Lots of events have been going on of late .... (no pictures in this post as I am away from home and my photo inventory!) ...

The Pirate's oldest daughter became married to a wonderful man.  The ceremony was on Mt. Diablo; the reception was at the Pirate homestead.  ENORMOUS amounts of time were spent getting the place looking spiffy.  The ceremony and reception were low-key and very enjoyable.  I do believe everyone had a wonderful time.

Almost immediately after the reception, Mr. Pirate & I took off on a LONG-deferred 2 week road trip around Arizona.  I took many, many, MANY pictures (but none available at the moment) and kept a travel journal.  The pictures need to be culled and the good ones posted in the blog.  The notes from the travel journal were transcribed nightly onto the laptop that we took with us.  The original plan was to blog about the day's adventure as they happened, so you, Dear Reader, could experience the trip along with us.  Sadly, internet access was intermittent and, when available, slower than molasses in January.  It just wasn't feasible to blog en route.  Therefore, upon our return, a new set of Adventure pages will be made to document the road trip.

Eventually, the Arizona road trip ended and we did make it back home in one piece, safe and sound.  BUT ...
exactly a week-and-a-half later, we are on the road *again*!

This time ..... ::anticipatory pause:: ... I am going to MQX!    (Machine Quilters Exposition) in Portland, OR!  Mr. Pirate and I decided to make it another road trip ... a couple of days up to Portland, 4 days at MQX, and a few days returning home.  Again .. internet is spotty, so there won't be any concurrent blogs.  I am scheduled to take FOUR hands-on classes with some very big-name, experienced longarm quilters ... Ranae Haddadin, DeLoa Jones, Linda Taylor and Linda McCuean.  Each class is 4 hours long and *each* student gets to stitch at her own longarm machine.  I will be in seventh heaven and delirious with happiness!  Even with a making a doodle cloth in the classes and taking copious notes & drawings, I hope that I will be able to retain all this knowledge that is going to be stuffed in my head.

Again, I am taking pictures along the way and keeping a travel journal.  Upon our return, a much more informative blog will be written. :-)

Stay tuned!  :-)