A great ride home - and Spike!

I've been trying to find time to blog ever since we got home. Market ended at 4:00 on Sunday and we were on the road by six. We drove (well, Pep drove, I sat and hooked - I'm making coasters out of homespuns for the 4th of July) for 3 hours and then stopped for the night.

It's a 16 hour drive from Salt Lake City to Cameron so that left us 13 hours on Monday. The trip through Wyoming was awesome. This is part of a windfarm that stretched across the horizon.

And of course, there were the mountains in the distance.

Nebraska, not to be outdone, had a dinosaur. This was a full size T-Rex beside the highway. Pep pulled off at the exit so we could take a picture. By the time we realized what it was we were past it and this was as close as we could get.

Back at home I unpacked, rested and started laundry on Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday I drove to Kansas City to meet Spike's breeder and pick him up. If you're in the Market for a bulldog, I highly recommend Nicole and Spring Valley Bulldogs. Along with his papers, she brought along a booklet of tips for training, vitamins he'd been taking and a small package of the food he'd been eating.

A healthy, happy, bouncy bulldog puppy is now part of the family. As you can see,

Bully is not exactly thrilled with the addition. I'm making sure that Bully gets lots of attention - more really than he required before Spike joined us. His attitude still is "so - when is he going back home?" I must say, it doesn't help things any when Spike tries to nurse. :)

Instead of showing lots of booth pictures (I'll show you mine as soon as I can find it) I thought I'd show the group picture Camille took for Moda. I did like the picture Sandy Gervais had on her blog of all of our feet - (Bruce couldn't get the camera to work) but this one is a little better.

Moda had a Schoolhouse at Market. Lissa had all of us design a 12" block and give her a recipe and a quilting tip. Then they had all of the blocks printed up on Recipe cards for us to have in our booths. Shops went to all of the designer's booths and picked up the recipe cards. I did too - I have a collection of 14 recipe cards (14 blocks) in all - - a sampler quilt. And I have a collection of the cards for you along with a scrap bag of strips from Together, the newest Brannock/Patek line that will ship to stores in August.

But there's a chore involved. A funny one. Awhile ago I sent a video to Lissa Alexander, if you watch it, you'll know why I sent it. I don'tknow how to put videos on the blog but she does. Go to her blog and watch it and make a comment, any old comment will do. Or you can comment about Spike. Or if you can't comment on the blog, email Byron at janpatekquilts@yahoo.com.

I'll draw a name from the comments, next Monday.

And I will end this with a contented sigh - It was lots of fun but it's good to be home.