Back to school!

We've been extremely busy over the past month...a visit to Grammy & Pappy's house in PA in August...a trip to a nearby lake, Dutch Wonderland...back home for YMCA camps and school shopping...back to PA this past week-end for the PA Renaissance Faire...and a family picnic in York where we set off water rockets! School finally started yesterday. Everyone was quite excited and had a GREAT first day. William told me last night that he was excited to wake up and go to his "next first day!" You can find photos on Flickr. (click the Flickr badge on the right hand side of this blog)

Review of the past two weeks

My husband is finally finished with his job on the USS Harry S. Truman. No more sea duty for us! He has been at home on vacation for the past two weeks. Most of the first week we spent in Fredericksburg at the KOA campground. While there, we spent two days at Kings Dominion (theme park) and part of one day at IKEA. The kids LOVED Kings Dominion, even though the twins were too short for many of the rides. They are hoping to grow 4 inches this year but I don't think that will happen!

This past week was spent doing things around the house. I had some doctor appointments and tests. Dena (the cat) saw a dermatologist earlier in the week. Her paw is finally healed! We are still doing one final experiment (steroid shot) to see if the infection will flame up again in a few weeks but we are hoping it won't and that the paw issues are finished. Now to get her poop back to normal! Yesterday, we had a very successful yard sale. I still have a few things to find new homes for but we managed to get rid of all of our "large plastic objects" and the old pool so I am happy about that.

A few photos of the past weeks:

At the beginning of the park

The view from the "Eiffel Tower"

Meeting Scooby Doo!

Old car in the park, pretty cool! (My dad would like this area of the park)

At the top of the ferris wheel

Paddling around the campground pond

Paddling around the campground pond

Steve and the kids did some geocaching on the way home - I sat in the car and knitted! No way I was tromping through poison ivy, weeds, snakes, and bugs!

This is my "Josy" shawl. It is still a work-in-progress and being made with some beautiful yarn Anne Lise sent me from Norway.

My "Winterbild" socks are FINISHED! I love the patterned yarn like this.

Hello...Kitty!

We took the girls to the mall this week-end to the Sanrio store. They were having $20 grab bags...$20 for $80 worth of Sanrio goodies. Of course it's all a surprise until you walk out of the store and rip open the bags...which is exactly what our girls did. After Sanrio, we hit the Indian grocery and the Asian market for some other items...then we took the boy to Toys R Us for a new remote control car that he can take when we go camping. Fun, fun.

Yesterday was spent at home, mostly in the pool as it was over 90F here. Even though this summer hasn't been sweltering like the last two, the pool has proven itself a good investment. The kids love it and swim every day. The water temps are finally where I want them to be...right around 90. Yes! I don't like to freeze when I get in for a swim!

The cat goes back to the vet AGAIN today for a look at her paw. It's still sore despite a topical ointment and antibiotics. The next step is to take her to a dermatologist. She also still has blood in her stool. I'm beginning to think we'll never get her well again!

A few pictures from the week-end...


William and Steve playing with the new remote control car in the yard

Delaney modeling her new "Angry Little Girls" purse

Opening their grab bags

In the Sanrio store...



A neat Volkswagen "trike"...if you look closely you can see that the car still has the back seat inside!

Norfolk's symbol is the mermaid and you can see these all over town. This one is at one of our local malls and she looks like her tail was dipped in chocolate...and then someone took a big bite out of it!

When the truth hurts...

Dear Children:

Your playroom is too messy. Please clean it up. I do not want to see another injury like this one again.

Love,
Mama


(The above photo is Delaney's foot. She was running across the playroom to come upstairs and stepped on a Lego snowflake about 1.5 inches in diameter. There was lots of screaming and crying and blood. We stopped the bleeding, took Motrin, doctored the wound with bacitracin, and iced the swelling. She is able to walk on it to go to the bathroom and says that actually makes it feel better. Odd kid, but I won't complain if she can walk! 60 pounds is a lot for me to carry.)


I also realized I didn't post pictures of Delaney's finished room...

On the wheel...

