Ribbit

On my birthday last year both Shannon and mom gifted me hand spun yarn, what a treat! As soon as I opened Shannon's I knew exactly what I wanted to knit out of it.

A long while back (Spring of 2008) I saw a shawl pattern in Spin-Off magazine that I really wanted to knit. It is a Traditional Danish Tie Shawl, the pattern is based on an old Danish pattern. I know mom has already knit one up, maybe she will post a picture of her completed one so you can see it.

The pattern is simple so I thought it would be a good one to lug along to hockey practices and knit while I watch the kids play. I was knitting away on it at SeaBass's game on the weekend and the game was so good I put one of my yarn overs in the wrong place. I did not notice for a few rows and then when I did see it I thought maybe I could live with it that way (Denial, I know) the more rows I knit the more I realized I could not live with it.



I did at one point decide to drop a few stitches in that area and see if I could go back and fix just that little section. I tried that and and was not happy with the results, so I knit a few more rows to torture myself a little.

Finally I decided I needed to just suck it up and rip back to my mistake. I tried a trick I have read about often but have never done. I used a smaller size needle and picked up the stitches on the row just beneath my mistake:



I took a deep breath and pulled out my working needle. I ripped back to the needle I used for the life line and prayed I picked up all the stitches and the few yarn overs all on the same row.



And it worked!!! You can see my stitches are leaning the wrong way on one side, but that was no big deal, I stitched into the knit stitches the right way to turn them around and I was back on track. Now I have even knit enough to be back where I was when I decided to rip back. Shannon did such a nice job spinning the wool that it held up nicely to the abuse of being ripped back and knit twice, it no worse for wear at all.

Shannon, if I am remembering right this is well traveled wool. I think I recall you posting pictures of this wool while you were spinning it in Oklahoma. I was thinking if my memory is correct then this wool has been from CA to OK and back to CA only to be delivered to me in WA and then knit up in Canada.



One for the road. This is Q trying on the chaps that Paul's parents got him for his birthday. A perfect fit.

About Damn Time

I have about a million titles for this post, it has been to long I know.

I don't know really know why myself so I have no excuses (see there's a good title) and really no good reason (another good one) for not posting in so long.

So how about if I just start fresh and dive right in?

We had a wonderful holiday season, it was just Paul and I and the kids around here and we celebrated the season in the best way possible, just spending time relaxing and enjoying some family time.

We spent last weekend celebrating SeaBass's 9th birthday.

When I was pregnant with SeaBass I took a Lamaze class, there were only four couples in the class and we all ended up having our kids very close together. Three of those couples seemed to really connect and our kids even go to the same school.

You all know of Deb and her daughter Layne who is only 5 days older than SeaBass, and then there is Wendy and her family, there son is only one day older than SeaBass. Wendy teaches my kids piano and works out with me in boot camp classes. The third I see around town now and again and we always stop and catch up when see each other.

Wendy came up with the idea of a joint party at the tube park up at one of the local ski hills. Since the kids all go to school together their guests lists overlapped quite a bit. It made the party a great time and a more economical for everyone as well. They keep a couple of fire pits going at the base of the tube run so you can warm up when you get chilly and the kids had hot dogs and Smores instead of birthday cake.

I was talking on the phone last night with Mom about the crazy weather in CA right now. We have a crazy weather here as well. Ours has been on the other end of the spectrum, we are unseasonably warm.

Aunt Patricia requested some snow pictures and I can't provide you with any right now. We had snow for a little while but has all melted away with the hot spell we are having. Today we are sitting +4C (39F), last Friday if was +13C up at our house (55F), I just peeked at the thermometer and it has popped up to +9C (48F) since I took that picture an hour ago! I have been wearing sweatshirts to work and my winter coat has been put away for two weeks now. I am sure it will get cold again and I am hoping for some snow. I never thought we would in a situation here that I would consider asking California for water!



I will leave you with a couple of pictures of the back yard:



You can see the sun glaring off a bit of ice on the back lawn and bit a snow in the shady spot, but that's about it. (Oh yes and my finger in the picture too! Don't say I never post any pictures of me on here.)

A Fish Tale

I can't remember if I posted about Sebastian catching his first fish or if I just thought about so hard I think I did it. Does that ever happen to anyone else? Often I have to ask Paul if I spoke to him about something I intended to share with him or if I just got to the thinking about part and stalled out.

Okay, swung a little off topic there. A while ago SeaBass and Paul went fishing and SeaBass (hehe) caught his first fish. He decided he likes catching them but is not so interested in eating them. So they decided they would go back out and catch release.

Q decided he would like to try fishing as well. (PJ and I stayed home for some girlie time, we painted our nails and did a princess puzzle together)

Below is Q with a nice sized first fish and huge smile on his face. He was totally jazzed when he came home. Paul said they had a blast.



SeaBass caught a couple as well. I think Paul caught one too, the kids were sure to let me know that they caught larger fish than their Daddy.



A Little Rant:

In BC there is a lot of government talk about the recession and the cuts that need to be made to keep the deficit from getting out of control before we start having the same problems that the US is having. We are experiencing a recession here, but not as bad as the US at this point in time.

The government feels that one of the solutions is to make cuts (surprise). It seems to be a government consensus that the school system would be a great place for cuts. Let me give you a bit of background.

There are less people in Canada than there are in the state of CA. BC is a whole lot of land, with not a huge population, which means there a whole lot of rural communities. Many of these rural have small schools so that the children don't need to bus in from far away to get an education.

The plan the BC government is coming up with means closing many of these rural community schools and having many of these children bus as for as one hour to school. Can you imagine your child spending two hours of his or her day on a bus and then getting home and trying to get homework done, or play a sport? How about getting your eight year old out of bed an hour earlier to get then to school on time? How about the danger of busing children long distances on snow covered winter roads? How about the cost of busing these children and maintaining the winter roads to get them to school safely?

Here's my beef: BC is hosting the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver. Wonderful for press and tourism and general exposure for all the wonderful things BC has to offer. Our government has spent millions and millions of dollars to build housing for the Olympic athletes, millions on large venues for the athletes to compete, millions on law enforcement, security, advertising and so much more that comes along with hosting an event of this magnitude.

What I want to know: I don't understand a government that can justify spending millions and millions of dollars on hosting a world event when they cant take care of their youth.

It makes me angry as a tax payer, why don't I get to choose how I want my tax dollar spent? Isn't it more important to invest in our children and future of this and any country than it is on the Olympics?

Okay rant over.

Merry Chirstmas

I think everyone out there knows that Paul has been wanting a bike for a very long time. He rode one when I first met him, I think he sold it sometime while he was in Chiropractic school, or maybe just after retuning home when he finished school.

We have talked many times about him getting one again. I told him he can get one when he finds one three car seats fit on.

Well, the kids are a bit older now and our work schedules play out in such a way that I drive them to school most of the time. We have a parking problem at the office and a bike would really help with that.



I have been watching bike prices drop since the recession and you can get a used Harley for a great a deal in the Great White North (and in the US I would imagine) I told Paul I thought he should keep an eye out and if he saw a good a deal on a bike he wanted he should buy it. (I gave him a $$ amount he had to stay with in budget)

Low and behold they had his dream bike right here at the local Harley dealership, used and his budget. He went down to give it a test drive and even had a cashiers check in his pocket to buy the bike if he liked it.

He test drove the bike and liked it so much he freaked out a bit and walked out of the store with the check still in his pocket. He even called me later to tell me he needed to call the store and apologize to the salesman for running away in a panic.

Paul is not so good at buying things for himself.



So I got off work that day and picked the kids up at school and dropped by the house to feed the kids a quick snack and grabbed the cashiers check off the dresser. The kids and I went back up to the Harley shop and found the salesman that Paul ran away from. I explained why Paul ran away and he laughed.

I called Paul and asked if he really wanted this bike or if he wanted to keep looking around. When I got his answer I said good bye and when I got of the phone I bought Paul his first Harley for Christmas, and his birthday, and our anniversary...for the next ten years.

I wish the light were a bit better in the pictures above, but she is gorgeous. Paul of course is so excited it took about a week before it really sunk in.

It feels so good to be getting a head start on my Christmas list.

Hockey Mom

No pictures today, I need to download some and my camera is at home and I am at work. I have at least three blog posts in my camera right now.

We are all doing well around here. I am trying to get into the rhythm of a new schedule and I think I might have things under control next week.

The kids are playing hockey again, the season started up about two weeks ago. This time they are playing in a minor hockey program and the kids are in 3 divisions that are divided up according to year of birth. Each division has 2 ice times a week and each year of birth gets it's own ice time.

You've done the math haven't you? Yup that adds up to six ice times a week for this family. (That does not include Paul who has two ice times a week as well, but I don't need to be there to lace up his skates quite yet)

The kids are having a great time, they seem to be enjoying this program even more than Peter Puck. Peter Puck is a great program but the kids are pretty comfortable on their skates and wanted more puck time and more game time not just practices and drills.

All three kids are hoot to watch, PJ is playing on an all girls team. It is a bit more of an age group blend. Some of the girls want to play on boys teams and some don't. There are not enough girls to put together an all girls team in each age group, so PJ's team has 6, 7, and 8 year old girls on it. They all grin from ear to ear while they play.

In SeaBass's division they divided all the kids up into three groups and have spent at least two weeks just having the kids skate and play games on the ice, like freeze tag and some drills to evaluate skills. They rate each kid on different skills on a scale of 1-5. Then they divide up the teams as evenly as they can so no team dominates the season. They are using the this week to have the teams play thier first games and decide if the teams are even. If there are teams that are to week or to strong they may juggle a few players to balance things out. Very cool.

At Q's level they are teaching more skating and puck handling skills. They teach alot by playing games, having the kids pull one another across the ice and playing a game called star wars where they have to try not to have pucks touch them, freeze tag and so much more.

So far it is stacking up to be a good program for all of them. I have the crock pot out and often have cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner by 8:00 in the morning. If anyone has a good crock pot recipe send me an email. I can only eat so much roast.

Paul has been helping out, he takes SeaBass to the early weekend games (sometimes he plays at 7:00 am) oddly enough SeaBass says the early games are his favorites.

There is an up side to sitting an arena freezing your buns off 4-6 times a week. That's a whole lot of knitting time. I actually get more sitting time than I ever have in a week, but the house is a mess. How does it get so messy when we are not even home to mess it up? It's a mystery

Finally

The kids tell me one of their favorite things about from Dad and Corrine is story time with Corinne. They are captivated books, which I think is very cool.



My pictures are a bit out of order here, this one should be somewhere further down. Some how I thought I had pictures posted that I did not and then when I posted one another disappeared. I think my computer is doing what I tell it to do not what I want it to do.



I think I have been trying for post for about a week now. Every time I fire up my computer either I get sucked into reading everyone's wonderful blog posts or I have technical difficulty, or someone tells me I have a patient waiting, or a kid needs help with homework. I think you get the idea, the blogger gods are not with me.

I took these pictures when Dad and Corinne were here for a visit, Dad came out for a dirt bike ride with us, we had a great time. My pictures are bit out of order so clearly that's one of Paul not Dad. I love the dirt bike shadow in the picture below, I don't know why.



Here's Dad on the quad. He only took for a short spin by himself. It was so funny when we started out I asked him if he wanted me to drive it or if he wanted to, he said he wanted me to drive first. So he gets on the quad in the seat in the back and as I am climbing on the front to give him a ride he said, "This is just weird." I laughed.

I started up the quad and put it into gear and dad leaned forward and and yelled through the helmet, "Kelly, if you kill me I'll haunt you forever." I laughed so hard. We did a little ride up to this small lake and a look around.



The water was the lowest we have ever seen it, there is usually an island in the middle of the lake and we could walk right out onto the island without ever getting our feet wet. The kids had a blast chasing little frogs all over the place.

Dad said he spent the first half of his time on the quad holding on for dear life and then about halfway through he realized there was a seven year old on a little quad in front of us leading the way and he began to relax and really enjoy himself. I am glad he decided to come out with us.

When we go out dirt biking for us is about having a great time and day out with family, we are not out there trying to go as fast as we can racing one another. (If I can keep the boys from racing one another as they get older and more competitive I will be doing well)

(My post seemed to jump all over this time, it took three sittings for me to write it, so it might be a bit confusing)

Playing Hardball

We had a wonderful time in Las Vegas , George and Judy have such a beautiful home and are always so welcoming. Here are some pictures of the backyard. The first is the temperature, it was about 100degrees every day. Just perfect weather for enjoying the pool and the kids outside.



Here is the pool we lounged around in first thing in the morning. As you can see we were really roughing it.



To take the picture above I am standing under a little cabana. Below is a picture of the tile work on a table out on the patio. It is so pretty, really makes you feel like you are on a beach in Mexico.



The kids would enjoy root beer floats at the bar with Grandpa George. The bar has the same beautiful tile work as the table above.



Now for the hard ball part. We made an offer on a building on Thursday of last week, they sent us a counter offer on Monday. Today Paul and I sent them another offer. They are looking for a quick closing date, so we are low balling them a bit...if they are in a hurry to sell then we have the advantage (I hope). The building has been on the market for almost three months and we are there first interested party. I will keep you posted on what the scoop is as things come along. Wish us luck.

Doesn't it Just Figure?

I finally get my lazy bum going and fire up my computer to blog and blogger will not let me upload any photos for you tonight. Cracks me up, I have tons of pictures to show you.

Paul and the kids did a trip to Vegas to visit with George and Judy. I stayed here and worked for a week and then I flew out and met them for four days. We had a great time, someday I will show you some pictures to prove it!

We got home a week ago today and spent last week getting the kids into the school routine. Q was a bit nervous about starting first grade, but by Friday he had decided he likes it well enough.

Dad and Corinne got here Wednesday evening and we had a great visit. (I have some wonderful pictures to show you of their trip too) They left this morning, to head home. They have been away for almost three weeks, it sounds like they had a great trip. I am sure they are looking forward to their own bed. I love visiting and traveling , but nothing beats my own bed.

I even have some finished knitting to show you...all this suspense. I am going to have blog again. Soon.

Cleansing

Paul and I are just wrapping up a 14 day cleanse. It is http://www.rbclifesciences.com/Products.aspx?ItemID=178 follow the messy looking ink, the colo-vada plus cleanse. It is 7 days of eating well and taking a vitamin packet with breakfast and dinner that prepares your body for the cleanse.

The next four days you try to not eat at all and take vitamin packets morning and evening and psyllium packets 4 times a day. You mix them with some juice and chug them down. The psyllium expands with the juice in your gut and makes you feel full even though you have not had anything to eat.

Paul and I chose to eat a little bit, we ate fruit and veggies, he was able to eat pasta and sandwiches as well. I found I was so full on the psyllium husk that I did not have to much room to eat, you are certainly not hungry at all. I had to eat or I would get terrible headaches. I ate fresh fruit, veggies, nuts and hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt. I tried to eat light foods for the most part. By the end of every day I was so full of psyllium I looked like I was four or five months pregnant. We laughed about my gut every evening.

I gained about eight pounds during the cleanse in water absorbed by the psyllium husk. You spend three days after the elimination stage eating as well as you can and taking vitamin packets that help put all the good nutrients back into your body.

Other than the bloating I felt pretty good the entire time and I am dropping the eight pounds pretty quickly as I finish passing the psyllium. I don't know if I would do this cleanse again, but I will continue to try others. I try to do one at least once a year.

I really think this one put in a bit of a starvation state, I am not very hungry now and it takes very little fill me up. It is amazing to me how quickly you get used to eating less and how good I feel when I eliminate eating the processed foods I tend eat throughout the day.

New Roof

I think our house is about 17 years old. An aging house needs a face life every now and again. Paul worked hard last summer to get the outside painted. This year we found ourselves in need of a new roof over our heads.



(What's with the half eaten apple on the window sill in the picture above?)

When they built the homes in this neighbour hood they used pine shakes for many of them. Pine shakes don't last long and the roofers are making a mint off the fact the company that built the first homes in this area cheaped out and used it. The newer homes in the area have been built with ceder, tile or asphalt shakes all lasting much longer.



City by-law has rules about the hours you can do loud work in the Loops. You can't start until 7:00 a.m. I swear to you the roofing crew would arrive at 6:45 to set up they would quietly put up ladders and climb onto the roof and exactly when the clock turned to 7:00 they would drop the hammer.



They did the house in less than a week. One night they asked me if they could work late and they worked from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 on a Friday night. They were nice guys and made sure it would it be okay and were worried the kids would not be able to sleep though the noise. (The kids sleep though anything.



In this picutre you can see the new shakes on the bottom portion of the house and the old shakes on the top. The finished product looks great and the shakes are supposed to last us 30 years.

This and That

Our view out the front window has not been at its best this week. Normally I can see down to the bottom of the valley and you can see the river snaking its way along the valley floor. I took this photo at about 8:30 in the morning on a beautiful 95 degree day.

We are socked in with smoke from surrounding forest fires. We are safe and this point no structures are in danger with any of the many fires in burning in our fire district.

We are hot and dry and our forests are full of dead brown dry trees due to the pine beetle.



I took this picture halfway down the hill on my way to work on the same morning. You can Google BC Wildfires and a great web site will come up that will show you the fires in BC it will even link you to Map Quest so you can see where the fires are.



Yesterday upon arriving to work I had one of pts. ask me if that was my van out back. I told him it was and he asked me if realized my license plate had been stolen. Apparently it was taken sometime the night before, either while I was at the YMCA downtown for a workout or in our driveway while I was sawing logs.

Either way it cost me $18 buck for replacement plates. I can't tell you how annoying it was that I had to pay for replacements. It is not as if I stole my own plates.

The funny thing is, I could have been stopped by the police and picked up for driving a stolen car. I reported the plates missing and then drove to BCAA to replace them. I got lucky and did not get puled over on the way there.



George and Judy come into town this evening and we are off to Kewolna for the annual family reunion. Should be a great time. Have a good weekend!

Many Moons Ago

I am not sure how many weekends ago I took these pictures. These are from a Saturday morning we packed up the dirt bikes and the quads and took the kids out. We parked about 10K (6miles) from this lake and unloaded the bikes.



These pictures are really out of order so bear with me. This is a little snake we saw sunning at the lake.



Huge foot print at the same lake; I would I guess this is moose print. I am wearing a big huge boot in this picture and I have big feet myself, ladies 10. That is a big print.



The kids and husband are mine, the dog is not. It was up there with some guy that was fishing apparently we were way more fun than his owner.



Ah, here is the start of this whole post. We started here and rode in 10K. PJ rode with me on the back of the big quad. Q rode with Paul and Sebass rode his own bike the entire way. The younger kids get worn out on such a long ride, their hands get sore and and then it is to hard for them to work the hand brakes. Not good, so we switched things around for safety. We had a great day. Sebastian was amazing on his bike but pretty beat when we got back to the truck.

Happy Valley

More vacation pictures. This is a campground we stayed in on our way to Eugene. I think it is called Happy Valley. It was one of the prettiest places I have ever stayed in. The entire place was surrounded by river and by trails to walk through.

Here is a little bridge that takes you over the river to one of the areas where you can have a campfire in the evenings. You can see they have chairs set up and firewood stacked and ready to go.



Here is one of the walking trails. There were a lot of them, not all as wide as this one. It was really neat, the kids would go on walks together and you could not see in them on the trails but you could always hear them laughing and talking to one another, so you knew where they were and that they were okay.



Here is the campsite. Full hook ups and not a mosquito to be seen.



This is the office and the laundry facility. They has a bathroom with a shower I would like in my own home. There is another nice spot to sit there, with a BBQ and a great big table and chairs all around it. Even wireless internet if you need it, at no extra fee!





I think I took about a million pictures of the trails and of the river.



I am ready to go back.

Borders

We had a great trip to Oregon. It was so fun to travel and not have to rush from place to place. We did most of our driving in the late morning/early afternoons. When the kids would start to get restless in the truck we would have them start reading signs for campgrounds and we would pull into a few of them until we found one we all liked.

We would set up a quick camp and get the bikes out for the kids and they would burn off all their energy riding around while Paul and I got dinner together. Then we would all get showered up and get the kids settled in bed. Paul and I would have a fire in the evening and sit and chat a bit. it was great.

