What a fun day!

Plano, IL  aka Smallville. The hometown of Superman!  This is one of the building that was used in the Man of Steel movie that came out this summer.

Andy, my son and I went to the Sandwich Fair today in Sandwich.  It is the last fair of the season.  We had a fun time.  Hamburgers, steak sandwich, french fries, water and to top the dining pleasure, homemade chocolate eclairs!  The eclairs are the best.  So much filling in them.  They just melted in your mouth.
Andy needed to be back home, as he was going out tonight.
My husband had heard there was to be a hot air balloon launch at 6:00 tonight.  We like to see them, so back to the fair we went.  We got there at 5:50 and the one and only balloon was in the air!

It landed not too far away in a subdivision that had a wonderful open area.

After they landed, Bennett Schwontkowski, the captain (he is the one in the white shirt with the green and blue sleeves) asked those that were standing around if any would be interested in a tethered ride.  My hand shot up so fast!  I got to go up!!

My husband was kind enough to take the pictures.  This is the same person I got to go up in a hot air balloon on Mother's Day 2010.

No fear.  Even a tethered ride is better then no ride!

Oh, it was so neat!

I really don't know how many feet we went up.  I was listening to everything that Bennett had to say.  He was telling everyone about how the fuel heats the air to make the balloon rise, and then what had to be done to bring it back to the ground.

I was grinning ear to ear.  Can you tell????

It was a fun day!
Mary

Random thoughts

This morning as I was reading blogs I ran across some interesting thoughts. At Magnolia Bay Quilts, Kim referred to a blog on on Dawn Heese site, Linen Closet Quilts, about being a better blogger. Sometimes I think what is going on may not interest anyone. Actually, since we came back from my husbands family reunion earlier in August, I have just plain been in a funk. No machine sewing, a little hand work, cleaning out a couple closets, putting some card making supplies in order and a little reading. This past week, sewing started looking up. I had purchased this great book by Mary Lou Weidman recently, and have been thinking about trying one of her great ideas.
Recently, I had won this great tote bag, and fabrics from her blog Mary Lou and Whimsy Too.
She has such great ideas and creativity. Maybe I need to step out of my comfort box.

Last Saturday my husband and I drove to Lincoln, Illinois for a balloon festival and outdoor art show and flea market. The balloons did not launch at 5:00 as it was too windy. They did, however, have a balloon glow. About 17 balloon were blown up and tethered at dusk. As the sun went down you could see the "glow" as they light up their balloons. It was fantastic. You could walk around the crew and balloons. The announcer would give a command and the balloons would light all together.

This was the only "special shape" balloon called "Sea Fantasy." It was so cool to see. There were was a fish and a star fish and a dolphin attached to it.

Here are 3 other balloons being inflated. On our way home we stopped in Plano, to see if we could catch a glimpse of any changes on the Superman movie set. Did see this overturned car. We have found out that there is a sequel being considered to this movie. Everyone is anxious to see it and check out all the area where filming has been so far. Movie is not scheduled to come out until June 2013. Bummer!! There is a site on Facebook devoted to this movie and Superman sightings.

At our scrap club meeting this past week Donna showed this darling pinwheel quilt made out of half square triangles. It is such a sweet wall hanging.

Last but not least this is what I have finally been working on. It is the "Zippy Strippy" bag by Atkinson Designs. As you can see 5 are done, and 5 more need zippers. Naturally, I don't have the right color zipper. More shopping to do!

I am keeping busy, but at a slower pace right now. I am getting ready to go on a quilt retreat at Iron Mountain, Michigan the middle of September. My friend Pat and several of her quilting buddies and I are going to "Quilt Camp". I think they are going to work on the "Civil War Diary"quilt, and I am going to work on one called "Apron Strings". I need to start pulling fabric.

Have a great week, and thank you for stopping by.


Mary

Superman in Plano, Illinois this week

Superman is being filmed in Plano, IL this week and next. They have really done wonders to make Plano into Smallville. We checked out the town on Friday evening, along with a lot of other folks with cameras. They have added buildings, changed store fronts, and fixed up other buildings. This is the Smallville Realty. The pictures on the window is of real houses in the area. These buildings have all been added. The store on the left is supposed to be selling boxes and packing materials. The supplies are in the store. The one with the yellow awnings is a bakery. The baked goods are in cases in the store. There is talk that a tornado is supposed to go through the town, which is why you see parts of buildings blown away.

This house is out on Route 126. It was by accident that we found out about the filming out here. Andy went with his Dad and took a couple pictures he thinks Amy Adams is in. We have only been by these areas about 5 times. Anyone that we know that wants to see it, we have been taking out. It will be fun to see if we recognize all this when the movie comes out.

It has been a lot of fun following this. When you are familiar with an area, it is fun that it is going to be in a movie. We are looking forward to when this movie comes out.

On the sewing front, nothing! I have lots to work on. Have done some hand work. Did reorganize the dining room table where my card making supplies are. Would like to finish up several cards. Soon, I will have to start working on Halloween and Thanksgiving cards. Think I know what I am going to do on with Christmas cards.

You would think that being retired you would have more time. Wrong! I am just as busy as when I worked. Do get more sewing done though. Did clean out my clothes closet. That was a major accomplishment.

We finally updated and got a new computer. The other was so slow, it felt like forever to do anything on it. Now we have Windows 7. Naturally my old files are not compatible with this version. We went from Windows XP to 7. My friend Sharon came over to help convert everything. What a job for her. I had no idea it would be so much work. I have disks for Foundation Factory, from windows 95. Can't get them to load. Two major jobs were my quilt book inventory and my recipe book. I was afraid I was going to have to redo them again. I think that would have been 3 or 4 times I have loaded that information through the years.

That's it for now. Hope everyone is having a great week. Weather has cooled a little. The rain today was good.

Smallville Superman

Will Superman fly though this wall?

Main Street in Smallville, Supermans hometown!

The backside of Main Street in Smallville.

The little town of Plano, Illinois is getting ready for its closeup. Superman is coming. This is to be Smallville, Clark Kent's boyhood hometown. They are building sets for the filming that is to be later this summer. Warner Bros. has been in town arranging for the building of sets, painting of buildings, and creating casting calls for the locals. We went out there today to see the changes to the town so far. One side of Main Street has this row of buildings, but from the backside you see a lot of open space and what appears to be shipping containers. One of the pictues I took has the building built around a tree. One of the local buildings is an old hotel, built in 1868. It is being fixed up on the front, and will be used as a backdrop. We were trying to find out any of the story line, but there was only speculation.

Chicago, and towns in the area have been used for movies. "Home Alone", in Winnetka, " The Road to Predition" was partially filmed in Geneva, "Ground Hog Day" in Woodstock, and "Transformers", out soon, was filmed in Chicago. It is fun to watch the movies to see if you can recognize the areas in the towns that have been used. When our son was little, he wanted to know if he could go to "Kevins" house for a sleepover, after we had found the house used in "Home Alone". He figured it was all real, so why not.