Tuesday, October 31, 2006

May the Force Be With You

The kids are very excited for Halloween this year, and it is not yet about the candy. They are thrilled to be dressing up. I figure I have maybe another year or 2 before it becomes all about the candy.

This year Seabass and Mouse decided they would team up as a brother sister duo. (Mom I tried for Dorothy, the scarecrow and the lion but no go on that one) Once Sebastian saw the Jedi costume Shannon sent our way he started preparation by watching all the Star Wars movies.

(I am posting this not so good photo because it is the only one that has my costume in it, see my head sitting on the ironing board? I was a storm trooper)


Darth Vader even came to the party:



Q wore the tiger costume that he was afraid of last year, also made with Shannon's talented 10 thumbs. She rocks.



A not so good photo of Princess Leah (did spell her name right?) She was a girl in constant motion and difficult to catch in pixels.



The beautiful ladies. That is Wrenalious at the ripe old age of four months.



It seems that Darth has some Daddy experience doesn't it?



There was a Pooh pinata. Lets just count the number of ways that is wrong.



Sebass took Poohs head off with a hockey stick (Pinata Canadian style??? Who knew?) I thought he would be full of honey. He wasn't.



FYI: Wrenalious in blogger spell check = urinals, WTF?

Monday, October 30, 2006

Knitting Still Happens Here

I have been doing a little knitting lately. I am really enjoying the spinning so I am trying to find a little time to both. This is a hat I am working on for PJ, knitting with beads is fun and easy so far. This hat is a free pattern off a blog I read. Let me know if you want the link I am lazy today so not posting it now. I like the hat so much I might knit one up for myself, maybe with some handspun.



Speaking of spinning: I love the colour and it was fun to spin: I am not sure what to do with it yet. A hat?



We have been enjoying warm weather in the Loops, until yesterday, we got our first good frost. It was -6 this morning. These pictures were taken Sunday:







This one is just funny: yup that's the flash off the front window, nice huh?

Friday, October 27, 2006

A Little More Vancouver

Here are some more Vancouver pictures for you. This building reminded me of San Francisco but there is something missing...Does anyone know what it is? (photo taken in gastown around 5:30 in the evening)



This picture was taken out the balcony of our hotel room, same thing missing. Any guesses?

Where the heck is all the traffic????!! We were there on the long weekend and there is no one around. Even when we got to science world around 10:00 in the morning there was no one there! The place was packed by 3:00 in the afternoon. Apparently Vancouver sleeps in.



This is Science World, if my links don't work, give them a google, I am having trouble with the links today.



Science world reminds of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. We had a lot of fun there. These pictures made me laugh:







One of the things we really wanted to see at Science World was the the BodyWorlds display. It is awesome, please check out the link. You are not allowed to take any photos in there so I don't have any. Very cool stuff.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Two Wheeler

I attempted to post on Thursday, but the computer was so sllllllooooowww, that it never posted to the internet. I figured that things were busy in bloggerland and that things would slow down and I could post early Friday morning before I went out of town.

I never did get a chance on Friday as I headed out to Salmon Arm for the North direction of the Medicine Wheel. When I got back on Sunday Paul was moaning and groaning about broken computers and the internet. He was frustrated with the whole thing and had been trying to get things to work for him for 2 days.

I called Telus this morning and got lucky with a tech that seemed to know what he was doing, we were up and running in 10 minutes.

Here are the fiber pictures I intended to bore you with on Thursday:



This is my first yarn! I know it is a bit lumpy and bumpy, but I am happy with it. For a my first skein I am thrilled with it.



Looks really fuzzy here, but it looks a little better in person.




It has a bit of twist in it when it hangs, I don't think it is supposed too, I don't have a book or a video or anything, so I am running blind here. I ordered a book or 2 from Amazon, but the book will not be released until the end of the month, so it will be a bit before I get it. I think it is time for a trip to the library.



