Vacation Day 9 Orlando & Visit with Ed & Sharon

It must be Wednesday, it's been hard to keep track of days, as much as I don't want to go home and I would like to stay longer. I do have a lovely home and a job to return to. So I have keep track of the days. Today is quilt shop day in Orlando. I have restricted myself to only two shops. I found them on Google and I was very pleased with them. Today my husband just stayed in the car and listened to radio via his phone.
The first shop I went to was The Quilter's Cove. Denise at the store was very helpful and gave us good directions to find the shop. Which really helped since we found Orlando very confusing to find our way around. It was a nice clean and bright shop with some nice sample. Denise showed me a project she was working on which is very cute. Maybe if I had grand kids I would make it but not now. I purchased some fabric. She kindly gave me the directions to the other shop I wanted to go to and a Shop Hop passport so I would know all the other shops in the area. I gave that to Linda.

The second shop was The Cornerstone. Here I found some fabric I fell in love with. I mean I could not leave it behind and it had some lovely coordinate fabrics with it. I decided to make a Yellow Brick Road out of the fabric and I was easily able to find a few more fat quarters to make a lap size quilt. I left with enough of the theme fabric for the borders and a resting border fabric. It will look lovely. Now when will I make it?? Not this week. I haven't taken a picture of it yet. OK I got up and took a picture. Here it is. The colors are so much better in person.

After my quilting fix we headed to Lakeland Fl to see my youngest brother Ed, his wife Sharon & son Teddy. Here we are in front of the quilt I made for them as a wedding gift in 2000. My husband tried to tell me they just hung it for our visit. I told him I don't, care, they cared enough to have it out when I was there. I still think it is a permanent place. I was amazed at how much Ed looks like our Dad, but with more hair. My Dad was bald, he use to tell people he gave his hair to me, when I was 9 or so because I had hair down to my waist.

Here is son Teddy, playing in the pool and keeping cool.
We had a really nice visit. We looked at the pictures I have taken of Don & Kathy. Ed & Sharon's wedding pictures, and pictures Ed has of us as kids. That was really fun. Ed made us a great Lasagna dinner. My Dad was a great cook, we loved it when he cooked. He was also the cook on his shift as a fireman. Don is a good cook, so his wife tells me, he was also the cook on his shift as a fireman/paramedic. George my brother in TX also likes to cook, he made this wonderful French Onion Soup one time when I visited. I guess the boys got the cooking gene in this family. I can cook and I'm a good one when I put my mind to it, but I just don't like to cook. That's strange I sure like to eat.
We spent the rest of the evening traveling back to Miami. Even that had it's adventures. We hit about three hard summer rain storms. The rain was so heavy in the first storm that we were going 30 miles an hour on the interstate and could only see 1 to 2 car lengths in front of us. Scary! Lucky for us a break in the weather came just as we were at Venice Beach and we took a break for ice cream, for me to put my feet in the gulf and to watch the sun set. You can see the storm behind me and here are the last of the sun set.

The rain followed us all the way to Miami for it rain the next morning in Miami and since we are been home AZ it has started to rain. Usually it doesn't start raining here until June or July.