Miami (1) - June 30th

Uh, these were all taken BEFORE the big thunderstorm started at around 2:15 this afternoon, roughly five minutes after the last kid had come inside for lunch.  Talk about timing!  Three hours later, it's still grey, windy, and pouring out there.  I'm sure it's still in the 80's, though.  This has made for a good chance to do laundry and dishes, make beds, upload photos, and get caught up with the outside world.  I'm just about ready for a nap, now.  Since I've got about two hours before Grandma and Grandpa get home from work, I just might take one...




Oh, and, for the record:

1. Yes, I *did* get in the pool.
2. Those are my legs, not Andrew's.
3. Yes, I will get a pedicure soon; be quiet!
4. I'm not sure whether Andrew or Thing One took that terrific picture of Thing Two.
5. No, I did not knit out there.  I listened to 80s music and read Ruthie's magazines.

Miami (1) - June 29th

Grandma took the day off work so that Andrew & I could use her car to go grocery shopping while she hung out with the girls by the pool.  All the girls wanted to do was play in the pool or watch TV - pretty much what we expected, LOL.  They did have to take a couple of breaks when the rain got too bad to be out there, but they spent enough time in the pool that, by bedtime, Thing Two had "swimming pool toes".  Ah, memories of my childhood...

Miami (1) - Travel Day + Evening at Grandma & Grandpa's

6:00 a.m. flight = Mom up at 3:30 a.m., kids up at 4:00 a.m. We got to SFO before 5:00 a.m., and there was some kind of snag in American's system, and we had to wait in a REALLY long line to check in (tried to check in at the curb and at a kiosk, but both said we had to go to the counter).  We were sweating bullets, afraid that we'd miss our flight, but we made it - with time enough for me to get a latte from the Peet's by our gate (the milk was my breakfast protein).  Whew!

Thursday

What we do while Grandma & Grandpa are at work, LOL. (Actually, I'm also on my second load of laundry...)

Overheard

T2: OK, guys, I'm not going to be drowning; I'm just going to be staying still underwater.
T1: If you were drowning, you'd be thrashing around.
T2: Well, that's true....


Sent from my iPhone

Last Night - Jet Lag

It's Grandpa's Fault!!

DFW Food Court

Isn't this just the cleverest thing???

SFO to DFW

Camping

Less than a month till our big Pitts Family Reunion camping trip! SO grateful that Mark & Bobbi are going to let us use their pop-up trailer...

Saying Good-Bye to Perky

Mark, Bobbi & Andrei lost their oldest cat, Perky, while we were in WA. Yesterday, the three kids sent off three Giants-colored balloons tied to an empty tuna can as they said farewell to Perky. Andrei, Thing One, and Bobbi each said a few words (Thing Two was too torn up to do it), and then Bobbi put Perky's ashes in a special memorial box they had bought. Both girls ended up crying a lot. I hate to think how it will be when we lose Jenna someday...

Speaking of a Mobius...Bertha in the Wild

[All photos used by permission of their respective owners.]

It's very exciting to see people starting to knit my patterns from What Would Madame Defarge Knit?!  So far, the one with actual finished projects, not surprisingly, is Bertha.

First off, it was very surreal for me to see this:

VERY strange to see my name there and to hear someone saying nice things about my pattern (oh, stop it some more!).  Annnd, lookit how hers turned out:

Doesn't it look great?  It's much happier and more spring-like than the original Bertha with her red-hot flames, but it's very pretty and looks good on her.  Here's the blog post about it.

And THEN, there's THIS one.  I really like the modifications she made to it.  It has a slightly different feel, but, again, it's cool that it has its own personality instead of just being a carbon copy of the original.

Great job, ladies!  I can't wait to see more finished Bertha's showing up on Ravelry....

Funny!

Thanks, Poppa!

COOL!!!

Vacation Stash Additions

3 balls of Bouton d'Or Ksar, purchased in Everett, WA at Great Yarns.  Yes, this ball looks tiny.  Why?  Because I got all the rest of the yarn knit up into a mobius before I was someplace with good enough light for a stash picture!  (As soon as I get the ends woven in and the mobius washed, etc., I'll post a picture or three of it.)  I'm kicking myself now for not buying up all they had of this stuff in every color b/c it's a discontinued yarn, and I love it.  A gazillion years ago, I knit a commissioned scarf for my pal Mary Ellen's mom out of this stuff, and I just loved it.  Have I mentioned that the yarn is half merino and half camel?  This is one of those yarns you want to throw down on the bed and just roll around in, naked.  Really.  I mean it.




Star Castle Fiber Mill alpaca sock yarn, naturally colored, purchased at So Much Yarn in Seattle, WA.  Isn't this gorgeous?  OK, so, you can't feel it through the computer, but it's DELICIOUS (see note about aforementioned camel/merino yarn).  I'm thinking a deeper, black Bertha or else something new based on Macbeth, which I'm listening to right now on ChopBard.  Whatever I make from this, it needs to be REALLY special because, well...this was the second-most expensive skein of yarn I've ever purchased (surpassed only by the skein of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in Vera that I bought years ago, never used, and ended up selling to someone on Ravelry).

Haircut? Check!

Father's Day

Catching Up: Ashland

When we saw them in Portland, Rob & Pam Skinner suggested we stop in Ashland, not Redding, on our way back down from Washington, go to their midweek service, and stay the night with them.  It didn't take much to convince us, LOL.  We hit some traffic on the way down, so dinner was a little rushed, but we really enjoyed our brief stay with them and our time doing a mini-visit to Ashland.  We'll just have to go back again for a visit sometime.