Is that Bonnie?

I was busy looking for photos for the previous post when I ran across this Christmas cookie photo from 1981 in Ames, Iowa. Grandma just informed me it "had to be a Sunday" since everyone's hair was clean and shiny!

Look closely at the photo and then at the little girl on the far left. At first I thought, how did Bonnie get in this photo? Then I realized it was Bonnie's mother. Wow, do they ever look alike.

And now a movie of Bonnie! Please note the resemblance - tiny hips, long hair, flexible body, good rhythm.

Is it the quilts? Or is it the love?

I was just sitting at the computer waiting for Grandma to leave on a visiting teaching assignment following a traditional Sunday afternoon dinner of waffles. I was initially just looking, but then as I was reading my my daughters blogs and then back at my blog (yes, I do read my own blog) about quilting and seeing Grandma's picture with Donna and realizing quilting is about love, not really about quilting. At least not for Grandma.

Donna & JoAnn

Granted, she does love the challenge of quilting, but she even more loves the process of figuring out just the right quilt for a daughter or son, or grandchild, and even grandpa. Among her first projects were high school graduation quilts that were joint efforts. The children selected a design and Mom began the work on the quilts. They were truly a work of love, because it typically took a year to get each of the quilts completed. There were lots of interruptions along the way, and other projects. But, they always were finished and delivered.

Jeni, JoAnn, & Krissie

Tim's wedding quilt was the biggest, and maybe only, queen size quilt Grandma ever tried. I remember 5 daughters taking one look at that quilt and almost in unison saying, "When do I get mine?" Well don't hold your breath. That may require retirement. Back to the point. The quilt was a labor of love - love for Tim and Lonita - and by extension to the entire family.

The McLean girls - JoAnn, Marti, Jeri

A runner for Suzanne's dining room table. Would you believe I couldn't find a photo of Suzanne with a quilt?

Grandma is best known for her smaller quilts. Every grandchild has at least one quilt, sometimes several. Alexis has 3 that I can remember: (1) baby quilt; (2) broken arm quilt; and (3) baptism quilt. She can be a little demanding (right Suzanne?). When she had a compound fracture of her arm she said she wanted "Grandma McLean to come and take care of her." When Suzanne explained that Grandma couldn't come her response was, "I need a quilt from Grandma." And yes, that became Grandma's top priority. It was the baptism quilt I was surprised by, but again Alexis asked for it. It was a classy quilt and when I asked Alexis if she was going to hang it up on her wall (what was I thinking?), her response was "It's just the right size for me."

Lots of time and effort go into a quilt, but when it is all said and done, it is the love that goes into the quilt that makes all the difference. Maybe that is why Grandma is so special. I think so!

Sally with Chas's quilt.

Sunrise at Red Rock Canyon

This morning I slept in, which means I was not up at 4:30 am, however, I was still up by a little after 6 am and once I got going I though, why not go out to Red Rock Canyon and shoot some sunrise photos. I've been wanting to do that for some time and since we just finished 2 days of rain, now seemed perfect.

I peeked out the back window and sure enough there were clouds, although I didn't look towards Red Rock. That waited until I got into the car. The clouds on the mountains behind our house presaged my anticipation for mountains bathed in clouds. I knew that Red Rock wouldn't disappoint me. However, it was getting late and I was afraid I might engage in a race with the sun. You cannot win a race with the sun. It can climb higher faster than you can drive horizontally.

It's only 5 miles to Red Rock Canyon from our house, but another 6 miles to where I planned to shoot. As I went by the BLM entrance to Red Rock Conservation Area I was really glad I hadn't planned to go into the area. The gate doesn't open until 7 am. All the climbers and hikers were anxiously waiting outside for the gate to open.

Of course, the pickup in front of me was a 50 mph model, or at least the driver was, and as soon as I could see the canyon I knew I had missed those first precious moments of sunrise. I still knew I would enjoy the sunrise, even if at 50 mph. I thought about passing, but that would distract from the beauty I was enjoying.

Finally we both got to where I planned to shoot and while the pickup drank coffee and watched the sun march down those beautiful mountains, I started shooting, resolving the whole time to leave just 10 minutes earlier next time.

The pickup left, somewhat slower than 50 mph, and I continued to enjoy the gorgeous view. Having such beautiful scenery just 10 minutes from home is one of the great benefits of living in Las Vegas. We could have just about picked a home anywhere in the valley and not have the opportunity to enjoy Red Rock so close.

I got home, loaded the photos on to my computer and shared them with JoAnn. I was blown away by how well they came out. It was worth the drive. I put 23 of them on my flickr site. Actually they are being uploaded as I write this post.

At 3 pm I finally had time to load the photos into Aperture and do some adjusting. One more time I relived the glory of the sunrise. It was a beautiful 50 degree morning with low hanging clouds some dark, some misty, some billowing. The bright sunshine cascading down the slopes fo the canyon or dancing off the clouds just stirred me.

What a great start to a great day.

