HAILEY AND HER DESK

 Darrell and Hailey have been working on a desk for her all week.  She's been participating and learning a few woodworking skills.

They did a great job.

WATERCOLOR FRIDAY

There was no class on Tuesday, Christmas Eve.  So, we went to the Friday class - Hailey came with me.

FIRST THURSDAY

Granddaughter Hailey (10, soon to be 11 in a few weeks) is staying with us for a few days during her spring break from school.

I cut the fabrics and she sewed them together to make this cute pillowcase.  This is the first time she used a sewing machine.  Good job!

I wanted something simple to work on so I pulled out the neglected Alphabet quilt blocks.  I see I had left a note that I was waiting for Kona Coral color to show up last year to use on the J block.  So, I got that out and made these blocks.

This being the first Thursday of the Month, we took Hailey downtown to the Art Walk.  First, was dinner at the Cuban restaurant, Cafe Con Leche on First Ave S.

Hailey has never been to an art walk.  I think she enjoyed it.  There was some very interesting art and people to see.  The building that used to house Elliott Bay Books was having a big party for First Thursday with art and performance art and just odd people walking about.

Hailey took advantage of an exhibit that let people take their pictures using various props.

We saw some interesting art.  I didn't think about taking pictures until late in the walk.

The glass circles on the sidewalk

SPACE NEEDLE

Darrell's 10 year old granddaughter Hailey is spending a few days with us.  

We went to breakfast at Lowell's in the Pike Place Market and then on to the Space Needle.  They have just remodeled it putting new glass floors on the floor that revolves, where the restaurant once resided.  They have also removed the solid railings from the Observation Deck and put in floor to ceiling glass walls that tilt out at the top.  I knew I wouldn't walk out onto the glass floors, but I was surprised at how disconcerting it all was to me.  My legs ached the whole time we were up there.  I clung to the inner walls and didn't look straight down.  

The sun was bright red this morning because of all the wildfire smoke.

We found a great place to park on the street.

These glass benches lean so you can lean back on the glass if you're brave enough.

I hung my camera over the stair railing that winds around the glass 'Occulus' which looks straight down to the ground.

Darrell was brave enough to venture out onto the glass floor.

The views would have been excellent, but for the smokey haze.

Hailey was brave too.

The glass at the bottom of the 'Occulus' stairs.

Goodbye Space Needle, I probably won't be visiting you again, sadly.

After that adventure, we headed to the waterfront, where we found another great parking spot on the street.  We walked down to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, of course.  Then it was on to the new ride, "Wings Over Washington".  That was fun!  They won't let you take pictures, but here are some of the 'characters' that great you on the way in.

After lunch at Uncle Eddie's in South Park, we came home and I went up to the studio to work on my City Sampler blocks.

 Hailey was busy drawing horses - she loves horses.

Jax was busy napping.

And I sewed on...

GOING TO OREGON

We left early on Sunday morning, heading south to Oregon.  We are aiming to get to the center of the eclipse shadow, just south of Salem.  It sounded like lots of people were headed for Eastern Oregon.  We opted for the west side because there are more roads and options.

We left at 3:50am

First stop, Starbucks in Tukwila

Next stop, picking up granddaughter, Hailey (8 yo) in Rochester.

We arrived in Clackamus at about 7:30am - there was no traffic to speak of.  We didn't know what to expect.  There was a lot of talk about massive migrations and traffic backups - that's why we left so early.  Clackamus is the closest place I could find a hotel five months ago.  They were either sold out everywhere or way overpriced.  We still had to pay $175 for this room, twice what it would normally cost.  We couldn't check in until 3pm, so we had some time to kill.

Well, what's there to do in Clackamus?  Not much...

We went for a walk at close by 3 Creeks Natural Area.  

On the way back out, we came upon a movie set.  They were filming a low budget alien spacecraft crash site.  We stayed and watched for a while (we didn't have anything else to do).  It was interesting.  They are a local group of guys that make these films and post them on youtube under the name Skargoz. 

Those are some of the parts of the spaceship crash in the background.

We watched the actors as they played the panicked astronauts running from the aliens.

With not much else to do, we went to the local mall and went to the movies.  Darrell and Hailey saw Despicable Me 3 (Darrell says he got a good nap in), while I went to see Dark Tower (being a big fan of Stephen King's Dark Tower series I was a little disappointed - this movie has little to do with the books, but it's okay as a stand alone story - why do they do things like this?).

After the movies, we went to Fred Meyer to buy a thermometer for tomorrow then we drove around for a bit (there's not much to see in Clackamus) and finally checked into the room at 3pm.  Once settled in we went out for dinner at Red Robin, then back to the room for an early turn-in - gotta get up early tomorrow, too!