A mini vacation

Guess where we spent the last few days of our vacation?

Nigel and I spent our Honeymoon in Yosemite 10 years ago. While we were there we promised ourselves that for our 10th anniversary we would go back to the Awahanee and stay in one of their cottages. I think at that time we did not anticipate making our anniversary trip with 2 boys in tow - but as it turned out we all had a fabulous time.

We arrived in pouring rain, but it cleared up and we were rewarded by a couple of beautiful sunny days. It was cold, and there was a lot of snow on the ground, and trails were icy, but the boys loved playing in the snow, skating on the frozen river, and climbing any rock they could find.

I think there was more water running in the park than I have ever seen, and the waterfalls were beautiful. We also walked around to Mirror Lake and admired the reflections in the lake's surface.

We saw deer, and lots of squirrels, but no bears. I assumed they were hibernating, until we came across this:

You can clearly see the claw marks in the print. Finlay carefully drew all the prints we saw into his journal and laboriously labeled them.

We had not been to Yosemite for 2 years are realized how much easier it is to travel with 6 and 8 year-olds rather than babies and toddlers. I forsee more trips to Yosemite in our future.

A crafty New Year to you

As part of our vacation we received a request for a "chill out day". The boys received some crafty gifts and so we put them to use.

Finlay received a Swirl Master set: this is basically a battery operated spinning wheel onto which you mount cardboard, then drop paint onto the spinning surface. It was very entertaining and produced a variety of (messy) paint effects.

Adam received a Revell model kit of a Hurricane and decided that he was able to build and paint it himself. It worked out pretty well and took him almost all day to finish. When it's dry he wants to hang it on his bedroom ceiling along with all his big lego models.

Tip for tall visitors to our house: be careful when walking around Adam's room!

I also did a little crafting as I finished Finlay's vest. He requested this when we went to Purlescence yarns in Sunnyvale to buy wool for Nigel's retrofit jacket. There was a green vest on display and F asked if I could make him one. Here it is, exactly as requested.

It's my own pattern knitted in Cascade 220 paints, which I bought in Purlescence at the time, and Cascade 220 Heathers in blue that came from Yarndogs and which was intended for slippers. He was very pleased with it, however I'm not sure how sensible it was knitting something for Finlay out of handwash-only yarn!!

Happy New Year

We started 2009 in vacation mode. We were all off school/work from Christmas so managed a few days out:

We headed back to San Francisco to the Embarcadero skating rink. We decided that although it's smaller, that we liked the Union Square rink more because of it's ambiance. The Union Sq rink is surrounded by cafe tables, and cafes, as well as the big tree. The Embacadero rink seemed colder and less lively - although better musical choices.

After the skating we went down the the restored Ferry Building to mooch about and get some lunch. We also bought another olive tree from McEvoy Ranch since our previous tree has done so well (more on this another time).

We also took the boys to see the Leonardo exhibition at TheTech. The exhibition itself was very interesting to us, but less so for the boys. However, they did very well for an hour or so until we found the "Leonardo's workshop" children's section downstairs. Here they are using a pin hole viewer to create drawings with perspective:

and then tracing their transparency onto paper:

If you are an adult in the Bay Area, or, like us the recipients of free tickets (Thanks Jon), then I recommend a visit to the exhibit. It is running until the end of January. I think for those with young children it's hard to do justice to the exhibition with children in tow, and it's not cheap, so for an hour makes an expensive day out. The parts that we were able to see were excellent, and Nigel and I would have happily spent much longer at the exhibition.

Celebrate!

We had a lovely Christmas here at Ferretworld. It started early...but not as early as Adam intended (he had to be sent back to bed twice before 6am!).


Santa did come, despite some concerns that he might leave only coal... Here I am modeling my princess pirate ears as chosen by the boys.




We ate too much, but it was good (thank-you WholeFoods!). Finlay now knows the figgy pudding song so was able to sing in the pudding!

I hope your holiday was as happy and comfortable as ours.

Move over Martha

Merry Christmas* one and all!

Having got back from Bear we were finally getting ready for Christmas.

