Fall Crafts

(Aug 16)

My fall knitting is all about hats and the Sisterhood blanket.  LOL!  That's what Jamie and I are calling the pinwheel blanket we're co-knitting right now.  I knit and finished a pinwheel blanket earlier this year and had so much fun doing it I convinced Jamie to repurpose some yarn she bought for a pattern she wasn't enjoying.  She started it, I bought more to augment it and because I need exactly zero more blankets and just like to knit, she and I are combining forces to work on a Sisterhood (of the traveling) blanket project.  Get it...like the books....

(Aug 17)

I knit these two hats for the girls in prep for the winter months.  Plus they are perfect projects for traveling - and I've got a handful of trips this fall.  Houston, Nashville and Portland, Maine so having projects that are small enough to fit in my travel bag is key!

(Aug 19)

(Aug 20)

I have no idea how many blocks we'll get out of the random assortment of yarn we're pooling together but I'm guessing we'll have enough to make two blankets in the end.  It'll be fun to see how this scrap project comes together.  

(Sept 13)

(Sept 26)

As school activities ramp up and the cooler weather comes in I start finding time to quilt and I am so excited to start this one.  Its so wild but the colors are vibrant and fun and I can't wait to see how it comes together.  This is the first of three kits I bought from a new company called Then Came June.  I stumbled onto her account, maybe through Instagram, earlier this year and I couldn't help but snap up a few kits she had posted.  I knew it would be awhile until I'd get to them, but I can't wait to see how they come out.  I anticipate I'll become a repeat customer to this shop!  I love everything she has posted and the explosion of color is exactly my favorite thing!

(Sept 27)

Quilting doesn't travel well so having two projects or more going at once is pretty common for me.  Mom bought this kit from Susan Bates - it's the Shenandoah National Park hat and its fall colors are prefect for wearing right now!  These hats knit up fast and I wanted to get it to Mom so she could wear it this fall. 

(Sept 28)

This pattern specifically has a ton of different colors and a lot of color work, which is fun after working on the more simple pinwheel blanket I'm doing at the same time.

(Sept 30)

On a flight to Maine and I swapped back in the pinwheel squares because they are less fiddly and having just two colors of yarn is easier to travel with!  

(Oct 1)

Back home again and finishing this up quick before Ryan and I head to Traverse City this weekend for our anniversary trip.  Mom and Dad are watching the girls for us so I want to leave this for her as a thank you.  

(Oct 2)

(Oct 4)

Gah!  I am going to love this quilt so much!  It's tricky - not for batch sewing.  I've decided I have to work one block at a time, one step at a time.  I had to unpick a lot of stitches in this block but now that I've got one done I think I've got the hang of it and they'll go quicker.  There are 9 total blocks in this quilt and I can do a single block in a few hours of sewing.  It's one of the more complicated quilts I've done between the sewing and the color work so I'm going to go slow and steady and I can't wait to see how it comes together.

The sisterhood blanket is coming along nicely!

(Oct 9)

Anniversary weekend knitting in Traverse City....

(Oct 14)

(Oct 27)

(Nov 1)

(Nov 8)

The black and white is the backing - this ones is ready to head to the quilter and I can not wait to gift this one.  I won't send this off until early Feb probably, I'll pull together 2 or 3 more before then and send over a big batch of quilts for next year.  I'm trying to build up enough that I can do some bulk gifting over the next couple of years.  I want to give all the Murphy aunts and McGrath aunts quilts along with some of Mom and Dad's friends I grew up with but it seems like I can't give out one without having one for everyone so that's my current goal.  It'll mean 8-12 quilts in total, an undertaking for sure!

(Nov 11)

This won't be the final layout, I probably won't be able to set that up until they are all complete but it's coming along!  I just did an inventory of the colored yarn we have left and I bet we can make another 10-15 squares.  This will either become one large lap blanket or maybe two smaller blankets. We'll see!

Homecoming

Homecoming weekend turned out to be much busier than I expected!  We had a football game on Friday night (of course...that is part of Homecoming weekend) and then Saturday afternoon Abby had one of her first color guard competitions down at NIU.  We all went and it was fun to see all the other schools perform.  We got some perspective on how Marengo compares to the other schools.

