Jo's Big Birthday Blog Hop

Jo of Serendipitous Stitching and Gifted Gorgeousness fame is celebrating a big birthday today.  A blog hop was organized to celebrate and I have 2009!  To read the rest of the years of her life, click on over to Serendipitous Stitching for the links to the other blogs and to see some of her gorgeous stitching.

On to 2009 - Jo was 43.  The Small Boy arrived early in the year, weighing in at nearly 10lbs it was not an easy birth.  He was unwilling to arrive and eventually came "out through the sun-roof" as they say.  The Large Boy was not keen on this new arrival at first but once he realised that babies come bearing Lego he was resigned to the situation.  Plus he got a great new bedroom with a midsleeper bed complete with slide.  Jo continued to run her Toddler Group, now with a qualifying baby, and also help with the PTA.  Three new PTA babies were born that year so there was often a "nurse-in" at the meetings.  Stitching was pretty non existent although Jo did complete one piece for a friend.

For me, 2009 was a year of ups and downs.  As this is a celebratory post, we'll leave out the downs.  The highlight of the year was a week long trip to Hilo on the big island of Hawaii.  It was a work trip but The Hubs was able to go with me and we had a really good time.  He would scope out all the neat places to see during the day and then when I got out of work we'd rush around to see them before they closed.  We even got snorkeling gear and were able to swim with sea turtles.  It is an amazingly beautiful island and definitely worth the jet lag to visit. 

Unlike Jo's baby, The Hubs gave me time to stitch during the year - except for the week before his leg surgery when he was pretty much bedbound - and I think I had a pretty productive stitching year that year.  I stitched the center of Chatelaine's Hawaiian Mandala while sitting on the balcony of our hotel room in Hilo, so that piece is doubly meaningful.  Jo has definitely made up for lost stitching time.  This year she's been doing a lot of Christmas and Just Nan stitching but she also does a lot of Hallowe'en stitching.  I don't do a lot of Hallowe'en stitching but this piece

has the look of one of the pumpkins in Just Nan's Counting Bats which Jo recently completed and I think is one she'd like.

Many Happy Returns on your Big Birthday Jo!!!