We flew in to John Wayne airport on Friday morning and headed down to San Diego to meet the family. Along the way we ate lunch in San Juan Capistrano, narrowly missing the Return of the Swallows. After living in the Midwest for several years I forgot what it was like to walk around an urban area and see fruit trees everywhere.

We had lunch at Sarducci’s Capistrano Depot and watched the trains go by (we were told they get 88 trains a day!)

Then it was down to Encinitas for Friday night Shabbat services and dinner with the extended family.

Saturday was the big day. We got up early and headed over to temple for the Bar Mitzvah. The day was mild and my cousin did a great job. This photo was taken the next day, but here he is meeting one of his new cousins.

The rest of the weekend was spent wandering Encinitas, eating good food and catching up with family we only get to see every once in a while.

There was a bit of goofing off:

Lots of time for the cousins to catch up:

And a cutie pie to snorgle:

There was even a bit of yarn tourism at The Black Sheep – a cousin and I went off in search of fibery goodness and were not disappointed. The store is beautiful and stocked floor to ceiling!

Unfortunately, after a weekend of fun we had to head back home. We got in late last night and returned to work today, and laundry and sundry chores this evening.

Unhappy Saturday occurrence: The TV is deader than a doornail. Off to buy a new one.

Did you guess yet? Ok… try this one:

I love this one too:

Most of the weekend was spent knitting and spinning in this beautiful lobby.

We also managed to take a detour to Omaha and participate in a little retail therapy. We visited both String of Purls and Personal Threads. I might have died a little in the second. Please excuse the blurry camera phone photo of the wall of Koigu. This might be what heaven looks like.

And I even made a dent in my first April sweater:

Now I just need a weekend to recover!

On Sunday, a friend and I drove out to Harveyville, Kansas to visit the Harveyville Project and pick up some spinning wheels. I rented an Ashford Joy and will be practicing on that and maybe owning it at Christmas! Nikol, who runs the project with her husband, is super sweet. She spent a few hours with us letting us try out spinning wheels and offering reasonable prices and a fabulous rental program (half your rental fees go towards your purchase price if you buy the wheel you’re renting!) Of course this means I’d rather be spinning than working, but we won’t talk about that too much!

Now I’m sure everyone needs a little Monday pick-me-up. This one tickled my funny bone:

I’m sorry, you probably can’t see it quite well enough. Let me show you a closeup:

The night after we closed, Wes and I drove down to the house to see how easily the wallpaper might be removed. We peeled a bit and low and behold the vinyl portion of the paper just came right off. Starting to look better already.

Saturday, after a BIG trip to Home Depot we got out our DIF blue goo and smeared it all over the walls. A few hours of scraping and we got all the paper removed. What was underneath? Well burgundy walls of course!

Yeah. We don’t get it either.

Sunday we primed and painted. Our walls our now Cancun Sand, which basically means a nice cream color. Tape comes off tomorrow so this shot will have to suffice for now:

Of course the other fun thing about our house is that the previous occupants were serious gardeners. This means we got lucky and get a bit of the end of the season produce. We watered today, and collected an enormous zucchini, a squash, a couple peppers, okra, tons and tons of tomatoes (the cherry ones are SO good – and I don’t even like tomatoes!), blackberries and concord grapes. YUM!

ETA For more pictures of the house visit the whole album here.

So last Thursday my friend PlazaJen and I piled all of our stuff in the car and headed for St. Louis! We arrived around noon, checked in, and started meeting the knitters. The interesting thing is that, with popularity of Ravelry these days, I knew many of the attendees from online before I ever met them. I even roomed with someone I had met through Ravelry!

Around 3pm we could get our registration materials and our goody bag and of course the cupcakes! Each year Laura and Leslie of the Knit Girllls start the weekend off by picking up cupcakes from the Cupcakery. Ever want to know what almost 15 dozen cupcakes look like?

The goodie bag this year was FABULOUS. It featured a sock pattern by Wendy Johnson, a skein of Wollmeise yarn in the exclusive colorway Femme Fatale, a Loopy Ewe Spring Fling Mug, a Loopy and a few other extras all delivered in a Loopy Ewe Messenger bag!

After registration 67 of us headed over to the mexican restaurant for the newbie dinner. Holy Margaritas Batman! Then we headed to the conference center for the dessert reception and knitting time. Then it was off to bed!

The next morning we got up early, breakfasted and began the day’s activities. My first activity was a Sweater Class with Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. Jared was friendly, knowledgeable and a great teacher. He spent the class teaching us how to design our own sweaters, getting into the nitty gritty of how to measure yourself and how to do the mathematics and achieve the sweater you want. I can’t say enough good things about this class – I learned a lot and I can’t wait to apply some of his tips and tricks to my next sweater.

After the morning class, we had lunch and then I had a free afternoon of knitting. I got to hang out with my roomie and work on a variety of projects, including an Ishbel for myself! More details on that near the end of this post!

That evening we headed over to the Drunken Fish for sushi and drinks. Then it was back to the conference center for an evening talk on how to better photograph your yarns and knits led by Mr. Loopy himself! The talk was really interesting and gave me some tips that I applied when I got home taking pictures of my new stash. Also notable for the evening is that my roomie’s husband brought us Ted Drewes, which we had all been craving. (For those who don’t know Ted Drewes is a St. Louis tradition – frozen custard!) We were trying to fly below the radar so we didn’t set off a riot, so imagine my surprise when a picture of us ended up on The Loopy Ewe blog!

