Two Full Weeks

That would be how long it has been since I last posted. Here's why.

1. Needed to get ready for 1 week long vacation with 8.5 month old.
2. Throwing a baby shower for Lucy (good thing too, he's here and he's adorable)
3. My house has to be clean for baby shower.
4. I need to make a giant mess of my house in order to get ready for trip
4.5 Go Crazy
5. Clean house
6. Leave for vacation about 6 hours late (we were driving)
7. 2 hours from home realized that I brought my camera, I brought my lenses, I forgot my fully charged battery on the charger.
7.5 Purse lips in frustration at self
8. Spend 1.5 hours on the phone determining that there is not a camera shop within an hours drive of Seaside, OR.
8.5 Pout and declare that I will move there and open a camera shop.
9. Consider not taking Little Sir on his first outing to the beach because I can't document it.
10. Snap a few shots with a hijacked camera (thanks S.)


I like sand mama. . . I think.


We don't know the extra guy in the photo, he just jumped in. No, No, that's the Duke's Cousin, T. His fiance'e was the photographer that actually showed up ready to shoot. (Oh- and he gave her her ring while they were there- congrats you two!)

11. Enjoy the rest of the vacation (with short periodic sulky moments when I want my camera.)
12. Realize that baby is off his schedule, but not too bad.
13. Save all homework for the day after returning home- they day of class.
14. Send baby and husband away to watch cousin play basket ball.
15. Go to class.
16. Come home at 9:30pm and wonder where baby and husband are.
17. Give husband dirty looks for keeping baby out too late when his schedule is all ready off.
18. Get mastitis.
19. Suffer.
20. Think that you really should go to the doctor.
20.5. Don't
20.7. Entertain husband's family at home.
20.8. Don't care that they house is a wreck- feeling too crappy from mastitis to care about much.
21. Feel more or less better two days later.
22. Go with husband and baby to watch cousin play more basketball.


Cool photo, huh!


The spectators- very important to any game. Hey, at least we know how to support our team. We even brought our own mascot! (He's the cute little one.)

23. Stay out WAY too late again.
24. Go through lots of guilt about keeping baby out too late and making him grumpy.
25. Spend the entire next day diligently trying to correct previous days' parenting mistakes.
26. Think it's going pretty well.
27. Get knocked off the parenting pride step when baby won't go to sleep until 10:30.
28. In the midst of baby not sleeping take part in volunteer's conference call for FSA conference.

Yes, it has been a tough re-entry after vacation, but the vacation was great (minus the forgotten camera battery.) I love the Oregon Coast. It's beautiful, and peaceful and somehow it's easier to breath there.
Little Sir got to meet several of his family members for the first time and had lots of smiles, cuddles, and general adorableness for everyone.
I bought yarn. I made it to four yarn stores. I didn't really buy anything amazing, but I have some fun projects planned. A new family tradition is in the works (and it revolves around yarn, what could be better?) I will share more later.
To keep you in good spirits, though, I'll show a little of what I found in

Astoria (Custom Threads)

"Smart Wool" destined to become a vest for Little Sir.

and

Raymond (A Willapa Connection)

Brown Sheep's Nature Spun Sport thinking it wants to be some fingerless gloves.

Oh yes, and one more vacation tradition to share.
The Duke and I always buy more salt water taffy than two people should ever eat in a lifetime, let alone the couple of weeks before it goes stale.


Come on over and get yourself some. We have lots to share.

if I ran the zoo. . .

I know, I know, this is supposedly a knitting and other fiber related adventures blog.

There is knitting, spinning, and even some more knitting coming soon.

In the mean time, you will just have to be satisfied with more pictures of my cute baby and the places I drag him too.

Today it was Woodland Park Zoo. BTW- their url is www.zoo.org. How did they swing that?

Anywho- Sarah, Baby E., Little Sir, and I spent a couple of leisurely hours at the zoo. I bought a yearly pass and it is the greatest thing ever. We didn't feel like we had to go all day, we didn't feel rushed, and we only saw a small part of the zoo, which was fine because we can go back as often as we want!

It was a very zenish sort of trip. . . here, you'll see.

We paid a visit to the wise wise goat.



We looked in on flamingos practicing yoga.


Then we attended a workshop on anger management. This guy was the poster boy.

He doesn't look angry here, but you should have heard him cussing when someone decided he needed to move. We had to cover the babies' ears!


Of course, the cutest animals in the whole zoo were these two monkeys who all-in-all were very happy and good.

Cousins - a Juxtaposition

Most of you probably know that my sister, known here as Princess P., has a little prince of her own, we call him "W".

