Monday, August 27, 2007

End of summer fun

Some knitting progress (finally!).


It's time to unveil Jess's baby gift. She knows about it now since I gave in and showed her it after the baby shower. So time for you all to see it too. I am using the fisherman's baby bunting from here.I changed how it's made to knit the body on circulars and added the seat belt holes as well. Also I'm using a light worsted weight yarn instead of the sport weight to make the size slightly larger. In that,is my current block. I have knit 4 sleeves for this bleeping thing already and each one has its own problem.
The first one wasn't big enough to stitch to the arm opening, the second was going to be as long as a monkey's arm. The third I'm not even going to talk about and the last one was just plain laughable. I think I've got the problem licked though. Tonight I will cast on yet again to fix that. Then just one more sleeve,hood and pick around some edges. I really like how this yarn is knitting up. It is Araucania Nature Wool a beautiful kettle dyed yarn distributed by Knitting Fever made in Chile. I bought it from the LYS in Superior, WI.


I love to put stuff in the county fair, it is really fun to do and gratifying to win something for my obessed habits:)

Here are my county fair entries, the purple shawl of past post.

The mittens are felted with Lamb's Pride Worsted, I forget the color name.
I made a quick trip to the Cities and visited my sister and her boys. Isn't she a cutie? Theron is too.

We have had lots of fun lately with the kids, just in time for school to start.


Last weekend found us trekking to Jellystone Park in Warrens, WI. We went with some friends we haven't seen in a while. They were our best pals when we lived in the Cities (That's the Twin Cities for those of you not from Minnesota). It was nice to know they're still our best pals. It was a fun trip for the kids especially, we adults would occasionally stagger back to our place and collapse on the couch for a bit. The kids just swam and swam and swam.


Here they met Yogi and Ranger, a highlight for them:)




There was mini golf.


And of course swimming.



On our way home we decided to go a different way and stumbled across an apple orchard. Check it out here. It was fun to do with the kids but it took a little longer to get home.

Back to the old grindstone. School starts next week! Yay!

Friday, August 17, 2007

Anniversary Surprise


Gotcha!




Thursday was our 10 year wedding anniversary. Hard to believe we aren't those young kids anymore. Knowing BDiddy like I do, I figured if I left it up to him we would spend it like any other day working on projects in the house and maybe we would go out for dinner that night. So I planned a big surprise for him. I was trying to pick him up from work but he came home early and we met on the road as I was leaving to go get him. He looked a little like, "What the heck?" My mom came and watched the munchkins and I had asked his boss to schedule a fake meeting the next day. We were off the the Olcott House Bed and Breakfast in Duluth. He was so so so surprised!

This is the outside of the place isn't it beautiful?

The drawing room, where guests were received in the old days.

Our room had a distant view of the lift bridge.

We had dinner at a local restaurant in Superior, WI just over the bridge and stopped for a coffee on the way back to the B&B. Ahhhh... Relaxing!

I am feeling pretty smug about this one as BDiddy had no idea and it took some convincing for him to believe that he really had today off. In fact we had to go to his work to find some proof that he wasn't working today.

The best part about this was having some time to really enjoy each others company. Our marriage has changed throughout the years, sometimes its been really hard to see what to love about the other person but we have hung on and continued to stay committed to each other and the family we have made together. I love him more now than when we were first married, for the man he has become and the father he is to our children.

PS. I got a new camera! It took these pictures, I love it!

Monday, August 6, 2007

Busy Bee

I know, I know I haven't been blogging lately. Thank you to my loyal blog lurkers for continuing to check my site out. Sorry I have nothing to show for my long absence. I have been busy with Jess' gift which I am finally making some headway on and we had a baby shower for her recently. It has been very busy at work with lots of babies being born and I have picked up some extra shifts. We have been painting our house room by room also. We may look at selling it soon, probably put it on the market in the spring if it all works out so, that means I've been working on fixing things up on my days off instead of knitting. But I hear my yarn and needles calling to me, "Come knit us." I will be picking up projects again before I go mental:)

On another note, how irritating is it to be somewhere with your kids and hear someone say, "She should have got a babysitter." Granted my kids were acting up a bit and being a little loud in the dressing room but Honestly! How am I supposed to get any new clothes short of paying double what I could by paying someone to watch them while I go shopping! AHHHHH! How aggravating! OK... I will calm down. I really wanted to tell the ladies I could hear them. Or at least offer to have them pay for my babysitter.

I am hoping to have the baby gift done by next week so I can put it in the county fair. (Jess already gave me permission.) Otherwise I will for sure have it finished by September when it starts to get cold. I think I can do it though. I will use the Force:) Hope you all are knitting fun things and enjoying the rest of your summer!