Catching Up- Raegen's Purse & Camp Gosip

I know I'm days behind in my posts....so I'm going to do my best to catch everyone up quickly.

Raegen, my friend and neighbor, had a project due for 4 H last week and she had selected this pattern:

 

"The Madison Bag" by Two Peas in a Pod Designs

Raegen is 17 and some sewing experience but not a lot. She had no problems understanding the pattern and I thought it was a great pattern as patterns go.

 She wanted her purse quilted. Here she is drawing the lines to sew on.  I giggled because Raegen was concerned the Sewline Air Erasable Pen  would not disappear.  Much to her amazement, the lines did disappear (these are the times I'm so glad I know which products are the best for particular projects :).

 It is fun to see a young person sewing at my machine.

After two sessions over two days....her Madison bag was finished.  It's not an overstatement to say she loved it and was tickled pink.

As a matter of fact, she was jumping for joy!

Raegen didn't want an embellishment on the front of her purse.  I thought she might like to see what one would look like so I made a flower from the Blooming Possibilities book by Abbey Lane Quilts.  You may remember when I blogged about it HERE. 

I thought the flower looked excellent.  Apparently my taste is not the same as that of a 17 year old, so now I wear the flower on my green blouse :)

I know some of you may appreciate the "normal" activities of the IHAN clan.  You may recall last year when the boys went to camp at the Toledo Zoo.  I posted about it here.

This is a picture from that post.  Yes, this is Zachary and I had learned to "let go" you might say.  I actually have this photo hanging in my kitchen to remind me to just "let go."  

This year all is well, I pull up in front of the Zoo to drop off the boys and Aaron gets out of the van.  I wanted to take a picture of each one of them in front of the Zoo sign.

Little did I know how LUCKY I was last year.  At least Zach had shoes!!!!  How a 9 1/2 year old gets into the van without shoes is beyond me....but apparently it is not beyond Aaron.  You know the camp director had not forgotten us and when I told him about Aaron's perdiciment, all he could do is laugh.  Mr. McSteamy to the rescue!

"Family Emergency" he claimed as he raced to meet us at the Zoo to deliver Aaron not one pair of shoes, but two!  I was sooooo grateful....not only that McSteamy brought the shoes, but also that Aaron chose to wear two of the same shoes :)

 The rest of the day went VERY WELL! 

 I'm so glad they are still young enough to pose for these fun photos.

I sware this was not a posed photo.  Aaron loves the aquarium and he loves the fish.  He walked right up to the tank and the fish swam up to his face and he leaned forward to give that big ole fish a smooch.  Precious times indeed.

Smiles,

Kelly