Some of my favorite quilts

One thing about being married to a quilter is that it seems there is never enough time to get all of the quilts done and never enough material. Okay, there may be enough material, but I've yet to meet a quilter who believed that. The nice thing about being married to a quilter is that I get to see all of her work. And in truth, all of her quilts are my favorite, but I have some that carry a little more weight. We missed taking photos of some of JoAnn's early quilts. As we have gone to visit family we take photos of the missed quilts when we realize we don't have a photo. It goes in our flickr collection. In fact, as I was searching through our photos I realized one of our favorite quilts - at least one of was not present. Thank goodness it's one of the few we kept. We have had it hanging up for years.

I can't possible, in a single post, share all of the quilts that carry a little more meaning, so I will spread these posts out over the next several weeks/months. We shall see.

The variety of quilts is almost daunting. The above right quilt was made for our oldest daughter and is a departure from what JoAnn usually does. It took a long time and a lot of debate over colors, layout and the like. I'm amazed at how much learning goes each and every quilt.


The quilt shown above was the one I alluded to earlier. It is one of her first and remains one of my favorite quilts. I love the colors, the bees, the flowers, and the little quilting pin on the lower right hand corner. The quilt below is my personal favorite because she did it for me. It hangs right above my corner desk in our bedroom where I can look up at it frequently.


Finally, at least with this post I finish with another piece that JoAnn just completed for our youngest daughter, now living in New Mexico. When we went to visit this summer we took time to do a little quilt material shopping. That means I dropped JoAnn off and went looking for a Dairy Queen. No luck with the Dairy Queen, but you can see from the quilt below she found some great material. I love the way the colors go together.


Please note that there are no grandchildren quilts in this selection. That will be in a later "Quilting Grandma" blog.

On the Road Again - Day Tripping

We have lived in Las Vegas for just over 18 months and have yet to take a day-trip where we weren't going to visit family. We used to do that quite frequently in Indiana - just get out and go. Of course if we wanted to go to a real mall it was 70 miles away in Indianapolis and the temple was in St. Louis, 150 miles. When we went to St. Louis we mixed the temple with a nice dinner. Plus, Kentucky was only 2 hours away. It's interesting we drove across Illinois only stopping for gas.

Today we decided it was time to get out of town. There are a couple of places we could go, some with trees and green. We chose to go south to Kingman, AZ by way of Hoover Dam. It's only 110 miles, but getting across the dam takes a good 20 to 30 minutes, so it's not quick trip. It was a nice drive. The sun was out and the temperature on its way to 60 plus.

In fact, it was good just to get out. We stopped in Kingman and toured the Route 66 visitor's center. I use the term loosely, since it was an old powerhouse used as a visitor's center, gift shop, museum, and recreation hall. As I was walking around I heard what sounded like talking in the back of the visitor's center. I carefully stuck my head around the door and there was a full blown auction going on with a room full of people. As near as I could tell the auction was mostly of knick knacks, but probably antiques. It was an old town with some of their buildings made out of large stone squared off. I took a photo of the courthouse which JoAnn and I thought was neat.

From there we went west to Bullhead City, AZ, right on the Colorado river. I wasn't really impressed, but then we didn't really get into the city. It appears to be a retirement area. The river is over burdened with parking lots and other buildings, blocking good access.

Right across the river is Laughlin, NV which as near as I can tell is only composed of casinos. The road into Bullhead City was a 12 mile 6 percent downgrade with a stop light at the end. It was a pretty drive. It was a long climb up out of the river valley after we left Laughlin. And then it was back to the desert - of course it was all desert, but it varies and unlike I heard a person say on my last air flight, "It's a barren wasteland", it is not. In its own way, it is very beautiful and varied.

It was getting on to lunch time and after we left Laughlin I was afraid we would have to go all the way back home to eat, but we were saved by Searchlight and its two gas stations and McDonalds. Not our first choice, but it did taste good.

Yes, it was a fun day and we enjoyed just being out and on the road for no purpose other than to enjoy ourselves. We saw places we had not seen before, at least in the daylight, and now have a better feel for southern Nevada and northwest Arizona. We could see California, but stayed away this time.

Letters

Today Grandma and I each received a letter from our 2nd Grandaughter (Alexis) in Idaho. The letters...

"Grandmu

Why are you not calling me (obviously Grandma made a commitment) becus you sed that you wod call me evry 1 week and your not wiy?

Sind back
Love Alexis"

Okay, Grandma feels appropriately chastened and has made a commitment to the calls.

Letter 2 to Grandma:

"Dear Gramu

I love you sow much. But I hop the other letter do's not disupot you gramu!

Love Alexis"

A little repentance on her part. She love Grandma, but wants those phone calls. I suspect they will be coming on a regular basis.

Now Grandpa's letters. There were two buried in the envelope and I didn't find the second one until I saw Grandma had 2 letters.

"Dear Grampu,

I love you. I chang my mind I wont to go to Diny land (Disneyland). I wont to go sown to your how's (house). How is Wisper! (Whisper is the Devil Cat who doesn't like children).

