Stitching with Elli

The dolls are very excited about travelling this fall. They say it is the perfect time for travelling because it isn’t too hot and it isn’t too cold. I think there are going to be quite a few “Trip posts” in the next few weeks.

Elizabeth, MaryEllen, and Bridget planned an outing right after I got back from Michigan. They wanted to go to…..well what state  do you think they were visiting from this picture?

YEEHAWW those are Texas Dollies!  They picked the town of Waco, Texas.

Bridget initially picked it because she thought it was pronounced “Wa-cko” (as in someone crazy) and thought that was an AWESOME name for a town. Elizabeth spoiled her fun by telling her it  was pronounced like “way-co” ….Bridget said “oh….well it still looks interesting.”

The first part of their plan for the day was a picnic lunch at Cameron park. I had recently acquired some new picnic baskets that the dollies were extremely eager and excited to try out.

“Are you sure you two can handle the big basket?” asked Bridget.

“I think so. Now that I have the handles untied,  we just have to get the lid off.”

“Elizabeth, do you have another hairbow? This wind is blowing my hair in my face….I want to eat lunch not my hair!” Bridget fussed.

“Sorry I don’t. Try facing into the wind so it will blow away from your face.” Elizabeth suggested.

“What is for lunch? I’m starving,”asked Bridget eagerly. She had been in charge of the dessert so didn’t see what was packed for lunch.

“Let’s see, did you pack the boiled seaweed?” teased Maryellen winking at Elizabeth.

“What? oh wait…. yes I think I got it in there. Did you get the pickled pigs feet?” Elizabeth replied playing along.

Bridget gasped….”pickled pigs feet??? umm maybe I’m not that hungry….” but then she saw some of the food in the basket and decided they must be teasing her. “Umph, food is nothing to joke about, especially when one is famished” she told them.

“We have lettuce, bacon, tomatoes and bread for BLTS plus grapes, cheese and crackers….who wants a sandwich?” MaryEllen informed the others of lunch choices.

“I’m fine as long as I have crackers and cheese to snack on!” Bridget said around a mouthful of cheese. ” What about a  grape, mayonnaise,  cheese and bacon sandwich?, Can I have that?” she asked.

Elizabeth said no….that wasn’t civilised. You simply don’t put grapes and mayonnaise and bacon together.  Bridget said that was okay. It might not taste good anyway.

They decided to make all the sandwiches and then everyone could eat at the same time.

Maryellen and Elizabeth were working on the sandwiches. Elizabeth was cutting the tomatoes….

Maryellen was spreading the bread with mayonnaise….but Bridget didn’t have a job. So she said she would contribute “sparkling,  interesting, informative conversation” The others thought that was a pretty tall order for a conversation. They wanted to know what she was going to talk about.

There was silence for a second.

Now that Bridget was put on the spot, she couldn’t think of anything except the phrase “what can I think of?” over and over racing thru her head.  She thought a little longer, stared off into the distance, wrinkled up her nose thinking hard, digging waaaay back in her brain to something she heard once a long time ago before she came to live with Emily…. and then this came out….”I can tell you about the  isomorphism of the identity matrix to the permutations of three symbols”

The other two dropped what they were doing and stared at her. Then MaryEllen stared at Elizabeth…Elizabeth stared back at her. MaryEllen mouthed “what is that?” Elizabeth shook her head and shrugged “I don’t know”.

After Bridget had dropped that highly unexpected sentence, she went back to munching on her cheese. The other two weren’t going to let her get away with that,  they started asking her questions.

“Well that was a mouthful! What is it? is it scary??”

“Does it hurt? I don’t think I wanna know about something like that before I eat.”

“Do you even know what that means?”

“It is something to do with mathematics,” Bridget replied slowly chewing on her crackers. “I’m not exactly sure what it means. It was explained to me once by my grandmother. She thought it was interesting. Shall I see if I remember it and try explaining??”

“Well I’m sure it would be very informative, but I think I would rather hear about your beautiful new jacket” said Elizabeth gently. Mentally she made a note to tell the others at home this information about Bridget’s grandma. Her grandma was becoming rather legendary. She must have been a very interesting person!

Maryellen thought that was a grand idea as she hadn’t seen Bridget’s jacket before.

By that time, the sandwiches were done. While they were eating, Bridget explained the teddy bear embroidery  on the jacket was from Designs by juju and the sleeve embroidery was from a built in design on Emily’s machine.

Elizabeth said she didn’t have any dresses with designs from juju, but her apron had designs from Embroidery library.

After lunch they went on a hike….. it was supposed to be a hike anyway. But what fun is it to just walk along the trail, when instead you can climb a mountain!! Charge!! up the mountain we go!!

I guess these girls aren’t afraid of heights!! How did Bridget get all the way up there?

And more importantly, how is she planning to get down? Eek! I can’t look!

MaryEllen and Elizabeth found an even more fascinating rock wall…but they couldn’t figure out how to climb this one. Besides, it was so windy Elizabeth thought they might get blown off if they tried.

Elizabeth  lost her hair bow, so now she was having more trouble with her hair than Bridget was earlier.

Since it was so windy, they decided it would be safer to move to a more sheltered area. They found a big tree that was fun to climb on!

MaryEllen was having a hard time. She felt like she was going to fall off! They couldn’t figure out how the tree curved around the pipe but it was very fortunate that  it did so the pipe didn’t break!

Down the path a little further….a bridge! Bridget wanted to climb again…

MaryEllen and Elizabeth were getting tired. They wanted to rest for a bit. Bridget however was excited to see what was beyond the trail bend and wanted to keep going.

“Come on!! lets go!” called Bridget from up ahead.

After the hike, they went into town to see the historic walking bridge over the Brazos. In front of the bridge were some ENORMOUS longhorn statues….which were just perfect for posing 😉

“The ears make perfect seats….oops! I’m sliding!!” Maryellen exclaimed.

“Look! I’m going to catch his tail!” Maryellen goofed around pretending to pull the cows tail.

“This one is named Ferdinand,” Elizabeth declared as she scooted up to sit on him.

“Aww, Ferdinand the friendly bull, just like the book” said Maryellen hugging his leg.

“Eat more chicken!! Save the cows!!” Bridget yelled loudly being silly.

Elizabeth shushed her because people were looking  at them.

They moved on to the bridge to watch the sun set. They couldn’t decide if they wanted a picture with the bright blue lights of the other bridge behind them or the sunset. So we took pictures of both.

It was a little darker by the time we got the second picture 😀

It was a fun day, and I think there were three tired little dollies that slept very soundly that night.

Have any of you been to Waco, TX? what did you think? what was the best thing you saw there?