Houston was, not surprisingly, wonderful. :D I had two terrific classes (machine trapunto and curved piecing) from a fantastic teacher, and I saw row after row of gorgeous quilts -- not to mention the ever-popular vendors. ;)
One of the huge highlights of the trip, though, was meeting Bronnie in person! We met for lunch one day and had a lovely visit. Unfortunately, she was beginning to feel rather under the weather, but she's a delightful person, both online and in real life. Some of you may recall that she showed us photos of some amazing small quilts she'd done in indigenous fabrics -- one of a kookaburra and the other of an adorable koala. That koala is now living with *me*! :O I was, to say the least, flabbergasted at this wonderful, generous gift -- one I treasure. Bronnie is due to fly home this evening, and I'm sure she'll be glad to see her own bed after a month in strange ones. ;)
I had a time packing to come home, since one of my purchases was a king-sized batting. It was a challenge to get it into the suitcase, as you might imagine. However, I was successful and didn't even have to abandon my clothes to do so. ;) Other than the batting, I also bought a pattern for a dog bed (adorable!) and a pattern and some wool for another scissors case and matching needle book. Oh, and there was a new type of quilting stencil, so I bought one of those to try out, though I don't normally use many stencils. I also bought a little yarn to use for an online lace knitting class, so all of that and finishing my class projects will keep me busy for a while. :)
Coming home was interesting. I flew from Houston to Oklahoma City, where I didn't even have to get off the plane -- though I'm still curious about going that direction to get home -- before taking off again for Las Vegas. There were three of us who stayed on the plane. We landed here in LV at around 7:45PM and went to get luggage. Uh-oh. Here came the rep from airline to say that seven bags had been left behind in OKC. Surely that couldn't have been mine, since I didn't change planes, right? But DH and I looked at each other and both said mine was certainly one of the affected ones -- I've lost luggage so many times that it's sort of a family joke. We were right, too; my suitcase wasn't on my flight. All's well that ends well, though; my suitcase was delivered to my door the next morning -- at *3AM*! Needless to say, being up most of the night waiting for the thing to arrive meant that I was a walking zombie most of yesterday. It was worth it. :)