First Grade

Today was the first day of term and Adam has started in first grade. This means a full day of class, and a promotion to the 'big playground'.

Perpetual motion

The last few weeks have been a rush of activity. We went back to the redwoods, this time to Big Basin State Park to stay in the tent cabins.

We cooked on the fire and ate smores...of course.

The boys entertained us with a game of charades:

We went back to Natural Bridges State Park, this time with the boogie boards:

Adam also did some body surfing with Elliot while Thomas used the board.

We managed to squeeze in another bike ride, this time to Campbell. We stopped at Oak Meadow Park on the way home for a cricket match. After some coaching of course.

Final score: unknown...

We wrapped up the weekend with a private skateboard lesson at the Campbell Skate Park. The boys had a blast, they all made an improvement over the hour lesson and they we unanimous in thinking Brad, the teacher, was cool.

Finlay was particularly pleased at being called "Fin Man"!

Girl soup!

While our visitors are visiting Mickey, we are spending some time with Julie and Flossie. There has been lots of swimming, a little shopping, a tiny amount of talking...

...and a day at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. It was warm and sunny with no trace of the marine layer which often plagues the beaches in the summer.

We had a picnic and the children attempted to achieve fame by building the largest sand castle in the world... Adam, however got sidetracked.

Boy soup

We have a full-house for the next couple of weeks. We are following the traditional observances:

The fountain in the plaza (following bike ride and smoothies).


The ride out to Landing Cove beach at Wilder Ranch.

Picnic at Landing Cove beach.

The San Jose Giants at home to the Bakersfield Blaze. Go Giants! (Unlike last time they actually won the game).

Baseball accompanied by the traditional beer, hot dogs and malted.

Camo socks

Well, anything is better in camo isn't it?

I knitted these socks for Finlay in Lornas Laces in the camo colourway. The pattern is more of a stripe than really camo, but the colours are good and F seems pleased with them. As usual a generic top-down pattern knitted over 52 stitches on 2mm needles.

I'm now knitting a pair for Adam, and have requests for socks in the queue from Thomas and Elliot

Boys on wheels

Adam completed his "homework challenge" this week, and earned enough points to get his much-anticipated Heelys.

He is sleeping with them by his bed and practising like mad.

Finlay earned enough points to get a street hockey set, so they have both been practising thier roller-skate technique.

The main bird

We just came back from Finlay's preschool play.

He had told us that he was playing the part of "the main bird" but what we had failed to appreciate was that this was the lead role in "Papeto the scared bird".

Papeto is too scared to fly when his siblings leave the nest, so he follows them to thier tree, by land, with the assistance of several other animals: a fox; a fish; a frog; and a gopher.

The other animals had a single speaking line, but Finlay had memorized all his lines and stage positions which formed the main part of the narrative.

We were really surprised and impressed that he had the confidence to stand up in front of all the parents in the class, and the children from the other classes. He spoke really clearly - which was great to hear! I think his speech therapist would be delighted with his progress.

Budding artists

I recently photographed some of the huge pile of the boys artwork. A lot of the stuff goes on the walls for a while, but I wanted to preserve some of it for longer.


Finlay's picture above is of someone in an orchard.



This is Finlay's picture of a rat above, Adam's cat below.

As the boys are americans it's essential that they learn about their own history at school. Adam's portrait of Abraham Lincoln below:

Finally, Adam's sculpture of himself:

A long friendship renewed

We had visitors from England on Saturday. My friend Alison, who I lived with in Brighton with, was vacationing in California with her family.


I got to meet her children, who were delightful. Our pool was like a child soup all afternoon.



What was particularly nice was that, although I haven't seen Alison for 10 years, we picked up our conversation more or less where we left off!

Harry Potter

Along with 11 million others, I dived into reading this weekend. I pre-ordered my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and it was waiting for me when we got back from vacation.



I read it over the weekend, staying up far too late, and reading at every opportunity. No spoilers here* but I thoroughly enjoyed it.


* Gill and I used to watch Ally McBeal, although the series broadcasts were out of sync between the UK and USA. Once talking about where the action was up to I asked her "Have you got to the one where Billy dies yet?" which of course she had not! This phrase has become a generic in our dialog where there might be a spoiler in a book, or film.

Your Hat Parade

I did get some knitting done on holiday, but in keeping with the vacation spirit, it was all simple mindless stuff.

I've been knitting some hats for a friend of Chris's who is undergoing chemotherapy.

