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Our family has a lot of big events occurring in 2012. Jim's mom and dad celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary early this year, his older sister turns 60 later this year, his younger sister turns 50, and Katie turns 21. Add to that the fact that Katie graduated from college and Megan just received her master's degree, and you have plenty of reasons to party. (Jim also has received an amazing accolade, but we are not allowed to talk about it until the national announcement is made, so more on that later.) Since we are all spread out, we decided to have one big celebration over Memorial Day weekend.

My in-laws including Jim's sister and her husband drove down on Friday, and Katie flew in Friday night. Andy and Megan flew in on Saturday afternoon as Megan had her last class Saturday morning. Jim's younger sister and her fiance come over from Kansas City on Sunday morning as they had a wedding to attend on Saturday. We had a barbeque in our backyard Sunday afternoon, which of course had to be the hottest day of the year so far. Thank goodness it was breezy and fairly low humidity, as we were able to sit outside most of the day.

We hired Jim's motorcycle buddy, Jim Diaz, to take some photos before the party began. Jim is a professional photographer, and it has been many years since we had Wolterman family portraits taken. There are too many "exes" in that group shot to warrant keeping the old photo on the wall. Hopefully we will get a group shot where everyone has a decent expression on their face and their eyes open. We shall see.

The party was a great success, and it was wonderful to have Jim's whole family together. Frankly I don't know when my children will be together at the same time with their grandparents in the future. Jim's folks had not been here since Katie graduated from high school in 2009. So this weekend was all the more special because of that. The pictures will help us keep the memories alive.

Now that the high school graduate has received his quilt, I am posting a couple of pictures of it. I have not yet heard how Tommy liked it, but I was very pleased with the end result. My friend Kathy, who quilted the top to the bottom on her long arm machine, did a fantastic job. It really finished the quilt off nicely and looks so professional. Hopefully Tommy will enjoy it for many years.

For the first time ever I kept track of all of my expenses and all of my time on a quilt. I knew it would be an interesting experience, but by the time it was all said and done, I earned $1.30 per hours for the quilt. Woo, hoo! Slightly more than I used to make baby-sitting back in the late '60's. Well, just like writing books, you do it because you love it not because you expect to get rich.

On to a different subject...My hair stylist is quite a character. He is going to Chicago this weekend for the International Mr. Leather competition. Charles is the reigning Mr. Midwest Leather, so he gets to compete again this year. The competition takes place at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Apparently they have all the rooms in the hotel reserved for attendees again this year. What I wouldn't give to be there. From what Charles had told me, just being in the lobby is quite the experience! The hotel staff told them they just love it when the competition is there because "you gay guys are great tippers".

Charles is taking the train to Chicago today since air prices are so high. However he will board the train at Union Station, not Kirkwood. "Did you know that the Kirkwood station is unmanned?", he asked me. I admitted that I did know this. "Well that means you can only check one 50 pound bag and have two carry ons!", he exclaimed. "They have obviously never traveled with a gay guy", he continued. "I couldn't fit all of my outfit changes into one bag. And it's all leather, for crying out loud. I would exceed the 50 pound weight limit!" Apparently if you go to Union Station you can check three bags and have two carry ons. Much more to Charles' needs.

So go get 'em Charles! Any guy that still looks good in leather at age 56 and can compete with the young'uns has my vote!

Two years ago when my friend Diane purchased the quilt I had donated to the school auction for her daughter Lauren, she cautioned that she would need quilts for for Tommy and Courtney when they graduated as well. At the time I wasn't sure if she was serious, and anyway Tommy wouldn't graduate until 2011 and that was a long way off. Well, Diane was serious and it is now 2011!

Last week the two of us went to Jackman's Fabrics to begin looking at material. Tommy wants a quilt just like Lauren's except that he wants purple as the main color and not Mountain Dew green. So the good news is that I know what pattern I am doing, the bad news is that the quilt has 70 squares of novelty fabric, each representing something of the past or present. That's right - I need 70 different fabrics. We found 26 at Jackman's, as well as three different purples for my borders. I came up with 18 additional fabrics I had a home that will work, leaving me with 26 additional fabrics to locate.

I love shopping online as I can enter what I'm looking for, say Harry Potter fabric, and I can usually find something that will work. The trick is to make sure it will look okay with purple! I located the lady I have purchased from in the past, and I'll be able to make up the rest of the squares from her I think. She is looking for a few things I could not find, such as something to represent a trip to Germany/Austria. Castles, perhaps? It will be fun to see what she comes up with. Last time she sent me a whole bag of scrap materials to dig through, and she wouldn't let me pay her anything for them since I was donating the quilt.

Last night I cut the 44 pieces of fabric I already have into 5 1/2" squares. Lauren's were only 4 1/2", but Tommy is quite a bit taller than her for one thing. The fabrics we located also have larger patterns on them, so I wanted the extra inch to capture more of the detail. While I am waiting for the other fabrics to arrive I'll begin cutting the purple strips which will border each of the squares. All the cutting is the most time consuming and least rewarding part of quilting, in my opinion. I like seeing all the squares come together as I sew. Oh well, off to the cutting board!