Week with my brother

I have always loved camping in the mountains, especially in the fall.  It is a place of peace and renewal for me.  I feel closer to nature and all the blessings from God.  My brother, Kevin, has always loved camping at a lake in the hottest part of the year.  His family does not like to camp but Alex does do the Boy Scout camping thing.  This year Kevin decided to try camping in the mountains in the fall and asked me if I'd like to go with him.  I jumped at the chance to go camping in the mountains in September and to spend some one-on-one time with my brother. 

We went to Colorado Springs and then out west to the mountains.  We crossed over some mountain pass that had a paved road to the top but a rough dirt road down the other side. This is what we saw at the top.   We took that and ended up at Taylor Lake north of Gunnison, CO. 

Kevin enjoys hiking but I am not to keen on that.  We went to Helen Hunt Falls where Kevin took the hiking path up to the falls and I stayed at the bottom and took pictures of the fall foliage and flowers.

Kevin also went on a hike up a mountain around our campground.  I relaxed at the camp site listening to the sounds of the running water in the creek and watching the birds and critters.  We watched the wind blow across the campground.  It was calm where we were but could see and hear the wind in the trees to the west of us.  We watched it move to the east, moving calm trees as it went.  It came over us and our calm became winds while it was still calm on the other side of us.  We watched it continued on it's path changing calm to windy.  I've never seen wind move like that.  It was like watching a wave in the ocean coming over the tree tops.

I love fall (autumn). It is my favorite time of year. I love all the colors in the trees as well as the warm days and cool nights. This is just one example of the colors in the under brush of the aspen trees in the mountains in September. 

I enjoyed the one-on-one time with my brother. We have not shared time like this since he got married nearly 23 years ago. We did not even fight as siblings have a tendency to do at times. Thank you, Kevin, for a great time together.

Church Quilts

Our church stake was given a lot of fabric and it was divided up to each branch and ward.  The Relief Society was asked to make quilts for charity from this fabric.  We were to make the quilt tops then come together at the stake for a day of learning quilting techniques and to finish our quilts.  I served on the committee and was asked to work at the binding table. 
I made up four designs for our RS branch to choose from that would work together from the fabric amounts we had.  They chose a Begger Block pattern and a Triple Windmill pattern.  We gathered at the church three times to work on the quilt tops and I machine quilted them on Mother's long arm machine.  They were ready to be bound at the Stake Quilting Day.  I chose two different techniques to do and to teach. 
We made two twin bed sized quilts and then I made a baby quilt from the scraps of the Triple Windmill Quilt.

Begger Block                                                  Pieced back for Begger Block

            Triple Windmill

I had so much fun at the Stake Quilting Day.  There were so many beautiful quilts on display.  I helped several women bind their quilts, helped others plan their binding, demonstrated and finally did get one of our quilts bound that day.  I did the binding on the second one at home later because we ran out of time that day.  

The Colby Branch now has three quilts ready to give to someone in need in our community.  There was a house fire in Colby shortly after the quilts were finished and one was given to that local family.