We were in south England for two days and now we're in North Wales.

I've been keeping a journal in the point of view of PJ the hippo who's gone everywhere with us. 

I've also taken about 200 pictures, which I've been uploading to my facebook page.  If you're my friend on there, you can see them there. I probably won't get any posted here until I get back.  Perhaps I will, but it's not likely.  Too much to do. =)

We're going to Conwy Castle in North Wales and then going on to Hadrian's wall at the Scotland and England border.

Hello from Maryland!

We arrived safely at around 9:45 last night. We're at my grandfather's house, visiting. My older sister and her family is living with him a the moment while her husband works in DC, so we get to see them as well.  My mother, sisters, and cousins are in the capitol right now, meeting with senators and having a tour.

On the way up here we had some van troubles. Our van smelled badly, like brakes and it rumbled whenever we started up again after stopping for gas.  We had just had the breaks replaced the day before leaving, because before it had sounded like a plane coming in for landing when we stopped.

So my dad took the van in to the shop here in DC, instead of going to the capitol like my mom would have liked (my aunt drove up in her van, so my mom was able to take that in. We had too many people to take the metro, too much $$).   The mechanics figured out what was wrong and fixed it and replaced two tires because of wear from the new breaks.  Bleah, but at least it works now.  Our van is only about 5 years old, but it's gone about 240,000 miles. =)  And all but 9,000 of those were with us.

We leave MD on November 2nd, I believe, stopping in Nashville for the night. We'll be seeing friends there, too, hopefully.

On a sad note, I was planning on bringing Sam with me, but I forgot him at the last minute, so hopefully I'll at least be able to claim PJ from Lissi in Nashville and PJ can come.

One of the projects I've been working on recently is a new skirt for my mom.  She's been saying recently that her wardrobe is rather threadbare and she needed some new skirts.  She asked me to make her one, saying she really liked the one my aunt (her sister) had and she'd like me to make one just like it.   

My aunt kindly said I could borrow her skirt and even take it apart if need be to replicate it for my mom. I decided to just look at it and create my own pattern pieces, however, to see if I'd be any good at it.  It's been something I've wanted to try for awhile.  This was my main reason, my other was that I wasn't 100% certain with myself that I could get my aunt's skirt back together again after I took it apart.




So I examined the skirt thoroughly and drafted my pattern.  It took a bit of time to gather the courage to cut the denim we bought for this purpose.  It's the first time I've made my own pattern for anything bigger than a doll (which I have done many times).  Fortunately, we were able to get the fabric at 50% at a sale and so my mom reassured me that it wouldn't be a huge loss.

I didn't get any pictures of the work in progress, but I did get the finished product.  

These pictures are a bit grainy because I had to take them with my little camera, instead of our nice one, as that one was out of battery.

This skirt cost a total of $11. The buttons were recycled from various other garments and I had the thread from a past project.

   It has 4 big belt loops and closes on the left side with 2 buttons and a hook and eye.  There are two pockets.