I can't believe it's already June.  May was funfilled with a nine day vacation with my father and camping with my brother's family.  Dad and I drove to Utah and back for a photography trip.  So much fun!  We mostly spent our time around Arches National Park, but saw many other National and State parks in the area. 

We came back from the trip two days later had a gallery opening for the Prairie Lakes Regional Art Council Juried Art Exhibit.  Quite a mouthful, but what it really means is the art council for the local nine counties has a juried art show.  Each artist is allowed to submit two works.  The judging determines whether or not each piece will be displayed.  Honestly at first I was not planning on submitting anything for the show and I've been a little apprehensive about showing any of my photography to non family/close friends.  I think it is because I feel high pressure to live up to my father's photography and that people expect the same quality and beautiful work.  For some reason though, when he had his two pictures ready for submission I had a spark of motivation and sucked up all of my fears to submit two myself.  He received his acceptance letter for both pictures the day before I got my letter in the mail.  I was really nervous and practically attacked my mailman to get the letter the next day.  It was like applying for colleges all over again.  I was thrilled that one picture had been accepted!  It was even more fun to go to the gallery and see my picture hanging up amongst the other artwork. 

The following weekend hubby and I went camping with my brother's family.  We ended up going to Camden State Park for the sole reason that when I tried to reserve campsites for the weekend it was the only state campground in Southern Minnesota that had sites available.  I was worried that reflected badly on the campground but everything was great!  The site was nice, the bathrooms were clean, the trails were fun, the kids were able to swim and overall I think everyone had a great time.  The highlight of the weekend was hiking up to the train tracks and putting pennies on the tracks.  After the train went by the kids raced up to the tracks to find their pennies.  It was a challenge to find the pennies since they flew off of the tracks, but such a great activity. 

The last Sunday of the month was spent with hubby's family.  The girl's got together to make save the date cards for Kait and Jeremy's wedding.  Afterwards we walked around downtown which ended up being a blast.  I guess I never realized how close their house is to everything downtown.  We then went back to the house, rounded up the boys and had a bbq dinner.  After dinner the guys took the kids down to West High School's baseball field and played baseball for awhile.  It ended up being a great day and a fun way to end the month!

I have a couple of projects to finish this week before heading up north for a quilting retreat.  My excitement in going is getting in the way of me working on said projects.  I need to finish a Fiona bag that I'm making for a family friend, which should be fairly easy as this will be the 3rd or 4th time I've made this purse.  I love the feminine look that is made by all of the pleating and gathering.  I also need to finish two pairs of flannel pj pants that are for birthday gifts.  There's nothing better in the world than flannel pj pants, especially if you live in Minnesota. 

As always, I have lofty goals for this weekend's quilting retreat.  I'm really hoping to quilt and finish a lap sized quilt and work on a few smaller projects.  I'm also going to work on a purse for myself that will use some techniques I learned in a class a couple of weeks ago on stitching with special threads.  The purse will have cherry blossoms on the front made out of metallic and silky threads. 

I've also decided that I just can't put off organizing all of my digital scrapbooking files anymore.  I haven't really been able to enjoy digital scrapping because I have such a hard time finding the item I'm looking for.  So I ordered ACDSee Photo manager and found a website that gives help and hints for the program.  I have a feeling this project will take me several months if not closer to a year to finish.  Sigh.  I really really really wish I had organized them with this program from the beginning. 

 

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