Popping in to say a quick hello...

Okay, sorry I didn't even get a chance to leave an "away" message, but as you may have gathered, I've been away.

Mom arrived on Wednesday and now we're in the middle of our quilt retreat. This time I not only have my lovely digital camera, I also brought my USB cable (forgot it last time) and the appropriate software, so I've downloaded some of my photos to Rita's computer and thought I'd share a few with you. (Thanks in part to Blogger's handy "forgot my password" button and the assistance it renders when clicked...)

Mom's flight got in pretty close to the scheduled time. I took the girls to the airport and let them stay home from school on Thursday to play with her. They made muffins, went for a walk and read about 68,000 books while I dyed a bunch of fabric to take to the retreat. They also helped her unpack her suitcase, in which they found quilts for each of them:

The rest of the ladies didn't fare so well...their flight got in a bit late--1:00 a.m. to be exact--so there was no hanging out and chatting on Thursday night. Friday was stay-in-and-quilt day, and yesterday we had our first outing. We went through the town of Grecia, where there is an interesting church. The town's first church was wooden and burned down. They rebuilt it in concrete and it promptly suffered an earthquake and fell down. So they decided they needed an even bigger challenge for the elements stronger church and they imported metal panels from Belgium and built this steel church a hundred years ago[as long as the big bad wolf doesn't hear about it...]:

Then we went on to Sarchí, which is a town known for its crafts. We visited the original oxcart factory, which still makes oxcarts, and also now makes lovely crafts inspired by some of the same tecniques. Clearly, these pieced wooden items were much appreciated by our group of quilters:

They also do some beautiful carvings on wooden chests:

This man showed us a photo of himself from 40 years ago, with the other founders of the oxcart factory. His grandson, a young man who speaks fluent English, also works there now.

This artist paints the traditional, intricate designs (check out the wheel in the background):

The artists at this factory decided to make the world's largest oxcart, which they recently finished. They showed us a photo of a car driving under the cart, and after visiting their workshop, we drove by the park where the cart is on display:

After leaving Sarchí we stopped by Zarcero to see the topiary gardens in the central square:

And we did other things too, but that's all I've got for you so far. Have a nice rest of the week!