Unfortunately we got back to discover that someone had stolen our illuminated reindeer from the front lawn. I assume it was kids because the reindeer were in such poor repair, and the much more expensive extension cables and timers were left, but we were all upset, Finlay, in particular. We had been planning to replace them for next year - but by Christmas eve all the shops seem to have sold out of tasteful large illuminated animals. I don't think it was the taste police as suggested by my brother-in-law!

*substitute holiday of your choice

First ski trip of the season

A large storm and a few feet of snow in the Sierras sent us up to Bear Valley for a couple of days.

The weather was mixed - wind and snow on Sunday, cold and sunny on Monday. The boys both took lessons and consolidated what they had learned last year.

Adam got to try out his new boots and board. He had been earning points for the board and boots by doing his homework well, it has taken since the summer and he is rightfully proud of the achievement.

Eight is great!

Well, Don't know what happened there - but I seem to have taken a blogging break. The end of term and associated parties, followed by our ski trip, and then Christmas have taken priority of course. So, to try to catch up:

The end of term co-incided with Adam's birthday. He turned eight and celebrated with his class. They were having a pajama and breakfast party in the class so they combined that with thier traditional birthday celebrations.

After they sang Happy Birthday, Adam read to the class from his favourite book (Horrid Henry), wore the birthday crown, and could cut in line all day.

When he came home we ate the birthday cake (banana cake) and Adam chose his favourite dinner (burgers).

Lovely if we ever get snow...

I treated myself to some hand-dyed cashmere to make a neck-warmer.



The yarn is Hand maiden 4-ply cashmere in the Rose Garden colour. I used the Beech Wood pattern from Ilga Leja that used to be available as a free pattern on her website. Its was a nice easy pattern which gives a great textured effect, but not so much activity as to overwhelm the handpainted yarn. I chose the colour to coordinate with my green winter jacket and am pleased with the effect.

Party on

Last weekend the boys had a joint birthday party. It was held at the JCC where they provided the entertainment as well as the catering. The party was a "Run away to the Circus" party and so the 19 boys learned to spin plates on sticks (fortunately plastic plates) :



and walk on the giant ball:



All the boys managed to walk on the ball for some distance and were all very pleased with themselves!



They finished with a giant bouncing walkway for flips and bounces.

We wrapped up festivites with cake and ice cream and and glitter painting and then sent home 19 overexcited but exhausted children with juggling sets!

If you are looking for a party location in the bay area I can recommend the JCC parties: we had only to provide drinks and goody bags and were able to walk away from all the mess!

Off the needles lately

I have been doing some knitting - but nothing very exciting. I finished these socks for Nigel in the car on the journey to and from Disneyland. I found him very unreceptive to the idea that he should knit on them while I was driving.

The yarn is Pagewood Farms superwash merino in Denim. I bought it in Murphys during our last skiing trip. I like the look of these socks, and the finished fabric is very fine, but I didnt like knitting it as it's rather splitty. I spent a lot of time picking up dropped strands.

The pattern is the usual, knitted over 72 stitches, with a very abbreviated cuff, as requested.

Parade from a different perspective

On Saturday we went to the LG Christmas Parade. We have been coming for many years to see the floats, marching bands, baton twirlers etc. Finlay's first outing to the parade was 6 years ago, when he was aged 4 days. This year, however, we achieved Adam's ambition to actually be in the parade.

The cubs are well represented with different packs having their own 'themes'. Pack 502 participate on home made and decorated go-karts.

The plan had been for Nigel and Adam to go with the scouts, and for me to take Finlay to watch the parade. However Finlay immediately negociated with the scout leader to join in with the cubs and so I saw none of the rest of the parade but the boys had a great time. They particularly loved their friends in the crowd calling out - and waving to other friends who were also in the parade.

They swapped about on the karts, but ended up with both our boys on the kart. The parade route was pretty long, and we were a long way back in the running order. By the time we got to Main St Nigel was pushing them both. We revived ourselves with brunch at the California Cafe. The boys were unanimous that this was the "best parade ever".

Six journeys around the sun

Ferret, scientist, lego builder, little mouse...

Happy birthday Finlay!

