Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Vacation

We just got back from our first vacation in 2 1/2 years. Sy, BubbaLou and I went camping in York Beach, Maine for 4 nights/5 days. It rained almost every night and was beautiful every day. Not bad. Sy and I had a nice air mattress and Bubba had a fabulous new cot (Regalo travel cot) that kept us all off the cold, damp floor of the tent. Bubba was so well behaved I was in shock, I think she enjoyed the undivided attention. She slept very well, and for two evenings we were able to take a long walk and she fell asleep in the stroller around 7:15 and slept until about 6am. All in all the first camping experience with my young daughter was enjoyable.

That said, I hope we never do it again. I'm too old for that crap. Sy and I are actually going to look into renting a house on the ocean with my sister next summer and hopefully buy a camper and rent a seasonal spot the following summer. Our goal is to have me back out of work and home with BubbaLou the spring of 2010, and having a camper at one spot for the whole summer will allow us to get away for weeks at a time and not break the bank!

We took Bubba to York's Wild Kingdom and Amusement Park. I highly recommend it...the zoo and ride passes are reasonably priced for adults and little ones and you can go back all day long, lots of bang for your buck. All three of us was under $50, and we spent from 10am when the zoo opened to 5pm there (with a break back at the tent for lunch.) If you have older kids, the amusement park is open until 10pm, I think.

BubbaLou doesn't appreciate the animals behind fences yet (in her words "I see them on tv.) Feeding the ducks, goats and deer was more up her alley. More doing, less looking.

Then we took her to the amusement park and let her ride every ride she wanted to as many times as she wanted. We did every kiddie ride at least once.

My litte diva blowing kisses on the carousel. She did the Miss America wave, too. We had to do this one twice.


Bumper Boats-I think she just had fun steering around in the water. She said she "really like dis better than the other boats." Her first kiddie ride was in a boat going around a water track. Yeah, she got to ring the bell, but she didn't go anywhere. BubbaLou is all about action.

Then Daddy took her on the real bumper cars.

I couldn't get her back on a kiddie ride to save my life.
"No Mama, I need to smash people."
You could hear her out there shouting "Get that one, get him, get him!" It was worth every penny we paid for admission to see the joy in her eyes and hear the peals of laughter every time they hit someone or got hit. We had to do this twice and would have done it more if the lines weren't so bad, I guess everyone love the bumper cars. They also had a kidde ferris wheel that she rode twice, once before the bumper cars and once after. You could see the boredom in her face on the second go-round. Then we took her on the real ferris wheel, no fear in my little girl.

I'm really gonna be in trouble when state fair season starts!




Monday, July 21, 2008

Real Quick...


Here's what I called the hot cocoa mittens. Don't they make you think of steam and marshmallows? This picture doesn't really do them justice. They are a lacy outer mitten in dark brown with a mohair lining in white that fluffs out between the lace holes. Visit Melanie Falick to see all the mittens in this book, with better photographs.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Time...

Summer is melting away faster than an ice-cream cone in Bubba's hands. It started out so slow and wonderful and now I don't have a free moment of time. We're off on vacation for a few days at the end of this week, we're camping at the seaside. It will be Bubba's first camping trip...keep your fingers crossed for me.

I've been knitting off and on this summer. I'm still working on my white v-back sweater...it's a lot of stockinette on size 5 needles. I'm down to the sleeves (two at a time) and let me tell you, it's boring. Very boring. But the sweater will be beautiful in all white linen-drape (Rowan yarn my mom found on eBay for me...it's what the pattern called for and it's discontinued. Thank you and much love to you, Mum.) A good Mum will let you take your time in a yarn store. A great Mum will spend hours on the internet to find a yarn that's been discontinued for 3 years so that you can have the ideal sweater for summer. A great Mum will also understand and encourage your little fiber addiction. I like to call her the enabler. Her stash is still bigger than mine. I just finished a little sweater for a friend's new baby girl. Big sister will get a coordinating hat in the leftover yarn. I can' t very well not bring something for her (she got hand-knit socks for her last birthday...I know her Mom appreciated those little beauties.) Started another Rowan pattern in a hand painted rayon boucle yarn I got at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. Not my usual colors (shades of peach-pink and olive-army-forest green) but I thought it was too pretty to pass up. It will end up a simple cap sleeve shell with a banded bottom (what's on the size 3 needles.) The band is about 30" of k1p1 ribbing on size 3's. Ugh. It's the kind of thing I take along on long car trips 'cause it's mindless and boring. I also got some 4-ply 100% cashmere in ivory that is destined to be these gloves. Aren't they delicious? I saw this book (Knitting New Mittens and Gloves) when it first came out and didn't buy it, how many gloves and mittens can one person actually knit? Then I found that yarn and I figured it had to be fate...the gauge was "close enough" according to my memory of the pattern and thankfully I was correct. Sent man out with Borders coupon to fetch said book. Great man, like Mum will go out of his way to enable my little habit. Bubba has also found a pair of "elfin" mittens that she wants and there's another pair that make me think of hot cocoa that I will most likely make.

I also just finished knitting this. The pattern is, what else, Rowan's Alpine Shrug. I couldn't afford the Big Wool, so I used Blizzard (extra bonus-my local yarn store had a 20% off coupon in the paper!)
When I have the patience required to seam it, it will hopefully look like this:
On the non-knitting front, I've got more lettuce in my garden than I can eat. Lots of peas, carrots are coming along nicely, tomatoes are on their way, and I'll have more pumpkins this fall than Linus. My kitchen now has drawers to put things in, my porch ceiling is sky blue, and the old bathroom has been ripped off the house. The new bathroom will be framed out by tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to afford to put the fixtures in next spring...we'll see won't we?
The woman I was hoping to get "my dog", Irish Wolfhound for those not in the know, from didn't get the litter she was planning on, and she put me in touch with another woman who just bred. Keep your fingers crossed for me...I find out mid-August if there will be a puppy for my birthday this year. Visit here, Shanachie, to see her beautiful dogs.