A Quick Visit North

Last weekend, my husband and I did a quick three hour car ride north to my parents' house to celebrate my Papa's birthday. (Just to be clear, Papa means "grandpa" around these parts.)

I brought along the fancy camera and snuck in some shots of my mom's craft room. We have different styles and processes, but I guess you can see where I get it from.

She has this really fantastic old type drawer that she keeps all her "small things" in neat and tidy order. Some of these objects were unfamiliar to me, and some I remember seeing in childhood. In our old house, my mom's crafting space existed in nearly every room--laundry and play room, kitchen, garage, where ever it could fit! Nowadays, she keeps it limited to her home office, and the knick-knacks are tucked away in things like old type drawers.

It's not that there's less crafting to do, just more teaching to cover. She teaches AP US History and AP World, so she has her hands full in that department. I guess you can see where I got that from too.

Every history teacher needs a student who will gift her some presidential pez dispensers!

When things got quiet in the house, we went off in search of the men. Here's my dad and my husband in matching manly uniform, painting trim for the outside of the house.

Close-up of the manly man beard

For the birthday celebration, we ate my Nana's fried chicken, then sat around and watched some good old college football.

Family photos ended up being either wildly spontaneous (read: strange expressions and unfocused) or quickly posed, like when I tried to take this shot of everyone talking!

Guys talked politics.

Dad tried to give the team all his best advice, but they wouldn't listen. We lost.

We all stood around as my Aunt sneakily washed Nana's dishes before Nana found out and shooed her away.

And I got to show my embroidery and teacher top to my family. It's a wonderful thing when strangers are impressed by something that you made, but it means so much more when you can impress those crafty people whose work you admire so much. 

All in all, a great visit, and we're ready for the next one!