Spring break and birthdays

It seems that every year my birthday falls during Andrew's spring break which is rather nice because it means that I usually take off some time to be with him.   This year was no different, I took off 12 days in a row (Yay!).  We took a trip to Charleston to see my brother and his family.   Andrew thrives on spending time with his cousin Nic (who is 20 now) playing games, having nerf wars and all those other fun things they do.  


This year, we opted to stay in a hotel since Andrew's foot is still not completely healed.   We had my mother with us too.   Just remind me never to have a crippled 11 year old and a 75-year old grandmother on the same trip again.   Neither of them could help me load and unload the vehicle -- and both of the them had many varying needs --- none of which were even remotely similar.   Thankfully, my niece and sister-in-law helped me get our things into the hotel.  


Because of Andrew's foot, our activities were limited --- but we did get the opportunity to eat at The Early Bird Cafe in Charleston.   This restaurant was featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.   The food was truly Amazing.  So good, in fact, we made the trip twice during the five days we were there.    We also had a great trip to Patriots Point to see the aircraft carriers and all the planes. 


When I returned home, my dearly beloved husband surprised me with a Kindle Fire for my birthday!  YAY....I love to read, and this makes it super easy to tote a book around....But the BEST thing about it is that you can actually enlarge the font enough to be able to read when you forget your reading glasses (am I showing my age here)?    Of course, any Kindle Fire requires a hand-made cover, which I made in about 2 hours.   My sister provided some patterns she had found; I used them as a guide for measurements and ideas --- then I was able to produce this really cute Kindle cover.   The pattern suggested making the seam allowance a little wider so that the fit would be tighter, but when I make my next cover for the Fire, I will use the 1/4 inch seam allowance because I think this may be a little too tight.  The jury is still out on that one.  (P.S.  I took the photos before I trimmed seams, etc., because I was so excited...so please don't be too critical of my work :-)

I'd like to give credit where credit is due, and I did get most of my ideas for making this from a pattern called 'padded e-reader cover with kobo'.   Unfortunately, I don't know where my sister got this from, but I am assuming Etsy, but I'm sure if you google the phrase as written,  you will be able to find the pattern easily.    Happy Spring (although, in Florida, Spring is really over at this point...)