his family and his friends from home. It was a total surprise to him and we had a blast. Here we are - one happy family. DH and I, our sons and their wives.
And a little walking story to share. This morning I was going for my morning walk down the road. I was not happy to be going and I was grumbling along. My knee hurts, my leg hurts, my hip hurts, why am I doing this, I don't want to be doing this. Suddenly, I had this vision of Vonna walking along beside me griping away too. I started to laugh so hard that I had to get to the side of the road so I wouldn't hurt myself. I am sure passing cars thought I had gone a little strange. That thought put the spark back in my step and I made it down the road and home again.

Take care everyone. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and leave your comments. I am still struggling with my dialup but do read most everyone's blogs from my google reader. Three more weeks, and we will be on highspeed until the spring. YIPPEE!!!!!

Keep stitching and remember when you go walking, you could find Vonna or me grumbling right along beside you. LOL