Big Bird

I discovered this bird, the other day, sitting up in this tree overlooking the basketball court in our complex. It may be hard to tell from this picture, but this bird is HUGE! We have some large herons flying around in our neck of the woods, but I'm not sure if this is one or not. It's hard to tell when you can't see it's legs. Anyways, if you look closely at this poor bird it looks like it's wing is broken! Every few hours I would look out my window and it would be still there. The last time I had looked, though, the bird was gone, so I'm hoping that maybe it was just resting it's wing in a wierd way and was really okay after all. I can't get this bird out of my head. I hope it's all right.


Anyways.....

Contrary to popular belief....my kids do get along!

Prison Breaking Bread

So Connie and I decided to do a little hiking in Golden Ears Park in Maple Ridge on Tuesday. We were on a little bit of a time limit because I had to pick Maeggie Moo up from school and take her to the Dentist. We thought that we should have more than enough time, however, because the hike, round trip to the falls and back, was two hours. So we started out and made it to the Pitt River bridge before we hit our first delay - an accident on the bridge. We patiently waited (besides Connie uttering threats under her breath at the girl in the next car who wouldn't let us merge! - but we won't go there) waited our turn to cross the bridge. Now we were truckin' along, the drive to the start of the trail was a bit farther than we expected, so that ate up some of our hiking time as well. As we drove I perused the info guide that Connie had brought along, and scoffed when I read "if you are lucky enough to hike on a clear day" part of the description. Obviously the author had never spent much time here, we get plenty of days that are clear. I felt a bit offended. I looked out the car window, the weather was great!

We finally make it to the trail head, notice a few clouds rolling in, but I'm positive it will remain nice. We come across a sign that indicated we had to pay for parking, yet there was no parking meter in the lot we were in, so we had to drive around to find one. There was next to nobody in the park. We drove through the campgrounds on our search for the parking meter and came across the odd tent here and there but that was pretty much it. By this time it was starting to drizzle a little, but, no matter, a little rain never hurt anyone (although, I frequently tell my kids that I'm made of sugar and could melt!). We rounded a corner and up ahead I spotted a dude in a bright red jumpsuit raking one of the campsites. I said that we should go ask him for some directions, obviously he worked there. As Connie pulled up along side of him, rolled down her window and started asking him, (and when I say started to ask him, I mean in her best flirting "please can I have free parking" kind of asking) I looked up and noticed at least 10 other men working...all in bright red jumpsuits. There was also an "officer" looking guy....hmmmm.....I fervently tried to whisper to Connie under my breath so the dude wouldn't hear me..."Connie, they're PRISONERS!!!" which she had also noticed at the same time as me.

We had stopped to ask directions from a group of convicts.

The Corrections Officer came forward at that point and let us know that we didn't have to pay because none of the meters were active. Great. I felt like was in an episode of Prison Break! So we slowly backed up and headed back to the parking lot, thankful that we didn't get car-jacked by a mob of escaping convicts - although they wouldn't have been able to hide out too well in Connie's BRIGHT yellow car.

So while all this was happening, it started raining a little bit heavier, but we were not backing out of the hike now. Connie strapped on Ryder and we headed off down the trail. It started raining even harder. Then it started hailing. The trail became muddier and muddier, but that didn't stop us. Only time stopped us because pretty soon we had to turn around in order to make it back in time for Maeghan. Next time we will make the whole hike. I now NEED to see those falls!

Unfortunately I was too nervous to pull out my camera and take a picture of the convicts, but I did get a shot of Connie and Ryder being pummelled by hail.


I guess this is the kind of weather one could expect when one lives in a rain forest as we do. I would go again in a heartbeat.

Maeghan started throwing up on Tuesday night, Aidan stayed home with her yesterday, and I stayed home with her today. Poor little thing, she can't keep anything down. I took the opportunity to do some baking and made my first "not baked in the bread maker" bread. I did let the machine mix and knead for me, then I removed it and baked it in the oven. I don't like how dense bread machine bread is, baking it this way made it much better. While the bread was rising I also made a few dozen chocolate chip cookies...mmmmm....maybe a mistake since I will probably be the one to eat them all!

Somebody likes his bread!

FO: First Pair of Socks

Finally! After close to a year, I have completed my first pair of socks! Yipee! I didn't think that I would ever see this day!


Pattern: Harlot's basic sock recipe from Knitting Rules
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Mixed Berries
Needles: 2.25mm dpns

I have discovered that I don't like using bamboo sock needles as I am a fairly tight knitter and it was a lot of work sliding the work around on bamboo's. I switched to some Knit Picks steel dpns partway through the second sock and it was much better.

I had a few problems, I messed up the heel on the second sock, but really, who looks at the heel anyways? Also, my ssk's seem to be too loose as can be viewed in the sock on the right in the below picture. Specifically, where I am decreasing after picking up the stitches after the heel. You can see a line of holey, stretched stitches going down. Does anybody know a way to rememedy this? I don't want to always have a little line of holes running down my socks! The K2Tog's look fine though.


I enjoyed the process of learning to knit these socks. I had a hard time being motivated to do the second one, I found my hands cramped alot using the bamboo's. But now that I've switched, I think it will be better. I might try toe-up socks for my next pair as I had quite a bit of yarn left at the end and it would be nice to have used it all up.

This was my last WIP that needed to be finished before I was allowing myself to cast on for something else. It feels good to have nothing lingering in my knitting basket anymore, but it's making my hands itch to cast on for something new. I'm going to swatch for Green Gable tonight and hopefully cast on as well, if I have enough energy! I've also ordered yarn from the WEBS Anniversary Sale for the Central Park Hoodie. It is some Cascade 220 Heathers in Garnet. I've never used this yarn for something that I wasn't felting, I hope I don't find it too scratchy! I've heard the Heather's are a bit softer than the regular 220.

Thank Heaven For Little Girls...

Early this morning I awoke to a gentle poking on my shoulder. I rolled over, opened my eyes, and there stood my sweet Maeghan with a glass of water in one hand and a teddy in the other. She had brought me a glass of water because I had been coughing, alot, all night, and the teddy so I would have something to snuggle. She told me to just rest and to try and go back to sleep, so I did. A while later there was another little tap on my shoulder, and I opened my eyes to see Maeghan holding a tray of freshly made scrambled eggs! She had made me and her dad breakfast in bed! Being only 7, Maeghan is not allowed to use the stove, so she cooked them for us in the microwave. They weren't half bad either! Thank you Maeghan! You made getting up a lot easier this morning!

Last weekend Maeghan had a birthday party at the bowling alley with all of her friends. It was a really fun time, even for Aidan and I, for once we didn't have to clean the house before and after a party! This is the cake that she had requested, chocolate of course, I trained her well. She wanted it to be red, but it's really hard to turn white icing red, so we decided white and pink would be the way to go.


I'm not much of a cake decorator but I tried my best!

She got a brand new bike, which unfortunately is a bit too big for her, but she insisted that we keep it, she's planning to grow!

Owen had a hard time with Maeg's birthday this year, he didn't think that it was fair that she got all the gifts, and he thought that August was WAY to far away. Lucky for him he has such a generous sister and she was willing to share almost everything with him.

Next post I'll have an FO for you! I just have to get some pictures, it has been a particularly dreary day.