Summer and kids have rather taken me away from this blog. Not sure when I will return to a more normal posting schedule...maybe in September when they all go back to school.

I've been knitting socks and spinning up some wool from my stash. The socks are Opal Hundertwasser in "Winterbild" or #625. The yarn is lovely. On my first go I hated the toes and made both socks (doing two-at-a-time) too large so I frogged them. (rip it, rip it) Started again with a smaller needle and much rounder toe and am almost to the point where I'll start the heels. Very happy now.

I finished spinning my "Inside the Glacier" Falkland Top that I got from Vilde at the Vildish Twist on Etsy. I haven't taken it off the spool yet but I'm hoping I got a few hundred yards and might possibly be able to make a hat out of it. This afternoon I dug around the stash for awhile and decided to try my "Party In A Bag" that I bought at MD Sheel & Wool back in May. Ugh. What a pain in the butt this stuff is. It isn't a nice tidy top but rather a bunch of batts that were thrown into bins that people ran their hands through during the fest. It's going in all directions, falls apart everywhere, etc. I'm really not enjoying it much, but I do like seeing the colours come up in the singles.

Ready for the week-end here. Wishing for rain but so far we aren't getting any. The cucumbers are done producing, we've eaten two eggplants from the garden and have about 5 more on the bushes.

Here are the photos of the frogged socks and my latest spinning efforts...

Party in a Bag singles

The actual "Party"...not very fun!

Inside the Glacier

Opal Winterbild socks...this was the first pair that no longer exist. Just wanted to show the beautiful colour changes with this skein of yarn.

It took me a day or two to find someone who could help me make a nice heel on toe-up socks. I was very proud of this pretty little heel...will be doing it again in the new pair!

New laptop!

A quick update...my old Dell is still being worked on by a friend. Not sure when or if it will ever be functional again. We went to the Apple store on Sunday and bought a brand-spankin'-new MacBook Pro. It is very nice but will take some time to get used to.

The 4th of July was fun. Had some friends over and went to see the fireworks at night. Didn't get home until about 11pm and kids slept in very late Sunday morning! We spent most of the afternoon at the mall: Apple store, Sanrio (Hello Kitty) store, and Barnes & Noble bookstore. The play area at MacArthur Center mall is very nice so the kids were happy to play there for about a half hour also.

We are in the process of moving Delaney into the room over our garage. It gets very nice sun during the morning and I think she will like to finally have her own room. I'm hoping to put my IKEA chair up there so I can steal some time there during the day when everyone is in school (in the fall)!

Some photos:

The twins in the pool...

The garden

Flowers

Some Border Leicester I spun during the winter

I finished this sweater for Delaney last night at midnight. She picked the yarn and really likes the way the sweater turned out.

Everyone pitched in to scrape paint in Delaney's new bedroom

Down and out...

Somehow I got a virus on my laptop (thanks for that "protection", McAfee!) that we cannot seem to resolve. Steven is working on it but we aren't sure how long it will be until I'm back up and running again. So here's the brief update of last week without photos.

William had his school physical and immunizations on Tuesday. No tears in the least, he was brave and did great! Steve was off work Friday and our new pool was supposed to be installed but due to rain, it wasn't done until yesterday. Early Friday evening we took the trailer down to the dealer because we still had problems with the C02 monitor when we camped over Memorial Day week-end. After dropping the trailer, we stopped at "Spice of India" a new-ish Indian restaurant in the Greenbrier Mall area. YUMMMY! I had lunch from there a few weeks ago and knew Steven would love it. The kids even enjoyed the meal out since they have chicken nuggets on the menu! Saturday, the pool was installed. I have a lot of photos of that and will post them as soon as I can. Today, we are trying to straighten out the 5 foot pile of dirt that was left in our yard. Later tonight we are actually having a night out without children and going to see "Celtic Woman". Looking forward to that!

