Maker Faire 2010

After our first visit to the Maker Faire last year, it was a dead cert that we would be going this year. We spent all day there on the Saturday. Of course we saw the usual wacky inventions and the steampunk vehicles:


we all had a go on the handmade wooden bicycles (some easier to ride than others)



Adam and Fin built a solid fuel rocket:


...and went outside to launch it:


No photos of the flight - but it went 100s of feet into the air - very impressive!

The boys leaned to solder and made flashing light badges:


We visited to Society for Creative Anachronism and Adam tried on a suit of armour:

before we watched a couple beat seven bells out of each other! We talked to this couple as the suited up in their armour and they explained that even with the armour on, it was painful to get hit, and they were both sporting a variety of bruises.



We had a great day, and saw so much more than this. Yet again, I never made it to the fiber arts - but I figure that stuff I can do anyday!

Support your local artist

A few weeks ago Los Gatos held an artists open studio event. I managed to completely ignore it until I called around at a friend's house to discover that she was participating. I knew Karen was an artist - but had not really seen much of her work up to now.

Anyway - to cut a long story short a painting came home with me and is installed in it's new home.




It looks fabulous! The artist is Karen Ehlers and she exhibits in San Jose on a fairly regular basis.

At the old ball park...

The cubs did the flag parade at the San Jose Giants again this year - this time we had two cubs on the field (and a den leader). Before the ceremony the Giants' mascot Gigante came and shook hands.

It was a packed stadium, and a lovely clear evening. The game was sponsored by San Jose Water and the SJ Water singers performed the National Anthem while the cubs raised the flag.

Visitors

We had visitors over the last few weeks: my parents came out at the beginning and end of thier fabulous Alaska Cruise. Their stay seemed brief, and because of school and cub events we didn't seem to do too much.

But not too much was sometimes rather nice: like my Dad playing cards with the boys after school:



We did manage a trip to the beach with a wonderful warm day at Rio Del Mar although we didn't get Farve onto the Boogie Board (without a wet suit you would not get me in the water either!)



and of course we went out to eat - here at Aldo's:



It was a lovely visit which passed far too quickly.

What will you be when you grow up?

The boys' school held a 'career day' when the children could dress for their future careers.



Adam is a snowboarder, and Fin is an engineer. He just loved going to school in a shirt and tie, so you can imagine how much it amused Nigel and I who hated going to school in a shirt and tie!

Weekend on wheels

At the beginning of May the town holds a criterium bike race The Cat's Hill. It's an all-day affair and pretty exciting as the riders get up some speed - especially on the downhill parts of the course!



The boys decided that although they were getting too old to enter the kids race, they could not walk to the race so we adopted a variety of wheeled transport (actually Nigel and I walked).

Fin practiced his tricks on his scooter:


Adam went on his new roller blades:

When I first moved to Los Gatos I bought some roller blades and took lessons, but never achieved the elegance (or confidence) that I hoped I would on them. The skates have been in the shed for the last 10 years when the boys found them. The practiced with my skates for a few weeks and Adam saved his money to get his own skates - rather predictably he is instantly confident, fast, and elegant on them.

End of term knitting

I don't usually do much teacher-gift-knitting, but this year I did make something for both the boys' teachers:

Fin's teacher does not knit, but her mother does and she does wear hand-knit items. I decided that the Citron was a good colour for her so finished it off in time for the end of term. This is the Citron pattern from Knitty.com knitted in Knitwitches silk and mohair laceweight.


Adam's teacher has 2 girls, aged 5 years and 9 months, so having decided that his teacher was not so much a hand-knit person I made something for the girls.


Basic sock pattern in leftover Tofutsies, and Ysolda's tiny shoes in leftover cashmerino DK. Both teachers seemed pleased with the gifts and to appreciate the hand-made nature of them (by which I mean that hand-made is good!).

We break up, we break up

Things have been busy here at Ferretworld, the combination of working more hours, and visitors, and school stuff has dropped the blog by the wayside. I do have some things to blog about and will be catching up over the next few days or so.

In the meantime school has already broken up for the summer and we have 11 weeks of summer vacation. Naturally you can't have children sitting around at home for 11 weeks even if you were not working, so there are plenty of camps and other activities for the boys. This week is tennis camp.

Before the end of term there were both celebrations and performances at school. Fin's class performed a musical play: "Rumble in the rainforest" with Fin playing the part of the Medicine Man.
Adam's class gave a musical performance of singing accompanied by recorders (Good job I didn't take the video!).


To celebrate the start of the school hols they each invited some friends over for a party - Adam's party was last week, Fin's is this week (I was not brave enough to combine) but the summer seems to have got off to a good start.