Remember Me?

Seems that I have forgotten about the blog. Well, I haven’t exactly forgotten, I have just been busy. Being all kinds of domestic. I made a beef stew yesterday that was delish. Perfect for Juneau weather. It has been sunny about 6 days total since we have been here. The rest of the days are overcast and rainy/drizzly with highs in the low 60’s. Great opportunities to cook.

Especially since we are now at the vacation house that we rented for a month. It is so nice to be able to stretch out and spread out. And it has a full kitchen! Yay.

So, what have we been up to?

We’ve been visiting the libraries. There is a great library downtown and one in the Valley.

BTH enjoys looking out the massive windows at the people milling around the cruise ships below and the traffic going by. He is fascinated by buses and points them out at every opportunity, “BUS!”.

We have been taking in the fabulous scenery. Mountains galore.

We walked up to an old goldmine site and where tourists can pan for gold in one of the original places where gold was found. That was a massive haul and a half. I kept thinking to myself, “Are we there yet?”. But it was worth it.

We have been visiting the parks in the area. So far, our favorite is this newer one.

And I love the fact that they don’t use woodchips or pebbles at the parks in the area. They use shredded tires! In true treehugger spirit, I think that this is awesome on so many levels. I really love that BTH gets the most enjoyment out of flopping down and rolling around on the springy rubber chips. They paint them, but I can look past that.

This is one of the views from the park. Notice the bit of sand at the bottom of the picture? Yeah, on the weekends, you can usually find a brave couple of kids hanging out in swimming suits, dashing frantically in and out of the water. I shudder to think of how cold it is.

There has been quite a bit of knitting going on as well. An update on the baby cardigan:

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. It has been so chilly that DH & BTH have needed slippers. I thought ahead and brought mine, but they didn’t. So, I tried to remember how Mom made crocheted slippers. I wish that I could just call her up and ask her, but I can’t. And she was never one to write a pattern down. I remember that she told me one time that she just basically crochets a dishcloth (using acrylic), seams them up, cinches the toe shut and adds a pom-pom for girls and plain for boys. These slippers were a staple in our house while growing up. We all had multiple pairs. And she was always giving them as gifts. Well, DH’s were the first ones I did and they are really big and floppy, but they work. BTH’s are so close to Mom’s I can’t hardly believe it.

DH went fishing last weekend with our realtor and didn’t have a hat, so I knit one for him:

*Pattern: Boyfriend Hat

*Yarn: Manos Del Uruguay 100% wool

*Needles: size 8 circ’s & DPN’s

Great pattern, plan on using this again. I don’t do gauge swatches, so it ended up being big in circumference and too short, so I ripped back and increased the length. Next time, I will try to use a yarn that is closer to what the pattern calls for. This was all that I had on hand.

I have some other things to show, but I will save those for later…

Peace.