Busy Week

Well, It's been another busy week here.  My sister and her two girls came into town late Monday and left late afternoon on Thursday and we packed a lot of fun into those few days. Yesterday was spent recovering and grocery shopping.

Tuesday we got up and left the house for a day at Elitch's.  Of course, all of those pictures are on my phone and I am not sure how to get them to here, I'll ask one of the kids later.  Elitch's was fun until the kids went on their last ride, the Teacups.  Everyone was done after that, kids were all a little nauseous.

Our brother came down with his girls for dinner and a good time was had by all.  His twins, O. and E., are about the same age as my sister's youngest, M.M. and they played together well.  My daughter K.T. is a year older than my sister's oldest and they got to hang out.  Which left C.J. hanging for the most part, but he did have fun with all of his younger cousins, they even got him to play a couple of rounds of musical chairs.

Wednesday was spent looking at back-splash tile for her kitchen and looking at nature.  None of the kids was pleased about the tile store, but K. and I were really impressed.  We went to Floor and Decor and it so many choices that I don't think my sister was even able to narrow down what she wanted.  The only thing we decided was that we like really opposite finishes for kitchens.

After the tile store, we fortified ourselves at Starbucks and C.J. finally found a frappucino flavor he likes, a caramel cup of yumminess.  We headed up to Red Rocks and let the kids climb up down and up the steps while K. and I enjoyed the view, what little view we got as it was really hazy that day. 

We went to Matthews Winters State Park which is just a little ways north of Red Rocks, but a lot less crowded, and went for a little hike. 

The kids found a creek and would have been content to stay here all afternoon if I hadn't mentioned the old graveyard on this hike.  My sister can't resist an old graveyard (I think they're pretty cool, too).

We made them get their picture taken so we could prove that we were in the mountains, even though they weren't really big mountains, just the foothills.

We found the graveyard, which was cool.  The kids were fascinated with the wooden markers.

This is the four of them running back down the trail when we told them the next stop would be ice cream.

Ice cream, then floating in the lazy river at Pirate's Cove (until they made us get out because of lightning) before a dinner of White Fence Farm capped off a long, hot day. 

Thursday morning my sister and I went to IKEA with just M.E. (her oldest) and K.T. leaving C.J. at home in charge of the six year old.  We enjoyed ourselves and nothing was destroyed when we got home so all was good in the world.  We got my sister loaded up and on her way after lunch at Steak and Shake. 

Yesterday all I did was go grocery shopping, think about doing laundry without actually doing it, and spin.  I finished a third of the Headache and I only have .5 oz to go on the first half of Abstract.  Today I will be doing laundry, prepping the next third of Headache, prepping the first 2oz of Sage and, hopefully, finishing that last .5oz of Abstract.  Maybe I'll get it all done.  A girl can dream, right?  Well dream about the fun stuff, not the laundry.

My Turn

Okay, we have been slacking on the posting lately.  We went on vacation and immediately when we returned we bought a new car, as the van decided to let us know she was dying.  Gas mileage sucked and that darn van decided to throw her serpentine belt during a rather nasty thunderstorm the night that C. had departed to go back home.  My sister (who is handy like that) had to fix it the next day.  Of course, both my parents and C. were concerned about me driving back to Colorado with just the kids, but we made it without any mishaps.  Even thought it was raining when we left and when we arrived into Denver, it was a sunny trip with no opportunities for that van to toss the serpentine belt again. 

The next few days were a flurry of car stuff, looking for a car, talking to the credit union, telling the dealership we did not want to get a loan through them, and 2 trips to Arvada (right at rush hour, of course).  Good times.  Good times. 

Now, I am am the happy owner of a zippy, little car: a Mazda 5.  We love it.

As for my spinning and knitting and quilting... The only thing I finished before our trip was K.T.'s bag and it turned out great.  It's almost as big as she is.

K.T.'s Bag

 

 

I have set everything aside that I was working on , except for the spinning project, but more on that in a minute.  While I was in Omaha, my mom suggested we go check out the new yarn store she heard about and when I looked it up, I got a surprise.  When we were living in the Town That Shall Not Be Named we used to drive 90 miles to get to a Target store and a good mall, there was also a great yarn store there.  That store has moved to Omaha and it was great to be able to go there again.  The owner's a very helpful, totally enabling my yarn addiction and I walked out of there with a project I love and hope to  finish soon.  My mom even found something she wanted.

The spinning is moving along but it is almost time for the Tour de Fleece which runs concurrently with the Tour de France bike race which starts this Saturday.  The point of the Tour de Fleece is to spin along with the race, challenging yourself with whatever would be a challenge for you.  I am hoping to finish the 8 oz I am working on right now.

Sage

Abstract

 

 

  

I am hoping to get some other spinning done during the Tour.  I would like to spin as much as I can everyday, sometimes that will be several hours, other days will be just a few minutes.  I want to work on 8oz of a Merino/Tencel blend called Psychedelic Mushrooms and 4oz of Wensleydale which, I'll be honest, scares me a little bit as I have never spun that before.  The Wensleydale is called Headache. 

Headache

 

Psychedelic Mushrooms

Vacation to Illinois and Nebraska

I had a great time on the trip. We went to the berger barg. I would post a pic or 2 but I can't figeriger it out