I'm Home!

 I had a great time workshoping.  This was a week long summer institute in preparation for a complete redesign of the AP Biology curriculum.  It was intense and full of good information.  See the adorable agar blocks we used to test the relationship of surface area to volume?  The pink is an acid base indicator which changes to clear as acid diffuses into the block.  I roomed with a teacher from our school who was there to do the calculus workshop.  Each evening, after dinner, I worked diligently on test questions, syllabi and such so that I could get up the next day and do it all over again. 
The first half of the week was spent in constant dampness as Debby continued to move through the state.  Those were the days when we were all disoriented and wandering lost around the second largest campus in the country.  It made me thankful to NOT be a full-time student anymore.  By midweek though, the storm had passed leaving BEAUTIFUL weather behind.  We had learned to navigate the campus and felt confident enough to venture out and explore a bit. 

While I was off at my training, the girls were enjoying surf and art camp.  Like me, they started out dealing with the storm, but were able to get out and enjoy the beach by the middle of the week.  Wednesday they started the day watching a nest of baby sea turtles hatching and Thursday they saw dolphins and horseshoe crabs on a kayaking trip.  Ryan was at Mr. Science again, this time doing a crime scene camp.  Their final day was spent analyzing an apparent homicide to figure out how Mr. Science ended up dead in a pool of blood.   Poor Kurt was just plain worn out after all the dropping off and picking up.  He had a lot going on at work, but had to squeeze it all in between his chauffeur duties.  They were all glad to see me, especially because I was able to drive straight to the beach when my class ended and see the girls surf while also saving Kurt from yet another car trip. 
Almost no sewing went on.  I did take my Dear Jane quilt to work on the hand sewing, but chose to focus on school work instead to get the most out of my time away. 

I-Pad Case

The i-pad 2 has a nifty magnetic cover, but I still thought it would be nice to have a decorative protective sleeve so that it doesn't get scratched up in my purse.

I added a couple of little flowers for decoration after seeing the cute sizzix flowers on string blocks over at Quilting by the River.  Connie used beautiful batik fabrics, which I loved, but I found something from the scrap bin for mine.  Next time I have a few spare minutes, I might make something similar for my phone.  For now, I should get some things done for school.  Students come on Wednesday, ready or not. 

When I talked to my mom last night she told me to make sure I put up some pictures of the kids. So here is a quick shot of Anna surfing this morning. The waves were a little bigger than usual with the remnants of Erin churning out there. Sydney didn't want to surf so she went out to breakfast with me instead.

Chillaxin

 Just four days left of summer vacation and we are wringing out all the fun we can find. Today was a Friday off for Kurt.  Ashlyn had put together a group to meet at the beach.  Wednesday is the usual summer beach day, but lots of people were able to make it today.  Kurt left early for volleyball, but more people kept showing up all morning, making it a great chance to hang out and catch up.

We found out Tuesday that we needed to return the board we had been borrowing for Anna which gave us the perfect excuse to finally get her a board of her own.  It is a seven foot foam board from Ron John's with a hard bottom and three fins.  See how much I've learned about surf boards this summer?  You'd think I had been catchin waves my whole life. 

Everyone was pretty tuckered out by the time we got home and cleaned up.  That gave me plenty of time to get a little more work done on RRCB. The string blocks were step three, which is where I gave up in December.  I suckered persuaded Kurt into helping de-paper all the string blocks before bed last night. He has also been known to match up dark and light squares and count finished blocks into groups of 10 upon occasion.  So with those done, I looked ahead to see what the next step was. 

A few two patches and some extra green squares. That was easy enough. Now I'm working me way slowly through steps 5 and 6. 600 HST triangles at 2 inches each?! I think I can I think I can. The kids are wanting to watch a little netflix before bed.  I guess I'll be cutting triangles for a while.