Tinna has her physical on Tuesday and Delaney's last day of school is Thursday. While this is the beginning of true summer break, I am ready for it...next week the twinkies will be in Kindercamp for a week, then Delaney will have day camp for two weeks! It means getting up and out of the house and a bit of a more normal schedule for everyone. Tinna has been struggling emotionally with not being in school or around her friends. Summers are definitely going to be a difficult time for her. I'm hoping, too, that this new pool will be a good distraction once we can start swimming in it.

I'll update you again when I can but I don't think it will be very often now that I am dependent on Steve's work laptop. Bah. =( Viruses SUCK.

Wow

It's been almost an entire week since I last updated the blog. Facebook takes up most of my online time...so if you truly want to know what's up with me, check there first! The week has flown by, lots has happened...

The kids all had their final music lessons of the school year. Delaney had her final Brownie meeting last Wednesday night and is now being enrolled in a new troop. Tinna started Daisy Scouts Wednesday night. We went strawberry picking Saturday morning, bought a 15'x26' above ground pool (being installed this Friday), Delaney had a piano recital Saturday afternoon. I canned strawberry jam Sunday morning, we attended a birthday party Sunday afternoon, and I canned MORE strawberry jam Sunday evening. (To date, I have 18 8-oz jars of strawberry jam and 6 8-oz jars of cherry jam. Soon I'll be getting raspberries from Trish, and then I'll have a day or two where I'm canning up them!) Busy, busy, busy.

I had planned to clean out the girls' room today but tummy troubles got the best of me at 3:45 this morning, so I've been sitting around most of the day. I did make it out to enjoy the beautiful, breezy, cool day...I sat in my chair and knitted while the kids played. I trimmed a few weeds and deadheaded one of my rose bushes because it is getting ready to bloom again. It is such an incredible bush. The rest of the garden is going nuts and looking completely out of control. The corn is over 6 feet tall, with tassels, and little corn cobs forming. Little cucumbers are forming. We are finally getting some flowers on one or two of the tomato plants. The lettuce is about done due to the heat.

Below are a few photos for you. If I get time later, I will upload the video of Delaney playing at her recital. She played "America the Beautiful" and "Alouette". If you are on Facebook, I already have it uploaded there.

Delaney and Tinna at the new Girl Scout meeting. This was Tinna's first night with the new troop. Delaney will be joining them for the next meeting. This troop has both Daisies and Brownies in it and meets at the primary school so I will not have to spend my entire evening running all over town.

William picking strawberries

Kids posing with their berries

See Delaney making a heart with her hands?

Delaney at her recital, just after she performed.

VARF week-end wrap-up

A wonderful week-end was had by all in Fredericksburg. We drove up Friday evening, set up camp, had a small fire (large enough to roast marshmallows), kids went to bed very late. Saturday was RenFaire day (VARF - VA RenFaire). It was hot, close to 90F, but we stayed at the faire until closing time (5pm)! As we walked into the faire and saw how small it was, we thought "There is no way we will be here more than 2 or 3 hours"...but our friends Judy & Michael and their kids met us there and there were a TON of children's activities...so we stayed until close and then went up to Lake Anna Winery to hang out after! It was great to see Judy and Michael...they left Iceland in June 2003 and we hadn't seen them since that time, although we have kept in touch via phone and email. It was wonderful to hang out with them for a few hours.

Sunday was supposed to be a trip into DC to see the monuments. Being a group of mostly females, we changed our minds, and stayed at camp, opting for a day of fishing, swimming, and cooking Mountain Pies on the campfire instead of walking around city streets with aching feet. That was the best decision we could have made. Delaney caught not just one, but TWO fish. The kids were allowed to walk alone to the playground where they played with some new-found friends. Steven and I had some time to relax. The Fredericksburg KOA is the best KOA we've stayed at to date.

Back to school for Delaney today. Back to reality for the rest of us. I have mountains and mountains of laundry to tackle. Guess I should get started! I'll leave you with one or two photos and the link to the complete set on Flickr.

Making mountain pies...

Steven and William fishing together

Delaney's first catch...ever!

Learning about leather stamping

William took an archery lesson and really enjoyed it.

Meme...

