One Big Bear, Two Quilt Stores, lots of snow!

This year, we decided to hit the road for Thanksgiving. We joined my Sister and her family up in Big Bear California. We headed out of Los Angles late Wednesday night to try to avoid the holiday traffic. (holiday traffic is even worse than the normal gridlock we face everyday in L.A.) The last hour of the drive consists of aggressive curves with drop offs that would weaken the strongest stomachs. It's just brutal. We finally arrived at 11pm where most of the family was trying to stay awake for our arrival. Very sweet.

My sister picked the cabin, and little did she know that it was walking distance to TWO Quilt stores. Maybe that windy mountain road really did do me in and this was heaven!!! :)
Okay so even though we could walk, how would we carry all of our purchases home? Just kidding-kind of. I mean, you just never know what you'll find in a Quilt store and I think that's part of the fun! Sometimes it's a dud and sometimes it's heavenly! :)

Great job on location, Sis!

Normally for Thanksgiving, we wake up early, get the bird cooking, get out the special dishes, cook cook cook, clean and cook some more. It can be quite stressful.

This year was so relaxing!

Everyone woke up when they felt like it. We ate off paper plates. We didn't stress about anything really I mean heck, we were roughing it! :) Without our normal appliances, it was almost freeing. We just kind of winged it and everyone loved it. It's not about the "right" plates or the tablescapes but the face to face time. Family time.

After our delicious dinner, while waiting for dessert, we made some crafts and then I busted out my great idea of putting a puzzle together. I am not an avid puzzle putter-together-er. I didn't really know that a 550 piece puzzle was a bit extreme for the kids. They hung in and did great! They probably did better than us adults.

Friday morning, I'm up with the sun, dressed and ready to hit the Quilt stores! My Mom is eager and willing to join me, so we are off. Our first store was Bear Country Quilts. As expected, they had some really cute patterns and fabric that represented the area. I went to check out the patterns my Mom wandered off to another section of the store. At one point, we both went looking for each other to show the other one the same cute pattern, so of course that one had to come home with us! This was a cute quilt store with nice staff. Just what you'd want to find!

The next stop was across the street to Patchworks. (apparently they don't have a website) The store heater was not working and it was almost colder inside the store than it was outside. I swear at one point you could almost see your breath inside! The employee was very nice and we got to talking, she grew up in the town next to where we grew up and where my family still lives so that was fun. It's always fun getting to know the staff members at the Quilt stores and hearing their stories.

Unbeknownst to me, Big Bear was expecting snow at 3pm on Saturday and at 3pm on the dot, the snow came. It was beautiful. I'm a city girl, we don't get to watch it snow very often. And even less often do we drive in it! Yikes - that was a bit scary. We were slipping and sliding! The kids loved it and didn't need to know my fear!

During down time in the cabin, I was working on my hand binding on a Christmas quilt I've had for years and never finished! Well guess what? I finished it! And what better timing than to complete a quilt surrounded by Family, while it's snowing in a cabin. It just adds to the story of this quilt. It's going to be given as a gift this Christmas to a loving family who love snuggling under warm blankets. I know they will love it!