Show and Tell Friday

Kelli is hosting Show and Tell Friday and I think it is a wonderful idea so I am going to try and participate every Friday. The idea is to showcase something special in your home and it was hard deciding but today I am going to share old photos. I have many, many old family photos from both my family and my husband's family. Many of them are on these photo ledges I got at Pottery Barn.

I even have a photograph of the first family reunion that I attended on Cape Cod recently.

I believe it was held on a Fourth of July in NH in the early 20's and despite it probably being hotter than blazes all the men are in the white shirts and ties and the women are in dresses. I'm glad we don't dress like that everyday now!

These last two pictures I just recently had framed to go into out new family room that is being built. They are pictures of my husband's grandfather at Colby College where he was an athlete. One of the pictures is a basketball team and other is football. The basketball has an" '07 " on it so I think it is appropriate that 100 years later it is finally going to be on display. I hope you enjoy my show and tell. Be sure to visit Kelli's blog and check out all the links to the other show and tells.

Construction Update

It has been quilte a while since I wrote about the construction we are having done on our house here and here. I thought I'd be decorating by now! Things are going slower than we expected and I guess that is typical for construction projects. Luckily that is my only complaint at this point as the work that is being done is excellent. Here is the view from the kitchen into the addition. There will be a 4 foot wide glass french door-this is just a temporary door.

I meant to take a before picture of this wall but they cut through it before I was expecting and I never got my picture. But I think you can kind of see it in the back ground of this picture. I used to have my china cabinet there but that will be moved into the new room. You go up six steps to get into the room. We had to have the steps up into the room because there is a two car garage underneath.

The big box on the wall will be a gas fireplace. The view from in the room back into the kitchen will be wide open once the french doors are installed making this room feel like part of the house. I've been picking up furniture here and there this summer so eventually it will be in here. Once the drywall is up we are doing the finish work like painting, flooring, trimwork and siding so we have a lot of work ahead of us. So, tomorrow insulation, after that drywall, then doors and the last list of things and then it's ours to finish.

Wonderful Wedding

We recently went to a beautiful wedding in Plymouth MA at a location I had never been to and what a spectacular location it was. The ceremony and reception was held at the White Cliffs Country Club and here are a few pictures. The ceremony was held here.

The bride and groom were radiant of course and the weather was perfect.They had pictures taken afterward way down on the beach. There was a mechanical lift to get them down there and back.

We could see the Cape Cod Canal from this location so the view was spectacular. We even had a visitor glide overhead.

As much as I enjoyed my children's weddings, being a spectator is so much easier and much more fun than being Mother of the Bride or Groom!

Cape Cod Cottages

There are so many beautiful cottages on Cape Cod where we were last weekend that I wanted to post some more pictures. This one was being renovated the last time we were here. How I would LOVE to go inside and see it. They greatly expanded this home from what it was which is kind of a pet peeve of mine but I think they did a good job keeping the spirit of the cottage part of the house intact.

They are also fantastic gardeners.

This cottage is being renovated so I can't wait to see what they have done the next time I am here.
We also attended an spectacular wedding at an incredible location that I will post pictures of next post. It's nice to finally be in summer here in New England.

Cape Cod Continued....

I had an e-mail question on the family reunion post previously, so I thought I would answer it with a few more pictures. The question was if we stay in these little cottages for this family reunion we were attending? The answer is no we stay in these "cottages", called The Manor and The Lodge.

They were at one time some family's cottages but are now part of the conference center. They are very large with many rooms and a big gathering room for all 101 of us that were there this weekend. And the view isn't bad either.

The beach is just a short walk away. If you look east you can see where the Kennedy compound is in on the point of land Hyannis.

One of this year's activities was kite flying on the beach which was a lot of fun with a great breeze. At one time we had about a dozen kites flying.

My grandson did not seem at all interested in the kites. I'm sure next time he will. But his cute little bathing suit and beach hat were adorable!

Scenes of Cape Cod

I'm back after a busy week of babysitting which was fun. And then to top off the week I was on Cape Cod for a family reunion, at which my darling grandson made his debut, that I would like to recount here. This is a family reunion that my Mother in law's side of the family has been having regularly since the 1920's and every other year for many, many years. Since 1967 it has been held at the same place on Cape Cod that is just wonderful so I thought I would post some pictures for all you cottage lovers out there. This is a conference center that was originally a religious camp meeting location. People would meet here for one or two weeks in the summer for religious meetings and set up tents. The tents at one point became cottages that remain to this day. One of the walks is called the Midway which goes down a skinny path between the cottages where you can get an up close look at them, which my daughter and son in law are doing here and my husband is in the second picture.

Most of the cottages have the same gray weathered shingles on them, lovely gardens and once in a while a cute garden gate.

This cottage has purple shutters on it with blue hydrangeas in their garden that are about to burst open.

It's a really magical place and I took a million pictures so I'll be sharing them as the week goes on. I feel really lucky to be able to go there.

I'll be a Bad Blogger This Week

I'll be mostly absent from the computer this week because I have the wonderful task of babysitting my grandson this week. Heaven! Then it's off to Cape Cod for a family reunion next weekend and I know I will have lots of pictures of that beautiful location so much to anticipate. Until then I'll be here holding hands with this little treasure.

My Version of the Wall of Landscapes

The amazing Kim at Daisy Cottage has just published some wonderful pictures of her wall of landscapes that she has pictured there before. Whe she first posted about them I thought I should show you my minor display of my Birch Tree Wall so finally here it is.

I especially like this oil painting that came from my Mother in Law's home. My reason for having this wall is not nearly as romantic as a travel themed office like Kim has. When we renovated the kitchen several years ago and pulled the wallpaper off this wall we discovered that the wall had several, shall we say, hills and valleys and some sort of square patch for something. At this point in the renovation we were out of gas so I covered up the wall with the pictures and we vowed to fix the wall "later". It has been four years. It's kind of growing on me.

Quilting Progress

When I started this blog I thought it would be mostly about quilting but work and life gets in the way of sewing it seems and I don't do as much as I like. But I am off of work for the summer and I have actually been doing some quilting lately so I thought I'd show a couple of projects. The blocks above are from a Block of the Month I am doing that I started way back in the winter. I kind of got behind in them but I am caught up now and month 5 just arrived so I will be getting going on that soon.

I have also been making some table runners that I put on my kitchen island and I just finished piecing this one that has a fall look to it. Maybe this will look at home on it come fall. It really was an easy pattern that came out of the Mostly Table Runners Three book by Calico Printworks. A fall project seems appropriate today since it is so cold today in NH. I think I'll just spend the day in my cozy sewing room.