Sunday, September 21, 2008

Franconia Fun

Franconia

Yesterday was Franconia Sculpture Park's annual Fall Arts and Music Festival.

With our little weather warm-up, it was a perfect day for "finding sculpture" (as the Bud described it), and pal-ing around with friends.

Playin' at Franconia

Playin' at Franconia - 2

The Bud is all about diggers and lifters - he was in lifter heaven when he saw this one close up.

Franconia lifter

This one was for sale - thank goodness he can't read yet - otherwise I'm sure we would have been in for some serious begging.

Makin' art & breakin' hearts

It was the inspiration for the sculpture he made.

Makin' sculpture

His idea was to make a three wheeled lifter.

The Bud's Sculpture

D and I decided to hang it vertically - I love the birch and the broken red board on front. We asked the bud where we should hang it in the house, and he said our bedroom! Sweet!

There was so much art and music to engage our minds and bodies.

Fun @ Franconia

Climbing at Franconia


(Watching this today, the Bud said "I want to dance there again sometime.")

The Bud even got to spray-paint his first graffiti art (click the photo below to see what he painted).

Graffiti Art for the very young

He also picked up a new sticker for his car - fitting for a car which originally came from Franconia.

The Bud's Ride

As for me... we made a stop at Sven's, and these clog boots just had to come home with me. Bring on the cold. I'm ready with these lined babies.

Puttin' my feet up

Stop by my MIL's blog for more about our day.

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Saturday, September 20, 2008

What I did this summer...

I no longer have to write any 5 paragraph essays on the subject - but when you have a job where you don't see your colleagues the whole summer, you need to be prepared for the stock question: "so, how was your summer?"
It made me think... how did I spend all that time? We didn't really go anywhere. I do remember many happy hours with the "queens of the corner" (we neighbors who live on our corner) and a lot of time spent lounging on our new deck (which I like to call my cabin). Hmmm.... not so much to report.

The follow up from many colleagues was often "and how is the Bud?"
For that the answer was easy - this was the summer of the bike.
We spent much of the time this summer with the Bud on two wheels.
Here is a little video I took right before school started.



We put the ramp up for Grandma Alphie when she visits in her wheelchair. It stayed up for about a week at the end of the summer, just for fun.
We even took the Bud to the free, outdoor skate park in our neighborhood to ride around on the ramps a few times. We tried to pick off times - but the one time we had company, the skaters were very nice with taking turns (even though I could tell they were not so excited we had brought the "family fun" to their hang out).


We actually got our anniversary art pretty close to our actual anniversary this year.
Even though I count this as the 11th piece of the anniversary collection, we are celebrating year nine. Eleven includes the "starter piece" given to us which started the tradition, and the "ground zero piece" we purchased on our honeymoon.

Since the cabin deck was such a big part of the summer - we went with an outdoor piece.
Anniversary Art #9
(please excuse the siding that still needs to be fixed post deck construction)

D saw it at the local farmer's market. We had been talking about a bench since last year, and this was it. I was surprised at how comfortable it actually is.

The Bud loves making the curlicues go boing.

Anniversary Art #9


Not much to report on the knitting front.

Sister S sent an initial sassimetrical pic [Ravelry], with the promise more artsy ones later on.

Sassimetrical on Sis

I am pretty proud of my sizing from so far away!

and I finished a few instant gratification projects.

SBC #5
another sweet baby cap - man, I love this pattern. [Ravelry]

The Bud's Muddy Viking Mittens
and some muddy, viking mittens for the Bud. [Ravelry]
I tried to make him a matching chowl (child's cowl), or is it a towl (toddler cowl) maybe it's just a mini mowl (man cowl). But alas he has a big head and small neck. It fits - once you get it over his noggin, but I think I will frog and make a slightly bigger one

I've been picking up various WIPS here and I have SMS (second mitten syndrome) with a pair I started for myself a few weeks ago with leftover yarn from my Clapotis. [Ravelry]
Single Mitten

I have my mind on a few projects I would like to start, but I am trying to FO a few things first - we will see how that goes.


On a sad note... my last computer update made enemies with my old "beast" camera with the good macro lens. So that may mean no close ups for awhile. Sigh.

And now we are on our way to all the fun at the Franconia Gala.
Woo hoo!

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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Driving Home

I took the new 35W bridge home today.

New Bridge

Strange how a span of time can seem short and long at the same time.
It hardly seems possible that it has been a year since the collapse, yet it seems eons ago that Sister S and I started out on our road trip to AZ the day it did.