And then on Saturday night Abby decided she wanted to go to the dance!  Well, she'd decided earlier in the week but I didn't have a lot of lead time to get her set up with a dress.  Luckily I stumbled on this beautiful  sparkly green dress.  It was so cute and fit her perfectly and only cost me $30!  It felt like it was meant to be!

My pretty girl - I was so proud of her as she walked into the school that Saturday night.  She walked in all by herself, confidently with her head held high and looking like she was ready to take on the world.  I didn't get a lot of info on what actually happened at the dance but I think next year she'll be looking for a group of girls to go in with.  I think it was a little chaotic trying to find her friends in the dark loud gym.  I think going in together as a group would have made being there a little bit easier/more fun.  

Devils Lake Tri (2026)

 

We're sad to say it, but we just finished up our final camping trip of the year.  The addition of Color Guard and Friday Football games, in addition to the competitions for color guard and suddenly our fall weekends are pretty booked up.  We pulled Abby out of one parade so that we could still squeeze in the Devils Lake Tri - a family favorite trip.  Mom and Dad were set to join, along with Joey and Andy, but they ended up on a trip to Croatia with Doug and Kathy (poor them! LOL) so we subbed in Jamie and Zach - which the kids were VERY excited about.

The weather did NOT cooperate for the weekend though - it was cold and rained most of the weekend.  I think they got nearly 2 inches of rain in Wisconsin this weekend, and I dumped out 4 inches from our rain gauge this morning.  It was cold and wet and overall, not great for camping or hiking or fires or jumping rock jumping.  So, us adults came up with a plan B and picked up tickets for the Kalahari Waterpark in the Dells.  We've never been to this park, always the Wilderness so I knew the kids would be ecstatic about the change in plans.

I managed to get exactly zero photos of the group at the water park.  I have a few videos of Abby attempting to surf, but nothing I can post on the blog book...bummer!!

The race coordinators really threw us for a loop this year though!  They moved the entire race down to the south side of the lake - a real disappointment because one of the reasons we love this race so much is because it's so easy to watch and you can see the run right from our campsite.  Luckily Ryan had time to realize it had moved and get himself down there (a short 6 mile hilly bike ride...nothing like starting a race with a pre-race ride).  He texted me as soon as he realized so I had time to roust everyone and get them moving earlier than expected.  Joey and Andy didn't come down, they missed the text and by the time they saw it the race was well underway and I'm not even sure they would have been able to get to the parking lot with all the race stuff happening and all the roads being blocked off for the bike and run.  

In the end - Ryan finished in almost exactly the same time as he has the past few years.  A real testament to his physical fitness, that he can just whip out a race with relatively little preparation and do it consistently in the same time year over year.  Eventually he'll age up and out of the wave he's been in the past few years and it's going to really throw my timing off.  This year I guessed his bike time in exactly - to the minute.  And was only 1 minute off on his run time in.  I'll never run a race...but I am a pretty good race fan!

1 Family x 12 (Sept)

 

Our last camping trip of 2026 is officially in the books - the Devils Lake Tri!  We always love this trip and this year was no different.  

Garth Brooks Concert

 

When we started 2026, I didn't have any idea it would be the year of the 90's country concerts but I now wish EVERY year was that year.  We had two amazing concerts and both would rank in my top 5 fav shows.  I'd have to put Chris Stapleton as my top 1 concert but from there, the Chicks get #2 and Garth gets #3.  It was great and only made better by the fact that Mom/Dad and Erin/Nate came too.  Oh and the fact that we had a Sunday matinee show - 2:00pm start time.  Why don't they start all concerts at this time!?!  We grabbed lunch at Chilis, watched a little bit of the Bears game, saw the concert and made it home in time to see the Packers game end (a loss...booo!).  

The show was great - it was fun to see a "big" concert and we had great seats.  Erin made a Garth Bingo game which everyone around us found to be very entertaining.  

Erin and I have been saying for years "if Garth ever tours again, we'll spend whatever it takes to be there" and we sure did make good on that oath.  This concert took place less than a week after Dolly Parton passed, just another reminder that these artist from our childhood/early adulthood aren't going to be around forever and we've got to take the opportunities when they come!  I suspect we'll be grabbing more 90's country concerts in the coming years.  