I could barely wait for the next day because I got to go shopping at Loopy Central! Sadly I didn’t take any pictures in the shop so you’ll have to be content with pictures of what I got! While there I managed to pick up an extra sock club kit including a skein of Wollmeise in the Guide to the Galaxy Colorway! I also picked up enough Madelinetosh Tosh DK in the Cherry colorway to do a delicious cabled sweater in the fall. My last two splurges were a skein of A Swell Yarn Shop‘s Duets DK in Merlot Spritz and a skein of The Sanguine Gryphon‘s Skinny Bugga in Tarantula Hawk that I had been lusting after for a while.

After shopping I returned to the hotel for lunch and another free knit period. Then we had a full group picture. After that, those of us who had knit stripey Vesper socks go together for a photo op. Remember my melons? Can you spot them?

For dinner we went back to the Mexican restaurant for more margaritas (that might be where I was “hanging around”). Then it was on to the final evening party. There were door prizes and fabulous cake balls!

All in all it was an amazing weekend. I met so many people and took so few pictures I can’t believe it’s already over. One last souvenir, however, is the shawl I completed while there. (Yes – I knit a shawl in just over 4 days!) I’m calling it my Spring Fling Ishbel!

The Pattern: Ysolda Teague’s Ishbel

The Needles: US 6′s

The Yarn: Wollmeise 100% in Rhabarber

The Verdict: LOVE LOVE LOVE this shawl. It’s the third one I’ve made of this pattern, but the first for me! I had enough yardage to add some extra lace repeats and make it a bit bigger and I think it will be the perfect summer shawl to throw over my shoulders when the office gets a bit chilly or I’m out in the evening. And every time I look at the shawl I will remember how much fun I had with my friends while knitting it!

Now I had the choice of ponying up $4,000 or so to fix the transmission or I was looking for a new car, STAT. Because my car really wasn’t even driveable, my options were limited. I could take what the dealer would offer me for it “as is” or I could find someone else who would tow it, appraise it, and start again. Add to that, that I owned my car outright and was really enjoying NOT having payments on it, and that we are hoping to buy a house later this year.

A little over 24 hours later, it’s all said and done. My Rav4, my first car that I purchased on my own, is no longer mine. I loved that car, and I can’t help it, I don’t love the new one quite as much.

But, we got a good deal on it. It’s a 2009 Toyota Corolla in a bright cheery Barcelona Red. I think I’ll be obeying all speed limits in this one, eh?

PS: For those of you reading along at home, I passed 80,000 miles just a couple of weeks ago. Her final mileage? 80,409. RIP.

Wes and I took off a week ago Saturday to drive out to Los Angeles. With no major mishaps we headed cross country and hit Vegas on Sunday night. We spent a night at the Venetian in an amazing room, and then hit the outlets in Primm (getting almost 100% of our Christmas shopping done!) and reaching LA by late in the day on Monday. We had a brief stop to get cleaned up:

Monday night, we had dinner at my favorite Japanese place with Bel, and got to catch up on all that I’m missing in LA. Tuesday we went to lunch with my dad and then saw New Moon with Sean. (I enjoyed it purely for entertainment value…the boys weren’t convinced!) Wednesday we had breakfast with my old roomie, and then helped mom prepare for Thursday’s meal. Wednesday night, my sister and her fiance arrived and the family was complete!

And then just like that the holiday was over. On Friday morning we had breakfast with my aunt, uncle and cousin at the Christmas be-decked Mission Inn. And then we were on the road again.

We arrived into Kansas City this afternoon, and did our grocery shopping and laundry. Then we came home and put up the tree – my very first tree! I decorated with a few ornaments I’ve been collecting and then spent the rest of the evening wrapping gifts! Now I’m settling in to catch up on what I missed being more or less away from the internet for the week. Tomorrow I’ll share photos of the knitted gifts for my family since they all have them now!

The Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket

The Needles: US 3′s

The Yarn: Artyarns (Teal & Brown), Dream in Color Smooshy (Romeo Blue)

The Verdict: This sweater is a quick knit with an interesting construction. Garter stitch lends itself to movie theatre knitting which is where I’ve been working on the bulk of these! I can also customize each with fun yarn and cute little buttons. I have a few more planned for September and October babies!

In addition to catching up on current movies (Harry Potter 6, GI Joe and Inglorious Basterds!) we’ve also been geocaching. Yesterday we headed down to Paola, KS to visit The BBQ Shack (featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!) and did some geocaching around Lake Miola. We were kept from a couple caches by Muggles, but we managed to find 2 out of 3! (which ain’t bad!)

The garden is still growing. So far our biggest successes have been the peppers – we’ve had half a dozen green peppers and a bunch of jalapenos! We’ve started the cucumbers again and are just getting some spiky buds. Our tomato plants are finally producing blooms and little tomatoes after we got our act together and got both tomato cages and fertilizer. I hope to have pics of those to show you soon!

Otherwise we’re cleaning the house today, doing loads of laundry, hitting up the grocery store, and one of us is trying to squeeze in some knitting. My current project? Sleeves. Badly in need of sleeves: