A day at the beach

I had the best weekend! The boys and I had a day at the beach. We went to Lewes DE and spent the day at Broadkill beach - a dog friendly beach that was mostly deserted and beautiful.



Hurley especially loved the beach! He got to run after his ball and jump in the waves. He is still mama's boy though and wasn't happy until he was sitting on my lap!





I guess it was the best vantage point to watch the people and dogs walk by.

Bailey had the entire beach blanket to himself. Although he didn't like the water as much as Hurley he still enjoyed sniffing the shells, sand, crabs, water, rocks, seagulls, seaweed,....




After the beach - a quick drive over to Rehobeth for dinner was followed up by a sunset walk on the boardwalk. It was a beautiful evening.








I'm so glad I got to go to the beach! I hope to make it back there again soon!

Olympic knitting update!

I'm keeping up with my Olympics knitting so far! I'm so close to being done with the body. Out of 7 different handspun skeins I'm on number 6! I really hope I have enough - I don't want to have to spin more. I think I'll just make it!

Here it is so far:




In other knitting news - I participated in a sock swap on Sarah's blog. I got mine from Michelle and they are so great! She sent a sweet package of goodies too:



I was knitting for Jake - and here are the awesome socks I made for him:


Pattern: Guitar Man socks by Rebecca Mercier
Yarn: Happy Feet
Needles: Size 2US
Mods: I only did 5 repeats instead of 8 - because man these would have been huge!


It was also time for the doggies to get their haircuts! I love freshly cut doggies - and they are so exhausted after they get back from their haircuts they sleep the rest of the day! They both look kind of annoyed here because I woke them up to take their pictures!

Blizzard of 2010!!

WOW is all I can say. We got about 3 feet - YES 3 FEET!!! and it's just now stopped... What a crazy day!

Here's my neighborhood.











It was actually kind of fun today - I hung out with my neighbors and even got to go sledding!

The sun came out a little bit ago and I hope the snow is done for the day!




Hope you all are safe and warm wherever you are!

Knitting in the snow

It snowed again yesterday and it snowed ALL DAY! I woke up to find a gentle dusting and it just kept going and going like the energizer bunny!

Luckily it was a dry snow and easy to shovel! We woke up this morning to find it melting and forming icicles on my bay window.



Just look at that blue sky today!


Hurley, as usual, thinks the entire outside has turned into his own personal snow cone and just eats and walks all around.



Bailey doesn't eat the snow - he actually tries to stay on the shoveled areas!



Since I was snowed in - I decided it was a perfect time to cast on for a new project! I grabbed some Handmaiden Sea Silk and cast on for Kernel from Knitty.



This is the first time I've ever put beads in my knitting and I have to say it's pretty cool! I may have to do this more often :)


This picture of my knitting is the last picure for January in my Project 365. I finished a complete month!!



I'm both excited and surprised that I was able to keep it up. I'm posting pictures on flickr and on this cool site called 365Project.

More snow!

But this time it's managable and beautiful!

We woke up to this winter wonderful this morning!



The dogs had fun... Hurley thinks the entire outside is a giant ice cube - just for him!



Bailey just likes to root around and sniff - acheiving this lovely white beard :)



I love how my daisy pods looks covered in snow - just like little white hats!



Perfect weather to enjoy my new tea kettle!



I bought myself a new green tea kettle and I love it! I was hoping to get one for Christmas but I didn't - so I treated myself to one yesterday. Gotta love green tea! hehe

First post all year!

Wow - I haven't posted all year! hehe... I've been sick as a dog for the last 10 days or so. What started out as just a stuffy nose has morphed into the worste cold/flu whatever I've had in years. I think I'm finally on the road to recover (I hope) and thought I should make an appearance in blogland.

For Christmas this year - we all got wonderful things and I wanted to share some of the highlights...

John grew up in Japan during his formative years (age 6-12) and grew up loving all things Japanese. One of the things that has captured his fancy is Pachinko machines. He has several "old fashioned" ones in our garage. This year - his friends got him a brand new electronic Pachinko machine! In case you have never heard of these you can read more about them here and here.

John's new toy is based on Star Wars! Here he is playing it:



When you get the little metal balls into a slot - it sets off a slot machine type game. If you get three of a kind...


You get a "bonus game" or a "bonus video"...



Yes - it lights up and makes LOTS of noise! (It's currently residing in our basement!)


Bailey and Hurley got toys of course - but the biggest hit has to be Hurley's new soccor ball...



Believe it or not - he can actually pick this thing up with his teeth! He loves to batt it around and the best part is that is doesn't roll under the couch like most balls. The picture above is the only clear picture I got! Most looked like this:



As for me - I got my grandmother's button jar.



I can't tell you how wonderful this gift is! My grandmother was visiting us from her nursing home and it was great to share this with her. I remember searching through this button jar as a kid to find just the right button for a project. My crafty side comes from my grandmother for sure. She made many of my clothes as a kid and taught me to crochet and sew. I look forward to the many projects I will create with these treasures!



I hope your holidays were just as wonderful.

O Christmas Tree!

This year we didn't get a big Christmas tree. We didn't even bring down our ornaments or decorate much of anything actually. With John being weak and unable to lift heavy things, there was no way I was going to be able to bring all the boxes down from our high storage units by myself. So we were going to make do without a Christmas tree this year.

But... it's not Christmas without a tree!!!

So I went to Lowes and bought a little blue spruce tree that you can plant in the yard! It was very cute :)

Here it is all decorated for Christmas. John and I had fun making paper origami cranes to hang on it along with the dollar store box 'o ornaments :)



I think it came out looking pretty good for a last minute purchase! I finally got around to planting it this past weekend.

Can you see it?



No?

Let me help - here's a closeup:



It's soooo tiny! I think it may only 2 feet tall.

I hope it actually grows :)

Bailey and Hurley were very excited at the prospect of digging in the dirt. Here they are waiting patiently (yeah right!) for me to hook them up to their leashes.



I tied them up to a tree near where I was working and they did surprisingly well!

Here's Hurley at full alert:




Have a great day!

PS - I finished my Koolhaas hat - but I still need to take pictures. I LOVE it!!!

Mystery Stole

I finally got some pictures of me in my mystery stole! John took these of me on Sunday.




Stats:

Pattern - Swan Lake (aka Mystery Stole 3) by Melanie of Pink Lemon Twist
Yarn - Jagger Spun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 in Claret
Needles - Addi Lace size US 6
Alterations - none
Comments - This was such a fun pattern to knit. I took a lot longer than I expected to complete it because it was knit in bits and pieces while waiting for John at doctor's appointments etc. It definitely helped keep my mind occupied and distracted :)

Thanks Melanie!

I will let the stole speak for itself....















After the photo shoot - I had some friends who were anxious to see me :)

All I can do is laugh

So I walked into my dining room the other day....

and saw this lovely mess on the floor:





I'll give you one guess who did this handy work...





...Yup!



Doesn't this face just scream guilty!!



Oh well.


I just can't stay mad at this guy!