I don't have a lot of time to write at the moment, but I thought I would respond to this little meme from VAPurl. Here is the quote from her blog, so you will know what to do if I tag you...

I am supposed to list six unimportant things that make me happy and then tag six other people. They must mean little, not unimportant things. If they make me happy, then they're important - well, to me they are.

1. The smell of my children...and I'm not talking pee or pooh smells here, but the smell only a mother knows...the smell you smell with your entire being when you hold them close at the end of the day.

2. Unconditional doggie love.

3. Kitty purrs.

4. Like VAPurl, I enjoy being in my yard and watching my garden change and grow. It amazes me that just two years ago there was one little raised bed out there and now there's a whole lot more! I'm proud of what we've done and I like to just sit and look at it.

5. Coffee in the quietness of the morning before anyone else is up. This is one of the reasons I'll pull myself out of bed at 6:30 when I could stay in bed until 7!

6. Cool mountain air in my lungs. I love to be at home in the mountains in Pennsylvania. The air has a certain smell that isn't found anywhere else. I like to go for a walk in the woods, find my favourite rock, and just sit there and breathe.

Here are the people I'm tagging for this meme...can't wait to see your responses! Sorry I don't really have six people...maybe you all know more bloggers!

Rebecca
Rose
Yarnstormer
Ashley

What I did yesterday...

Since it was ugly and rainy and I didn't have an extreme amount of motivation (actually I felt quite nauseous all day and today I have a cold!), I accomplished very little. I put away laundry, changed Delaney's sheets, made a cake, did dishes, and finished plying and skeining up my Border Leicester that I've been working on for months and months. So glad it is finally done. I ended up with 6.7 oz, 885 yards! This is my best spinning yet!

Steven took the afternoon to start working on the shelves in the girls' closet. It's pretty close to being finished...he just needs to add the metal strips that hold the actual shelves. Maybe it will get done tonight and I can post a photo of it tomorrow.

Today the twinkies have their end of the year school party. It was supposed to be held at a local park but it's still raining so now it will be at the YMCA. They will have their "graduation", an hour of swimming, and then lunch afterward. Phew! I'm tired just thinking about it! I think Tinna is fighting this cold because she is already complaining that she does not want to go. Very odd for her.

Swedish Sugar Cake - recipe below

The cat has found a nice place to sit and view the world

Border Leicester on the bobbin

Now on the niddy noddy. The photo of it in a skein did not turn out well.

Dena was hanging out with the girls before bed last night.


Sockerkaka - Swedish Sugar Cake - from Harpa in Iceland

Here it is :

50 - 75 gr butter (3.5 - 5 tbsp)
2 eggs
2 dl sugar (.8 cup)
3 dl flour (1.2 cups)
2 tsp baking powder
the scraped insides of a 1/2 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla suger
1 dl water (1/2 cup)

1 - 1 1/2 apple in slices
Cinnamon and sugar mixed together

Melt the butter, mix the sugar and eggs together and fold everything together in a bowl and pour it in a buttered baking form.

Then you put one apple in thin slices on top and sprinkle a generous amount of cinnamon and sugar mixture on top of everything.

Bake for 40 - 50 min at 175°C (about 350F - begin to check cake around 35 minutes, mine was a bit too brown)

More Dena

Dena is settling into our family nicely. She and Henry get along just fine. The kids love her. She seems to be a perfect fit for us. I have a few more photos of her with the kids. Also photos of our fire bowl...we used it Thursday evening to roast marshmallows and everyone had a great time, even though it was a little windy and we had to say "I hate fuzzy white kittens" every time the smoke blew in our faces. It has been proven that saying this phrase with meaning makes the smoke blow a different direction!

Today is rainy and not much going on. I just put away some laundry and am getting ready to spin. That's about it from here!

Sitting on the couch with Will & Delaney - she's obviously a Steeler's fan..black fur and gold eyes!

All pooped out at the end of the day! She went in her carrier and fell asleep.

The start of a patio and our new fire bowl

Starting the fire

Moon & stars...so pretty with the fire behind it

Roasting marshmallows