It can't possibly have been a year

It Can't possibly have been a Year

I can't believe that it has been nearly a year since I last wrote in this blog.  Life does tend to get away from us.  It has been a very busy year.  To begin with we have a new Great Granddaughter  and she is now 8 months old - wasn't that just last week we drove over to Chicago when her mommy went in the hospital to have her.  Well I guess it has been.

Then in July my quilting buddy and I took off for a Quilt Shop Hop into Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Canada and Iowa.  It was my first trip into North Dakota and my first trip out of the USA.  It was a lot of fun.  I had no idea there was so much open space in North Dakota - next time I will be better prepared - and I am a country girl - just not that much country!!

In August my husband and I took off and headed west.  We went to Yellowstone National Park where we had a close encounter on the Buffalo kind.  

He had it in his head to charge the road, but she had other ideas.  It was interesting they way she headed him off and turned him.  It also seemed like she was talking to him the entire time.  There was a herd of them in the area, but these two really interested me.

From Yellowstone we headed further north and went to Glacier National Park.  The scenery in this park is spectacular.  If I was a decade or two younger it would be a wonderful place to hike - but I was content with the car and my camera and some wonderful places to pull over and take pictures.

Our last stop of the trip was the Badlands in South Dakota.  It was an interesting place to visit, but after a while, one rock starts to look just like the last rock, but this place was rather interesting.

In between all the trips and the holidays, our granddaughter graduated from High School, our grandson joined the Marines, and we had several family parties and picnics.  It was an eventful year.

But it is now January and while we've had a very mild winter so far - especially compared to last Winter at about this time - we did have a bad ice/snow storm last weekend and the weekend before.  This past weekend included the coldest temperatures of the season but didn't come close to last year thank goodness.  But then again it is still January.

I've spent a lot of time reading  - I definitely won't go into all of them  - but I read some of my favorites:

David Baldecci

Clive Cussler

Donna Andrews

Amanda Quick

Susan Wittig Albert

Laurie R. King

Jacqueline Winspear

Hope Callaghan

Susanna Gregory

Thomas Perry

Ellery Adams

Jennifer Chiaverini

Nevada Barr

 And also a few new ones

Dale Mayer

Susan Ella MacNeal

Lynne Hint

Kennedy Chase

Sally Goldbloom

So many books - so little time!!