The medicine wheel was good this weekend, it is an amazing learning/healing process. I am still digesting the weekend and need to be still with what I am learning right now.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Demon Child

Don't be fooled by the sleeping demon.



Q has been a nightmare child the past 3 days. He is a fit throwing, mama hitting, booger faced boy and his fits are so loud and so long that this mama can not string two thoughts together. I hope to return you to our Vancouver trip sometime Thursday afternoon, provided there is a minute of silence in this house.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Bit the Bullet

I think everyone knows I have been on the look out for a spinning wheel. Well, I found one. I drove out to Cache Creek where there just happened to be a spinning workshop. I went out after work on Saturday and I came home with a wheel.



Paul got up early and put it together for me, he is a good man. It is not hard to put together, yet you save a ton of $$ if you buy it in the box, I was willing to save the money and I knew Paul would enjoy putting it together. Once you check them out real close they are really an amazing feet of engineering (pun intended)



We had a really busy day doing work around the house. [It seems the remodeling at the office is spilling over into the house.] I did not even get to try it out until this afternoon. I did not have any trouble getting started, I am not saying the yarn I am spinning is wonderful, but I got the thing going and I was happy with that.

Remember the 10 lbs of roving I bought a while ago? I sent most to Darryl but kept some for myself, (just in case) that is what I am working with now. I have a little bit that the lady I bought the wheel from gave me, but I wanted to practice a bit first. I am happy with the results, now that I have a wheel of my own I have a chance to improve.



I, of course, can't wait to try some other fibers. Practice first!

Friday, October 13, 2006

Lazy Behind

Actually I am behind in my blogging (and everything else) because I am lazy. But when I typed in Behind Lazy as the title, it occurred to me that Lazy Behind was far more entertaining.

I have a list of blog posts for you to make up for my laziness, but today we will start with the first portion of our trip to Vancouver. It was great fun.

We drove there Saturday morning to meet some friends of ours at the Storyeum the Storyeum was very cool and we all had a great time. Here are the pictures to prove it!

First a couple of cool pictures from the drive there. I thought the fog sitting in the Valley looked pretty cool so here it is:





The Storyeum is in GasTown which is a pretty cool place to begin with, add some history and some dinosaurs and the cool factor goes up.



Sadly I do not know who this lady is but she is an important part of the local history, she also a woman of many faces.







And last but not least and certainly the funniest:



Here are the kids, all four of them looking for dinosaur footprints:







I realize now that my camera has a great feature where you can attach a voice message to the photo when you take it. Wouldn't it be great if I had used it so I could tell you a little about the animals I am about to show you?





I can tell you a bit about the following skeletal systems. Apparently during the fossilization process many of the bones are damaged quite badly, in fact the skulls of the dinosaurs are most commonly damaged during the process. The complete skeletal systems you see here are 80% real bone and the rest are...Well...Not real.

80% preservation rate is apparently quite unusual so these are pretty cool, even the skulls are the real deal.



dinosaurs teeth are like the teeth of a shark, they fall out and there are new ones to take their place, that is why you see teeth of so many sizes in the mouth of one beast.



I find it amazing that dinosaurs lived on the earth for over 150 million years. They are by far the most successful animal occupation of the planet. Humans as we know them can only be traced back somewhere between7 or 8 million years.



Birds are very closely related to dinosaurs, so much so that some scientists believe that birds ARE dinosaurs.



Life sized T-Rex posed with life sized boys, PJ would not go close enough for a picture.



Life sized T-Rex with life sized Ranj, Susan and Jovan.




Saturday, October 07, 2006

Out to Lunch

I wish I had a good excuse here, mostly I have been a bit lazy and have not fired up the computer in a few days.

We are on way to Vancouver this morning. Taking the kids to see since world and the storium. more on that when I get back with some pictures.

I got up early this morning for a quick post and to get everyone packed. I hope to have some great photos for you when we back on Monday afternoon.

Happy Thanksgiving!