This picture is of the Washington/Oregon Border, which of course is the Columbia river.



Here is Paul teaching Sebastian how to skip rocks across two states. This was on our way to Oregon on highway 97, so we are on the Washington side where we stopped for lunch before venturing on.



PJ selecting a stone:



Q:



I will post some photos of meeting up with rest of the family on Monday.

Camping in Clear Water

A couple of weekends ago we went camping up in Clear Water, it is the annual trip we do with the Cow's and Udder's. (That would be Barking Cows) You remember all the humming bird pictures from last year.

This year I bring you change of pace, the humming birds were there but I don't want you to get bored with my content.



We took the kids for a little hike to Dawson Fall's. They call it 'little Niagara' due to it's horseshoe shape. It was very pretty. I found it a bit scary though, there are areas where there is no fence and a kid (or an adult) could easily fall in and be gone. It is not that high, but high enough. Quentin said it scared him.

Paul and I made sure one of us had a hold on each kid the whole time we were there, but the amount of access to the falls made me nervous.



Here is the gang on the little hike in. I think the kids enjoyed the walk even more than they did the falls itself. There were so many mosses and lichen along the way, we hunted up all kinds of natures treasures. SeaBass said to me, "Mom, I am having so much fun and all I am doing is going for a walk!"



There are a few bears that hang out at this campground. We see them quite a bit in field just over the fence that marks the boundary of one edge of the golf course there. We leave them well enough alone and they don't bother anyone.

This year we had the pleasure of watching one for quite sometime. He was just across the river from our campsite. He sat and watched us for a bit as well. He sat long enough for me to run to our trailer to grab my camera and was even kind enough to give me a chance to change lenses.



He (or she) eventually got bored of watching us watch him and wandered off to more interesting things.

Crazy Week

This week has been a bit more of a gong show than usual around here. Nothing to exciting just a big juggle of soccer for the kids, softball for me and hockey for Paul. PJ is so pooped she put herself to bed about an hour ago.

In my spare time I have been chugging along on the Mystery Socks. I will post a picture of them soon.

Paul and I are diligently searching for the Martini of the Summer for 2009. Last year and the year before we were really into the Carmel Apple Martini. Still a favorite but I am looking for a little change. So this evening I tried a Razzle Dazzle. I really like it but Paul dose not (even better)

give this one a try:

2 1/2 oz vanilla vodka
1/2 oz chambord (I put in a full oz)
2 oz of cranberry juice.

Yum. I had a couple of sips and I can hardly type. I think I will have a splash more and knit a little. That's a recipe for successful knitting.

Mystery Sock Troubles.

Paul's virgin socks have been done for a little while. They are a little a big for him in the ankles but fit well as far as length goes. One of the doctors he works with at the Welcome Back Clinic admired Paul's socks on their maiden voyage and he snapped this picture of them and e-mailed it to me.

It looks to me like Paul works really hard while he is there.



Before the Mystery sock pattern was released the woman putting on the KAL posted the knitting gauge you needed and the number of beads you needed strung on before you start the pattern. I had, as you know, swatched, chosen yarn and strung on my beads.

The first part of the pattern was released last night and I was a bit choked to discover it was written for a "medium" foot and not for multiple sizes. They are knit toe up and you go into the foot with only 66 st. on the needles at a gauge of 9 stitches per inch. No way that sock will fit me and no pattern instructions for a larger size.

This leaves me no choice but to ditch the yarn and bead choice I had ready to go and move up to a heavier wt. yarn and larger needle size, so back to the drawing board.



Pictured here are my yarn choices, all KICK stash yarn and my only three colours of stash beads. I like the red, but I recently knit up a pair of plain red socks so I lean toward the other combinations. The colours a true in the pictures below, the one above is a bit washed out by the sun.

Warmest day yet this year we are hitting 23C, which I think is right up around 70F. Weather man says good for two days and then we are back to rain and cold. Still below freezing at night last night, but Spring is trying so hard to come to the Loops.

Help me decide which to string the beads on:

Combo A:



Combo B:



Combo C:



I would like to get started this weekend so I am looking forward to your input.