Stitch & Chatter Quilt Retreat

This week we had our annual Stitch & Chatter Quilt Retreat at Cannon Beach.  It is such a blessing to be able to join this group of ladies for several days.  This year there were 17 ladies, with 4 of their spouses joining us.  It is a group with a wide variety of ages, with the youngest joining us this year 21 years old and the oldest being 84!

Several of us ladies drove together from Hockinson.  I drove my van with 4 other ladies.  We checked in on Monday at 3:00 and checked out at 2:00 on Thursday.  Our group stays in the ocean front building of the Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center.  It's basically like a motel, with a large room set up with tables that we sew in.

This is what it looks like when 5 ladies drive together to a quilt retreat!  One of the husbands were wondering if everyone took as much as his wife if we needed to start pulling a trailer :)  I had the back seat removed from our van.

We didn't need the third seat for sitting, so it was filled up with more of our stuff.  We also had things underneath all of the seats.

This year I got to share the wonderful time with my daughter, Rachel.  She spent two nights down there with us and roomed with me.

The weather was gorgeous.  It was warm and sunny most of the time we were there.  We couldn't have asked for better weather!  The sunset on Monday night.

Tuesday morning it was so bright and beautiful!

Because it is a Christian conference center they like us to have some sort of worship while we're there.  To fulfill this we sing each evening.  It sounds so nice; I especially like it when we have the male voices joining in.

I love it when the men join us.  They make things interesting.  Tuesday evening they went out and bought us ice cream and cones.  Just like that almost a gallon of ice cream was gone :)  Even the people who were too full decided it would slide down pretty easily!

Tuesday evening sunset and some people in canoes on the river next to the ocean.

Ladies at work throughout our stay.  The ocean is right out those windows!  As you can see, everyone doesn't work on quilting.

Wednesday morning.

Evening sunset . . . it was rare to see the sun set without clouds on the horizon.

On Thursday morning we saw these people riding by on horses.  It was so still and they looked so neat, reflecting in the river.

Along with our room, we also get one meal a day from the conference center.  We walked to their main dining hall to have a brunch at 11:00 each morning.  We were served buffet style and were able to take leftovers with us.  For our evening meal, some people ate leftovers and some went out to dinner.  I ate at a local fish restaurant on Monday and Tuesday nights.  On our last night, I drove a van full of us to Dooger's in Seaside.

Our buffet and dining on the last day.

This is one of the quilt tops I made at the retreat.  It's just laid out here under the table, ready to sew together.

Here are a bunch of projects we worked on.  Phyllis finished this quilt she started about 20 years ago for her daughter.  It was finished for her granddaughter instead!  It was more than slightly windy out when we were photographing it!

Quilt top that Betty made.

Quilt top that Marie finished up at the retreat.

Joan was working on a Bargello quilt.  This was only 1/4 of it.  I didn't end up getting a picture of it when she cut this up and starting sewing it back together.

This is the center of Jerrie Lynn's table runner.  It's a fall one that will have pumpkins appliqued on each end.

Janine kept busy making bags.  Many of them have outsides made from chicken feed bags.

 Phyllis S. worked on pin cushions.  They turned out so pretty.

I saved my personal favorite for last!  Judy made this Finnish quilt.  She designed the whole thing herself.  It has such a neat story for why she did every part like she did.  It looks like it's a panel, but she appliqued the whole thing.  It is even more gorgeous in real life!!

All of the ladies on the last day.  (Rachel left Wednesday night so she's not pictured.)

I'm so happy I was able to go again this year!  Looking forward to next year!!

Rhoades Reunion - Part III

Sunday morning we had church.  The place where our reunion was had a tabernacle that was more than big enough for our family.

After church we had a quick snack of mostly leftovers.  That ended up being a super good idea, as we got rid of many leftovers.  We chose not to have a "real meal" then so everyone could be in church and not have to be preparing lunch.  Instead we had an early dinner at 4:00.

In the afternoon we had a time for Rhoades history that my Dad shared with us.

In the evening we had an ice cream social and then later a time of singing.  Because of the super hot weather we had that weekend, no campfires were allowed.  When all was said and done, I was glad of it, that we didn't have to go home with that smell on everything!!

One of the highlights of the reunion was when the kids heard the tractor running!  If you heard the tractor running, you came running, too!  That meant it was time for rides.  Dan provided the tractor and some of his boys took turns driving it.

My two little boys liked the tractor like this.  They were petrified of it running and didn't want any part in the rides!

Load up . . . see how many people we can crowd on there at a time!!

Clara had made "Grandma Bucks" for us older family to buy (more fundraising).  The plan was we'd buy them for $1 and that's how much it was worth at the store.  They were meant to be given to kids who we saw doing extra work, picking up garbage, etc.  In the end I'm not so sure they were used so much for that, but they still raised a bunch of money.  I ended up using a bunch of mine as prizes for our gunny sack races.

A few fun pictures Sunday night.  Dad and the kids who were still there (a couple left early).

Dad and I

Dad and the boys.

Bridger and I.

And one final picture of my sweetie and I.

Monday morning was time for clean up!!  Besides our own cabins/rooms, each family was put in charge of cleaning up something.  And then, after 4 days of fun, it was time to go home!!!  I think everyone had a great time and we'd like to plan one again in 4 years!

Rhoades Reunion - Part II

I probably should just mention more about our family.  Dad and Mom had 13 children, with one baby girl dying at about 13 hours old, so we grew up with a family of 12; 8 girls and 4 boys.  All of us siblings and our spouses were able to make it to the reunion.  From those 12 children, there are 123 grandchildren; 114 of them were there.  And from the grandchildren, there were 72 great grandchildren and 62 of them were there.  Since our reunion there has been two more great grandchildren born.

Saturday morning we had family pictures.  All of our families got them done separately and we got pictures of the whole group, grandchildren, children, etc.  The whole process of getting our pictures done went amazingly quick and painless!!

Our whole group picture and then close ups (not posed anymore) along the line-up.  Dad is on the tractor seat and the family is in age order, with the oldest starting on the left.

Dad and his grandchildren.

Dad with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Dad with his children.

Dad with his children and their spouses.

Dad with his children in age order.

The boys - Chet, Rick, Dan and Nathaniel.  Something was apparently really funny so I chose this picture over one that Nathaniel was looking in :)

Us girls - from back left - Charity, Elva, Darla, Leona, Nancy.  Front left - Clara, Denise Ramona.

The oldest and youngest siblings . . . Rick and Leona.

The front of the "store" and "coffee shop" (named Pantoski Coffee after the road we grew up on.

Two of the baristas.

 Store cashiers.

So many choices!!

Saturday afternoon we had a scavenger hunt.  The kids seemed to have a lot of fun running around and searching for things . . . or getting signatures for some things.  We also had a water balloon toss and gunny sack races.  Our family did the gunny sack races so I have pictures of that.

We had a mostly adult male group.

Saturday night during the supper hour there were guessing jars.  There was one table of jars for young kids to guess and one table for older kids and adults to guess.  If you got the closest amount of items you got the jar with whatever was in it.  That was really fun.

And since I have sooo many pictures again on here, I guess I'll do a third post!  Hopefully it won't take as long to get it posted as this one did.