Oh and I almost forgot!  Add in the fact that it was Mom's birthday on top of it all....and we had a great day planned - it'll be hard to top this one.

The Chicks (IL State Fair and the Girls First Concert)

Back, I don't even know how many month, Erin sent me an Insta post for advance tickets to see the Chicks at the Illinois State Fair.  She didn't have to twist my arm to figure out how to make it happen.  We got pre-sale tickets for Mom/Dad, Erin and the 4 of us to see the concert and little did we know that that was the beginning of one of my favorite weekends of the summer.

Now, I fully recognize the insanity of booking plans MONTHS in advance, but here's the thing, it works for us and we are able to do exactly the things we want....if you start planning early.  I've said it a million bazillion times.  Being ahead of everyone else is the key to getting exactly what you want.  We scored advance tickets and that meant that we were able to research and submit our applications to camp right in the fair grounds (on the day the applications opened).  That meant we were able to pull our campers right into the fair grounds and walk our little booty butts right from our cool, air conditioned campers into the fair for however long we wanted to be there and then we could walk right back down, let the dogs out, grill/cook whatever we wanted to eat, drink our free drinks and do it all on our timeline.  It was amazing!  
 

We had the best time at the fair.  We saw the butter cow, watched a gnarly car crash on the race track less than 40 feet from us (I was actually worried we were in danger of being hit by debris), we ate funnel cakes, had lemonade shakeup, we rode the ski-tram, pet rabbits and baby piglets (that were less than 3 days old!!!).  We ate ice cream, drank beers, had BBQ and paid $6 for waters.  The kids fished (odd side event) and both won 2/3 raffle prizes!  But, the best part of the whole thing was undoubtedly the concert.  I knew the words to every single song and I was living my best life.  It was the most fun weekend, albeit shorter than we wanted, thanks to color guard and football Friday's, but I'll get used to that.

Truly, this was a 10/10 weekend and I'll be scouting the music lineup for next summer for sure.  I wish the concert would have been on the front end of the fair instead of the back end though.  Most of the animals were already packed up and gone by the time we got there Saturday early afternoon.  The fair had started the weekend before and most of the competitions and shows were already completed.  We didn't get to see the animals or all of the crafts and other entries into the fair but we know enough now to know how to do it better the next time we go!

Figuring out how to navigate the camping reservations was a real special treat but we know more now that we've been.  Mom and Dad got there on Friday and picked to camp in an area called Happy Hollows which put us on a paved area, and the closest camping to the fair grounds (not our normal preferred location...but it was perfect for what we were trying to do).  I'd propose we try to get right in that spot again next year if we could.

The fair was great, but by far, the best part of the weekend was the concert. It was perfect.  We had great seats....lucked out with extra seats around us (enough room for Hazel to fall asleep across 3 spots), the bleachers had backs, we were row that was the first row of the section, meaning nobody in front of us...and we bought seats with 4 in one row and 3 behind so we were stacked and could easily talk etc.  

I knew the words to every single song, sang my heart out....and even had a tear or two when they say Wide Open Spaces (that was unexpected...somehow I was immediately transported back to high school and transported forward in time to seeing Abby leave for college.  I was some how myself as a teenager, my mom saying bye to me...and me saying bye to Abby.  It was a real trip and I'm even a little emotional just typing it!  4 more summers.  That's all we've got before Abby leave for college and things change forever.  Gosh...who knew this summer would be so introspective and transformative for me.  Turns out sending your oldest to highschool is a real milestone.  I didn't expect it!

And, in a real juxtaposition, I've got Abby headed to high school and that childhood flashing before my eyes and then look to my left and I've got sweet Hazel, 11 years old and falling asleep in the bleachers at the concert.  I guess that's why you have 2 or more kids...so you've always got a little one at home!  One who can still be the "baby" of the family.  Haze made it through about 2/3 of the concert but she didn't make it all the way to the end and she 10000% missed Goodbye Earl - the closing song of the night, obvi!

Top 1 night of the summer so far! This one is going to be hard to beat.  I think we've peaked....Summer is turning to Fall and I know there is good ahead, but in this moment, we revel in the best night of the summer.

1 Family x 12 (August)

 

10/10 top weekend - the IL State Fair and The Chicks concert.  It was hot, we had limited time, but we came, we saw, we sang our hearts out and I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.