Visiting the East Coast

At the beginning of last week, we made the grueling, two-day road trip from Texas to my parents' house in upstate NY.  Pulling into their driveway on Monday night was such an intense relief!  

Here is some embroidery that I did during our journey:

I didn't get much done, because I was completely absorbed in reading Harry Potter: The Half-Blood Prince (I'm such a looser -- I only get into things when they're no longer trendy).

The next five days were filled with lots of cooking (seven of my eight siblings still live at home, plus my little nephew, and then the addition of our family of six = sixteen people in the house), endless dishes (they have to run the dishwasher THREE TIMES A DAY), late (LATE!) night visits with my brothers and sisters, and lots of quality family time all around.  We were SO busy, in fact, that I never even managed to upload any pictures until just now.

Three of my sisters and I, out for the night together.  (From left: Hannah, Grace, me, Joy -- Rachel is only 13, and therefore a little too young to go "out".)  As you can see, Grace and I managed to get caught in a flash thunder-storm.  Fun!

My whole family except for my brother Jonathan, who is an officer in the Army and stationed in Germany.

I'll be sharing snippets of our visit over the next few days, as well as some of my projects that I've brought along to work on.  We're staying at my Greg's parents' for the rest of the week, and the pace of life here is a bit more gentle, so I may be able to focus a little more on my own pursuits.

Have a lovely Monday!!