family

Oh, the Quirky Places we Go!

May 14, 2013 By JulieK

If you know us, you know that we’re “hop in the car and go someplace” people! We’re always going someplace, and it’s usually some quirky out of the ordinary place. In fact, I’m often posting some “Guess where the Kelley’s are today” pictures on facebook :)

A couple of places we’ve been to recently have been real hits!! We headed out one weekend to Clinton, MA (not that far) to go to the Russian Icon Museum. Honestly, it’s wonderful!! If you have any interest at all in religious artifacts, it’s THE place to go. The collection is huge, the set-up and the displays are beautifully done, there’s a recorded “tour” with added information, and a kids’ scavenger hunt to keep the kiddos entertained while you’re reading about the icons! It was a great visit, and we’ll probably go again we liked it so much! They have a traveling exhibit of Matryoshka dolls (the nesting dolls) coming this month, do we’ll have to plan another trip! Wait, who am I kidding?? We don’t plan :) we just go!

Of course, no trip down route 495 would be complete unless we stopped at the candy store!! Colonial Candies in Bolton :) you can see the building from the highway. It was a little bit awkward while we were there because the 2 girls at the registers were arguing about who was supposed to ring us up… like I said, awkward… But the candy was yummy!

Coming up soon will be a post about our visit to The Orchard House and Miss Kathryn’s report about Louisa May Alcott (plus some pics of the costume I made for her) :)

Welcome Baby

May 1, 2013 By JulieK

I LOVE making presents for new babies…

In fact, I firmly believe that EVERY baby should have something handmade for them :) Mike’s cousin just had her beautiful and healthy baby boy, so I thought I’d share the little quilt that I made for him.

I forgot to measure it before I gave it to them, but it isn’t huge, it’s the perfect size for playing on the floor or for a crib. I used Moda Lil Rascals Quilt Cotton Fabric
… I just love the “old-timey” look of the fabrics!

This quilt was the very first that I quilted on my new sewing machine, and the first that I’ve free-motion quilted (so don’t look too close :)

Here’s the whole front…

Here’s a full shot of the back… Isn’t that fabric adorable??

JulieK, Julie Kelley, Quilt, Baby Quilt, Baby gift, FMQ, Moda, Lil' Rascals

The front is a Disappearing 9 patch made with a pack of charm squares, and then a border added around the edge. Here’s a closeup of one of the fabrics :) love that little kitty!

And here’s a close up of the backing fabric… Aren’t those pups adorable?

And a close up of the finishing touch :) the tag…

We just got the sweetest thank you note from them, and they just had the baby last week… I can’t wait to meet him in person!!

Here’s a link to the fabric I used for the border…

I have a bunch of projects that need to be posted… Now that the weather is nice, I’ll get them outside to take pictures and post them soon!

Key West Vacation

June 26, 2012 By JulieK

I love being a teacher, and one of the many reasons why is Summer Vacation!! Of course, one of the drawbacks is that you can only go on vacation when everyone and their brother is also on vacation (sadly, no late September Disney trips for us), BUT we always have a super fun time travelling during the summer when we can take our time and do what we want. Remember, last year? The 18 day and 5 states Amazing Western Adventure? Here’s a post about it… And another post about it… Well, this year we decided to tone it down a little bit… We went to Key West for 7 days. It was fantastic and relaxing, just what we needed after a long school year. CAUTION>>> This post will be long and picture heavy :)

So, we had a 7am flight, and that meant we got to Ft. Lauderdale pretty early and we could enjoy the drive down the keys :) We stayed at the Sheraton which is across the street from Smathers Beach! Our first order of business… Check out the (wow it’s warm) ocean!

Then it’s off to Mallory Square for the Sunset Celebration!

Most of our days were spent wandering around Key West, checking out the scene and eating :) No visit is complete without checking out Sloppy Joe’s

We visited a couple of different sights every day… Here’s one of the kitties at the Hemingway House

Another sunset, this one from one of the upper keys (not sure which one we stopped at… there’s so many).

A visit to the Summer White House. Our tour guide Jimmy grew up in Key West and sold the president a newspaper, by walking up to him as he walked down the street… Can you imagine just walking up to a president on the street?? He was a fabulous tour guide as he had so many personal stories!!

Fort Zachary Taylor… We toured the Fort, then went back later that afternoon to go swimming at their beach (but I didn’t bring the camera when we went back…)

Oh… Bahia Honda state park… Beautiful!! We took a day and just went to the beach! Here’s a bunch of pictures from our fun day there…

ummm… Do see that picture above?? If you know me, you know that it is SHOCKING that I went in swimming!! In the ocean (which was darn close to air temperature!!) I’m not a huge fan of swimming (I can do it, I just don’t particularly like to) … but this was great!!!!

Chickens, chickens everywhere… Seriously! The chickens and roosters and chicks are everywhere!! Including one trying to hop up on the table and steal Sean’s french fries at one restaurant (we were eating at a table outside), and another that got startled on the street and almost jumped right into our car!! Good thing Mike’s window was only open 3/4 of the way, the chicken banged into the window and went on his merry way…

Snow Cones at the beach!

and you can’t go to Key West and not see the “Cat Man”… That man is insane!!

Our last couple of days were overcast and windy… Here we were at the boardwalk and they were just looking when a wave hit :) They got soaked :)

And a peek at all of us at the southernmost point…

I “only” took about 500 pictures :) We had so much fun, and it was a relaxing trip… No agenda, the biggest thing we had to decide was where we were going to eat that day :) If you go… You must go to Paseo and get the fabulous corn… And got to the Hogfish bar and grill… YUMMY!!

Faithful Friday Happy First Communion

May 25, 2012 By JulieK

Remember my post about Kathryn’s bracelet and rosary that I had made for her? I wanted to share some of the photos from the actual day… We had such a fun time with Nana shopping for her beautiful dress, Nana’s got mad “find a beautiful veil tucked in a drawer at the store” skills!! Plus, she also took the dress to iron it and ironed it for us… It turned out to be a nice day (with no rain at the actual morning! Yeah!) Try not to look too closely at me in the last picture… I was a sobbing mess during the mass, they have all the children step out into the aisle and turn to the families to sing a song… I am always a mess when there’s children singing involved… I cried every day when I picked them up last summer from Vacation Bible Camp ’cause they would all come together and sing a big song at the end of the session… Anyway… Here’s the photos! It was a beatiful day…