This is knitted in Calmer, donated by Christina. I had been planning to knit Shedir from Knitty, but could not get gauge, so after a couple of attempts I cast on and knitted my own pattern.

This pattern was in a Vogue Knitting magazine, and most conveniently could be knitted from 100 yards of yarn, in this case Noro Silk Garden.

I knitted the same pattern for myself from some Malabrigo yarn I bought a while ago.

The yardage on the Malabrigo is terrific so I had enough left over to knit this basic roll-brim hat from my own pattern.

Noticing the resemblance of my new hats to a tea cosy, I also knitted a tea cosy for when we go camping...our tea always goes cold before we finish the pot when we are in the redwoods...no more!

Writing this post reminded me that when I was at school I had a club called The Teacosies, named after our hats...apparently little changes here at Ferretworld.

Posting the pictures for the post made me realize that I look more like Jimmy_Hill than ever (except for the beard of course)!

Surfing USA

Ferretworld just returned from it's summer holiday in Ventura, Southern California. We stayed in this cottage in the Pierpont Beach lane area. It was about 100 yards from the beach.

Both boys were fascinated by the crabs along the breakwaters. We went each day to check on them and they were thrilled to watch this boy trying to catch them.

Of course the following day they spent a lot of time trying to catch the crabs themselves. Luckily for me, they were unsuccessful.

A highlight of our week away was a trip to Channel Islands National Park.

We went to Santa Cruz island which is about 20 miles offshore. The main interest is that the entire area is a marine preserve rich in wildlife and our boat trip allowed us an excellent chance to see some of it. We saw a minke whale and two blue whales. We also saw hundreds of dolphins.

The highlight of the trip for Adam was this:

Apart from the Channel Islands trip we mostly spent our week on the beach. The water is warm in comparison with the Pacific in Northern California, and even I got into the water. The boogie boards got a good workout.

Adam even got Finlay into the act...at the beginning of the week this was as close as he would go into the waves...

By the end of the week Finlay was on the boogie board too, and saving his money for his own board.

And to prove I was there too...here is me in my bikini:

My knitting bag

My knitting bag was admired at the Knitting Meetup on Wednesday. It was knitted for me by Christina and the free pattern is available from her website .

I cannot vouch for the pattern since I didnt knit it myself, but I can vouch for the bag - its the perfect size, and in this case, beautifully knitted. Go and check out her other Pattern of the Month patterns.

Chinese Lanterns

I finished the Chinese Lanterns cardigan....and it only took me 15 years!



The pattern is Chinese Lanterns by Kaffe Fassett from Rowan 19. Knitted in Cotton Glace as prescribed.

Modifications? I didn't knit the lanterns! Well, at least I didnt knit them all. Its already a pretty dated cardigan with the drop sleeves so i'm pretty glad that 15 years ago i was too lazy to knit the body with it's full complement of lanterns all over. I can't imagine that I will wear it much, although the cotton knits up into a really nice weight. And also, I need to sew up the buttonholes.

Monkeys

I finished the Monkey socks. They are so soft and squishy, and I'm really pleased with them. I think though, that it might be time to stop knitting myself socks - I think I've got about 8 pairs of hand-knitted socks, which in California, is probably a lifetime supply.

The pattern is of course from Knitty its a surprisingly easy knit, the lace repeat was simple to memorise. The wool is Silkie from Socks that Rock, in the colour Bunny Foo Foo. The yarn is 81% merino: 19% silk, texture of the yarn is lovely, but they are unfortunately hand-wash only. I think this pattern would really show off best in a semi-solid, but my taste seems to be for very patterned sock yarn.

Homemade lemonade

Today the boys did thier lemonade stand. They squeezed a load of lemons, and baked cookies (from a pack).



We set up the stand outside school, where the summer school is currently running. Summer school finishes at 12:15 so we were waiting at 12:00. They were offering lemonade, apple juice, cookies or raisins at 25c each.

They sold a gallon of lemonade and raised $21.16 for Save the Children. Finlay was a sterling barker....he kept a continuous flow of "homemade lemonade for sale, homemade cookies, all for charity"...the lollipop lady (crossing guard) gave him an extra $1 for effort!

Tiny toes

I knitted some baby socks for my neighbour's baby.


Default pattern over 32 sts. Knitted in leftover wool on 2mm needles. They took one evening which is very gratifying for a quick knit. I even got the striping to match up more or less. Depending on when the baby arrives, there may or may not be a matching hat (not that you need many baby hats for a summer baby in California).

Gappy Gapperson

Adam lost a second tooth.