Fiber

I finished spinning up 200g of Corriedale roving. I am happy with the results. Before I spin up something else I wanted to knit a bit of this up to see how it looks. I plan to spin for a sweater I want to knit, but I needed to see what gauge this knit up to, so I have a better idea of how to spin the yarn for the sweater I have in mind.



I it is 2 ply and 12-13 wpi. I am going to knit a pair of socks out if it to see how far 200g of roving goes at this gauge.



7 sts per inch on 2.5mm needles. I am hoping to cast on for the first sock today, but first there is laundry to fold and some chores to do.

Merry Christmas!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all did too. These first pictures are from Christmas Eve, we went to visit with Grandma Helen, brought her some gifts and took her out to lunch. Here you see her giving gifts to the kids. The Giggle Queen suggested I get some small gifts for the kids and have Helen give them to them. Great idea, the gifts kept the kids busy while we visited and even through lunch.





Helen with her 'boyfriend' Tony. They spend a lot of time together, I am not sure but I think she believes that he is Charles, who was her common-law spouse.



The beautiful gift that Paul picked out from his parents. We hung it up in the window of her room. She loves it.



Christmas morning was a hoot the kids did a great job sharing all their gifts. Here they are looking for something to unwrap:

Shannon's gifts were a hit. They have worn them quite a few times since Christmas.

Shannon you will appreciate how much mileage Q got out of his on Christmas day:

We cooked up some live lobster with the Linfields for Christmas dinner. It was so yummy I am still full.

My kids would not even taste the lobster. I think once they saw them live they did not want to eat them any more. They had no trouble watching them go into the huge pot of boiling water.

Channeling Energy

The kids are very excited for Santa's visit. They are so excited that they are full of energy and overtired. I have been doing my best to channel all their energy into good fun and helping them to keep out of trouble.

They have been playing dress-up, I think Q was dressed for dragon slaying here, Paul is the dragon.



No dragon slaying would be complete without a princess to rescue. I am not sure what Sebass's role in the whole thing was, but I know he had one.



The Christmas concert at school kept them out of trouble for a few minutes. It was very nice that the teachers put all the kids together so I could get them in one photo. I don't know if that was done on purpose or not, but it was nice. Layne is there too. I know the picture is not great, that is the photographer not the kids.



Miss Layne having a snack with Q, she is so pretty!



Q was having a great time eating and being merry.

Wren is about 6 months old already, if you can believe it. That is Grandma Pat with her head cut off, Debble's mom.

Paul took an hour off work to come hear the kids sing, I thought that was very thoughtful of him. I loved this father daughter picture. (When Paul saw it he remarked at how much he is looking like his dad)

We took the kids and Grandma Helen to the Wild Lights at the park. The Wild Life park here in the Loops has a really cool Christmas display every year. They put of 100,000 lights or more and it is really neat to see.

They use the LED lights that are so common now. I heard on the radio that the display would cost $27,000 if it were done with regular lights, but with the LED lights it only costs them $300 for the entire month of December.

I am with Shannon, I love the look the old fat lights, but we have been gradually moving to the LED's to save $$.

The kids got their faces painted at the park

Grandma Helen loved the lights, I don't think it is reflected in this photo but she had a great time. She rode the train with us and she enjoyed the maze, I think she was a bit worried we would never get out it!

The kids asked Santa what he wants for Christmas, a bigger sleigh and world peace. PJ asked what to leave out for the reindeer. They like apples by the way.

Here are a couple of light displays for you:

Pink Flamingos, because we missed Tropical Tuesday I will throw this one in.

Bears chasing Salmon:

I just can't resist these things can I?

Winter Solstice

I have been trying to figure out where the time goes and I think I finally have it. Today is winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Here in the Loops we had only 7 hours and 54 minutes of daylight. So you see, I am actually losing time.

I realize that my number of waking hours has not changed, yet when it is dark for 15 hours and 6 minutes in a 24 hour period I seem to lose time.

I have a couple of picture heavy posts heading your way. We are surprisingly productive even with the 7 hour Canadian clock. The great white hunters went out for our Christmas tree (almost 2 weeks ago) We usually go out into the bush and cut down our tree, but this year I have been saddened by the loss of so many trees to the pine beetle and I could not bring myself to go and cut down a possibly healthy tree.

We went to the Christmas tree farm out in Westsyde, it was a beautiful day and we had a great time, we got to ride on a tractor and tromp through the snow. We picked a lovely tree, I was disappointed with the height of the trees. We have a tall ceiling and usually cut down a 9 foot tree. The tallest trees at the farm were only about 6 feet tall, no worries we gave our tree a lift once we got it in the house we gave it some platform shoes and it is looking large now.

Notice the white spot on Paul's bum? That is a snow ball Sebastian threw at him, I happened to take the picture as the snow ball struck it's intended target. The kid has good aim.

Pretty picture down the Valley, it was such a pretty day.

The kids decorated the tree. I put the lights on and the kids did the rest.

A very large percentage of the decorations are quite low, this branch makes me laugh, 4 ornaments on one branch and none on the top.

Making a gingerbread house.

PJ looks very tired, they are so busy and excited they are all pooped out

Tropical Tuesday

Roads and Such

I thought I would give you an idea of what the roads are like in the Loops after a snow. I took my camera to work and took these pictures on my drive home, don't worry I was stopped when I took the photos.

This one is me pulling out of the alley behind the office and onto the street. As you can see there is a lot of snow on the road so I take it easy.



This one takes us up to one of the main roads in the Loops.



This is Columbia St. one of the busiest roads in the Loops. You can see that is clear as compared to other roads. They clean the main arteries, the highways and school zones first, then if the there is time between snow falls they do all the side roads and residental areas.



This is the bottom of the hill I drive up to get to the house. You can see the road was clear on Saturday. This is one of the most dangerous intersections in the Loops. People come down the hill to fast and slide across the intersection. You can see that the light is green and no one is moving yet. They are waiting to make sure the cars that just got the red light actually stop before the folks with the green start to go.

This hill is funny, I have seen cars stuck on the bottom many times. It is usually people who don't bother to put winter tires on their vehicles and they don't have the traction to make it up. I have really good winter tires on the van and I have never had any trouble making home.



Here are some pretty pictures I took driving into the neighborhood:

The path between the neighbors house and ours. They have kids too and the kids go back forth quite a bit, Dave dug out the path for them.

A winter rose:

See the flat crummy lighting on all of these pictures? It is about 3 in the afternoon when I took them and it was thinking about snowing, makes for funky light.