Well, "W" is a serious CHUNK! He is a delightfully chubby little guy. He is 6 months old and all ready wearing 12 month clothes.

Little Sir is a feather weight.

Periodically Princes P. sends me "W"s clothes (which are basically new because he grows out of them so quickly.)

When "W" was about 2 months old, Princes P. took him in this adorable tweed sweater (knit by a family friend) and had a friend of our cousin take his pictures.








That cute sweater was in the last box of clothes Princess P. sent us.

I thought you might get a kick out of the difference between how the two little boys fit into the same sweater. (Plus, I love showing off my new favorite photo subject!!!)

Little Sir is 4.5 months old. . .

Swimming and Spinning and Scenery: A Multi-Interest Post

For those interested in swimming - or in Little Sir- we went swimming (his first time) yesterday at the Mountlake Terrace Pool.

They have this cool little area that they call the Leisure Pool. It is a graduated pool, starting out at 6 inches and going down to 3 feet. It has gentle geysers and a little island under the water. It is a great place for kids. (photo from the pool's website)



Please pardon the crappy cell phone pictures, I was by myself and didn't think it a wise choice to take my new camera (or my old one for that matter) into the pool area while trying to keep my hands on a slippery little baby.



You can see that Little Sir just loved it. (Why do I think that the sight of my child crying is so hysterically funny?) He actually did like it, but this was the last thing I did before we went back to the locker room to reverse the circus-like process that was getting us both dressed for swimming at the same time. I learned a few tricks from the other moms that were around, and next time I think Sarah and Elliot will be joining us, so baby wrangling might be a bit easier.



Don't you wish 15 min. in the pool and a few ounces of of warm milk could make you sleep this soundly?



For those among us who are interested in fiber, this is the first bit of the amazing Optium that I am spinning. I have Navajo plyed it and it is destined to become socks. I have purposely over plyed it for better sock wearing and I was afraid that I would be giving up the softness for that, but after setting, it is clear that this fiber can be nothing but soft. I am truly amazed.



And for those who are just here for the pretty pictures, well, here you go. We went up to Mount Vernon to visit a friend who just bought a house up there. We took a little drive up to Little Mountain Park and this what lay below us. Truly I live in a beautiful place.

Pictures

Behold the future of pharmacy!


It's amazing what you find when you have film developed that's been siting in a camera for three years.



I actually thought my Duke was ageless. Doesn't he look young here? This was pre-second year pharmacy. It aged both of us.




From The Artful Ewe. Merino Wool in an unknown (but delightful colorway) and the "Miss Mavis" batt, whose tag I have all ready managed to loose. I think it is alpaca, mohair, and angora. Lovely!

Also, I've crossed another WIP off my list.

Duke's Aran Sweater
Lil Bro Hat
Headband
Duke's Shadow Scarf
Red Felt Bag
Leg Warmer
Baby Surprise
M. Vest
Striped Felt Bag
Green Sweater
Japanese Lace
Go with the Flo Socks
Mitered Baby Blanket
Silk Rumple Wrap
JD Baby Sweater
W. Baby Sweater
Charlotte's Shawls

I have also made good progress on the Duke's Aran sweater, I am up to the cap shaping on the second sleeve, as well as the Flo socks, I am ready to turn the heel.

Oh, and ultrasound pics (in all their creepy cuteness) as soon as I get around to scanning them. Soon I hope.

I wonder what this button does?

Sounds like a dangerous question doesn't it? I wish I would have asked it, oh I don't know, say a year ago.

Tonight, for the first time, I noticed a little flower symbol on my camera. I thought that was strange, as I was certain my camera (much to my irritation) did not have a macro function on it. I decided to press it. A little bar graph came up, giving me the abbility to select how far away the camera is from the subject. OK then, I'm an idiot.

I have struggled to shoot good yarn photos for over a year. I would curse myself for allowing my husband to talk me into a digital camera without a macro function. Tonight, after discovering this, I sat here thinking and then remembered, "Oh yeah, it's the telephoto lense he gave me for my non-digial slr that doesn't do macro" Sigh.
Anyway, hopefully my fiber photos will be much improved, at least as improved as I can get with my little point and shoot digital camera.





Louet's Northern Lights Space Dyed Top: Violets
This wasn't very easy to spin, even in pin drafted form. I had terrible problems with it breaking or not holding its join. It turned out pretty though, and I have a few more onces in a different colorway that I will stil spin, so it must not have been that bad.



My finished scarf in my own hand-dyed colorway: Savanah.