It was Christmas in July...

Hi all!

I hope your July was nice.  Ours was so hot that I started to believe that we had moved to a desert or something.  We are in the middle of one of the worst droughts in my lifetime that I can remember.  It has been in the 100* mark for weeks, and hasn't rained for about a month...until this past Thursday.  So now since then it's rained twice, and it's supposed to rain again tonight.  I think it will be a long time until I complain about wonderful rain again.  

But we did go away for a little birthday weekend in the middle of July.  We took the kids up north of Chicago to an indoor waterpark resort called Key Lime Cove.  It was so nice!!!  I was able to sit on the side of the wave pool with a cocktail or a cup of coffee and my Kindle and relax.  It was really relaxing (most of the time ;P). The waterpark area had a water play structure, 4 waterslides, plus a funnel slide, a lazy river, wave pool, and an adult only whirlpool.  The kids had a blast too.  There was really no need to even leave the resort unless you really wanted too.  

Well...Christmas in July was an ornament challenge from the Friendly Stitchers board on Yahoo.  The challenge was to stitch and finish 3 ornaments and exchange one of them in the actual month of July.  So I took the challenge wholeheartedly and this is what I came up with... 

 I had never tried the ribbon ruching on the LK Love ornament, and I also had never tried the BBD stocking finish before, and was so excited by how they turned out.  I did surprise my exchange partner Lynda with not one, but all 3 of the ornaments that I finished for her.  So she received the BBD stocking, the LHN, and the LK piece.  The other ornament that I stitched in July was the little BBD piece which was another exchange for Hooked on Exchanging.  I liked how that one turned out too.

This JBW ornament is the piece that I received from Lynda for the Friendly Stitching exchange.  Isn't it pretty?
I had so much fun with the Christmas in July challenge.  Is there anyone that would like to have some sort of ornament exchange with me?  I would love to do this!!!   If anyone is interested, leave a comment here with an email, and we can set something up.
Well, I have to go.  I'm on my way to another 12 hour night shift at work.  Busy, busy!!!
I'll be back next week...I have some more progress pictures to share!
Have a great weekend.