Love
Alexis

Sind Back!"

Letter 2:

"Hi Grampu

I hope your bak fil's beter.

Wind are we going to Disny land?

Love,
Alexis

Sind Back!"

Don't you just love the letters. Like all of our grandchildren she is so sweet. Although I hope her mother reports fully on Alexis's doctor visit yesterday where she tried to slug the nurse when she was getting a shot! I will leave that for Suzanne.

You can see there are some clear expectations on Alexis's part for us to respond. I guess JoAnn and I have some letter writing to do. The work of Grandparent's never ends, but then we don't want it to end.

Grandma's Cleaning Up

On Friday evening, after a long and very busy week, we were sitting around relaxing and turned on the television about 8 pm. I was really ready to relax, but not Grandma. No, she felt guilty about not doing something - that is so Grandmaish - always got to be working on something. I had better be careful while I write this since she is sitting next to me. I suggested she relax, but it didn't seem to be taking. Finally I asked, what's the big deal? You've worked all week on stuff, surely you can relax one evening. But that quilting room was just screaming at her. Somehow I was able to convince her that relaxing was more important then working. It was getting late and I still wanted to relax and not by myself. Nothing selfish about me.

Saturday rolls around and sure enough Grandma is ready to work on that quilting room. It must have been around noon. Remember, she is the night quilter. Early afternoon I looked in and she was on the computer. Is it clean already, was my question. Yes, it is. I took one look at her workspace and it didn't look clean to me. So I took a photo, which I will pay for.


After a quick look from Grandma I knew I was on think ice, so I took off, made myself invisible, not to be seen. Sometime later, after hearing some commotion I sneaked out of my hiding spot, made a quick check, and sure enough the quilting room was clean and as Grandma whizzed by she said, "I found some really neat stuff."


She's happy and I'm happy and the room's clean. It works for all of us.

Making the Memory Quilt

In October, following Calvin's death and funeral, Clayton asked Grandma if she would make him a quilt, so he wouldn't forget Calvin. Clayton is a tender young man who has a great love for others.

Grandma and Jeni thought it was a great idea, and couldn't wait to get started on a memory quilt. They split up the responsibilities so both Clayton and Cole would receive a separate, but similar quilt. For example, Jeni used photos of Calvin and the family, that we had gathered and put them on fabric. Grandma pulled out the alternate fabrics to go with the photos. All of the various pieces of material were then cut into squares. Okay, everyone, what I know about quilting is less than zero, so bare with me.

I was in Colorado for a short weekend in early November and delivered and picked up the squares Grandma and Jeni had prepared individually. In a sense, I have had a hand in these two quilts, even if it was as a delivery boy.

The time between the end of October and early December is a very busy time and JoAnn had several projects in various stages of completion - quilt for Alexis's baptism, quilt for Krissie, stocking for Joshua, and a new church calling as a Relief Society Counselor. She was mighty busy.

As the self-imposed deadline grew closer both Grandma and Jeni were talking about how far along they were, and it wasn't nearly far enough. Grandma could see all kinds of challenges looming out in the future. But, she is a late night quilter - actually, somedays, more of an all-day quilter that bleeds late into the evening. Of course, don't ask her to get up very early, and I don't.

It was finally completed and mailed to Cole. Jeni had Clayton's quilt. They had agreed to mail them on the same day. Guess what? It didn't happen. But it was mailed pretty quickly.


We got a call from Clayton a couple of days later and he wanted to know if the quilt was for him or Cole, of if there was only one quilt and they had to share? I assured him the other quilt was on the way. Clayton immediately called Jeni and asked if she could drive it over from Denver (only 12 hours and in the dead of winter), or overnight it? Jeni said it is at the post office and you should get it in a couple of days. But, as the post office works, it seems never in a timely fashion, Grandma's quilt took 2 days to get there and Jeni's quilt 5 days. Go figure?


The quilt was difficult to do because the loss of Calvin was so fresh, and still is, in our minds. I know that JoAnn and Jeni struggled with these two quilts more than any quilts they have ever done. In some ways it helped to deal with the loss and in other ways reminded us of the loss. The boys, however, will always have a reminder from their Grandma and Aunt Jeni.

The back overlaid on the front. Jeni's quilt had a green scout background.

No quilt is official until Whisper has given it her "nap blessing"

Happy New Year

About 9 am this morning we are doing the breakfast dishes and the telephone rings. The caller ID reported "Colorado Call." That's the cue for an Allen family call.

I pick up the phone and say "Hello" and hear on the other end "Hey," so I respond with a "Hey." Then I hear a chorus of young voices in somewhat unison, "Happy New Year!" And my daughter saying, "Oh, you ruined it?" I didn't think I did. I thought it was cute.

"Let's do it again for you mother. On 3."

I listen, "1, 2," and a put the phone to JoAnn's ear before the "3."

"Happy New Year" was a little louder. Nothing works better then a little rehearsal.

So, Happy New Year everyone!