Thanksgiving with Mickey

As we have on several previous Thanksgiving holidays we spent the day at Disneyland. It was quieter than we have ever seen before, at least until after the parade when things got busier.

We saw the usual characters...either Chip or Dale actually sat on Adam although I was not quick enough to get a photo of that!

The boys especially loved the pirate island and joined in with the pirate show.

and Nigel made it onto the stage for the magic show.

We also ran into this fellow...complete with live reindeer..

and of course it would not be Thanksgiving without the turkey. This fellow is the 'pardoned' turkey 'Pumpkin', fresh from the White House. (Apparently he flew first class from Washington to make it to LA the same day).

It was lovely to see the Christmas parade, which included Mickey and Minnie skating on a real ice rink atop a moving float! The parade was Finlay's favourite part.

We finished up our little vacation with a stop at the beach where the boys reenacted the jedi show.

Retrofit finished

I finished Nigel's Retrofit cardigan...

I made several modifications to the pattern, some more succcessful than others. I replaced the folded hem with a 2 x 2 rib which I think looks better. The collar is less successful, I winged it with a straight folded collar which in retrospect would have benefited from some decrease rows. But, overall its not too bad and meets the requirement (keeping warm in the office).

Knitted in Cascade 220 on my lovely lantern moon 5mm needles. The red is 220 Paints in colour 9926 and the sleeves and collar are 220 Heather in 9449, I used 4 skeins of the red and 3 of the blue. Navy separating zipper came from Hancocks.

Me Mini

No place like home for the holidays

Not that it feels much like a holiday season yet...no matter how much tinsel and baubles you display, 80 degree temperatures and sunshine do not feel like Christmas.

This weekend we took the boys up to the new ice rink in Union Square. I heard that they had put up the tree - but as you can see, they were still decorating it when we arrived.

The boys hit the rink to practise thier triple salcos...

Afterwards we headed into Chinatown for some Dim Sum.

The boys still struggle with chopsticks, and the restaurants only provide forks as an accomodation - no knives - but they tried everything and love the jasmine tea.

All I want for Christmas...

I think you all know the lyric.

What a tangled web...

The boys' school hosted a vistiting artist a few weeks ago. Travis Meinolf is a young and hip weaver who brought his portable rigid heddle loom into the school. His home page actually shows a photo that was taken at the school and you can see him at the start of the project: the children brought in items to be woven into a hanging. The finished result included all sorts of materials, I saw leaves, wire, a serial cable, a slinky, phone cord and so on.

He was packing up his loom as I was collecting Finlay from school and Finlay insisted that I go and look at the weaving that the school had created. Both my boys were pretty excited by the project and we talked to Travis for a little while. He told us about the instructions on his website for making a loom out of cardboard and gave us a card loom that he has developed for use in schools.

We used both his card loom, and made our own out of card. This rather blurry photo shows the weaving process. We tied one end of the warp to the coffee table, and the other to a pencil. I held the ends firm while the boys used an elastic bodkin as a shuttle.

We used a variety of yarns for our weaving, but the best results were using Noro yarn for both warp and weft threads. Here are the bookmarks that the boys made:

They were really pleased with thier bookmarks, especially as they achieved pretty good results in a short time.

Castle Rock

I'm a little late in updating, but the final day out of our long weekend was to Castle Rock State Park. Adam and Nigel had visited previously on their backpacking trip, but it was the first time I had been there. It was an interesting mix of shady and wooded areas, with large boulders and trees covered in moss, and in the sunshine steep hills covered with manzanita.



We walked for about 1 hour 45 minutes, we got as far as the Goat Rock formation before turning back. We were rewarded by some great views across the coastal range hills. The trails were quite steep and required some scrambling, of course this added to the appeal for the boys.

There was only a little water in the Castle Rock falls (below) but we stopped for a while to listen to the water. Several groups of climbers arrived while we waited there to discuss a decent. On their last visit Adam was thrilled to watch climbers ascend this cliff.

We had a nice walk, and picnic, and made plans to come back to this park again, although I have not yet been convinced to hike to the campground there! It's so close to home, and a nice alternative to the redwood forests. The boys especially loved climbing on the big rocks.