Farewell

Today, it was with tears in our eyes that we said goodbye at last to Rachel.  It's been wonderful getting to know her better (I moved out of my parents' house when she was only 1-1/2), and we will all miss her so much!

When she first got here, I taught her how to sew the Mendocino sundress, and over the course of our visit, she made 4 of them:

...and of course this one:

The children's bathroom mirror looks like this within 5 minutes of cleaning it.  Fabulous.

I got her an identical fly-fishing box to the one I have, for use as an embroidery kit.  I got her set up with all of her favorite colors of embroidery floss and a proper sharp needle (she'd been embroidering back in NY with all six strands of floss and using a blunt-tip yarn needle -- perseverance, I tell you!) We cut out these cute little thread bobbins to organized our floss.

Rachel's beautiful finished project (an embroidered pillow -- yet to be stuffed) for a friend back in NY:

These embellishments are from Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection by Aimee Ray

During our visit there were fun summertime drinks:

Baby Mocktails

Berry Breakfast Smoothies

A whole lot of cooking and baking:

Perusing cookbooks

And swimming as much as possible:

We love you Rachel, and we hope you can come back to visit with us again!