The rest of the camping trip went off without a hitch.  We traveled to Lake Kachess for all our beach play.  The Webmaster helped JY build a sandcastle.

The boys went for a boat ride.

JO shared his peanut butter sandwich with this little guy.

JO went for a swim even though the water was quite chilly.

My sock-in-progress and I went for a bike ride on the Iron Horse Trail.

The trail was made up  mostly of gravel interspersed with hard packed dirt.

The sock details can be found here.

At one point you have to cross a bridge that intersects with huge power lines going through the mountains. You could almost feel the electricity and you could definitely hear it buzzing. I wish I would have had a mirror so I could see if my hair was standing up.

The scenery was beautiful, and I even saw a huge deer who ran away as soon as I grabbed the camera. I guess he thought I was a hunter because he took off like there was no tomorrow.

JO had fun relaxing with Nevaeh.

JO and JY got these little build and grow ball and cup games from Lowes.  The kit came with a miniature hammer and all the materials to assemble the game.  JO had his put together in no time, but JY needed some  intense concentration.

Overall, another great camping trip building memories that will last forever.

We went camping last month at Easton State Park, and the drive turned out to be quite exciting.  The park is located in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains and is one of our favorite places to camp.  While we were driving through the pass we noticed some smoke coming from the back of the truck, but we just thought it was from the tailpipe.  A few minutes later an SUV passed us, and the passenger was yelling and pointing at us “you are on fire”.  So we calmly pulled over to the side of the road, and piled out the truck.  I’m not a person who normally stays calm, or so The Webmaster says.  I had to fake it though, for the sake of the boys.  The Webmaster is the kind of guy who you’d want around in a crisis situation.  He got the fire extinguisher out of the trailer and handed it to Papa who promptly put the fire out.  Apparently the spare tire was too close to the tailpipe and was the source of the fire.

There are so many ways the situation could have gone, much, much worse. Certainly the hand of God was upon us. Soon after the fire was put out, a highway response truck arrived followed shortly by a fire truck.

The firemen seemed surprised that the fire was already put out. They did feel the need to inform us how awful trailer fires usually are.  From what I’ve heard trailer burn hard and fast.

One of the firemen sprayed the spare just to be safe.

The boys and I watched all the action from a safe distance on the side of the hill.

Fun times! The rest of the trip was less exciting, but fun nevertheless. I’ll be back next week with the rest of that, though. Just in case you came here for the knitting I can show you the newest shipment of the Hazel Knits Club.  The yarn colors are  Sugar and Spice can you guess which is which??

Has it really been 2 months since I blogged last….why yes it has.  We’ve had so many adventures this summer, but I will start with today’s.  I’ll try to catch you up with the rest in the coming weeks.  Today we went for a small hike at Federation State Park.

We saw this downed tree with little trees growing on top of it.

I didn’t feel as tall as I normally do standing next to this giant tree trunk.

There were also flying trees, and The Webmaster looks like he has no legs due to the camouflage pants.

We saw the White River.

We went 200 feet down a 70 degree incline to get a closer view.

There was this massive uprooted tree. The Webmaster is sitting next to it for scale.

This hike was just a practice run, and we plan on doing lots more hiking. We may even work our way up to backpack camping.

I have been knitting up a storm and I finished a cardigan or 2. I knit my Cerisara with The Sanguine Gryphon’s Free Range in the Crevacoeur colorway.  This cardi is very versatile and will be a integral part of my wardrobe.  Perfect color, perfect fit…need I say more.

I will be back with some camping posts and another finished cardigan.

I’m sure it’s not news to you that I’m crazy about knitting socks, and I’ve been known to pull a pair out of my purse to crank out a few rows whenever I have a minute.  One of the ladies from Mt Vineyard gave me some vintage sock knitting patterns, because she knew I would put them to good use.  This month for the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on ravelry it’s vintage pattern month so The Webmaster’s getting a new pair of socks.  The yarn is  Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Sagebrush for the main color, and I had some leftovers in Weekend Warrior, Wheatberry, and Rogue Red for the stripes.   The manual striping is going to involve a gabillion ends to weave in so to make it seem less daunting I’m trying to do it every couple of pattern repeats.

My Cookie A mystery socks are finished. This is my first time using Bugga (in acmon blue) and I’m in love. Don’t worry HK I won’t be leaving you anytime soon. The Bugga is so soft and luxurious with the cashmere giving the socks a lovely haze. I’m curious to find out how the socks wear…don’t worry  I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve been trying out my mini tripod just to get the hang of it, and JY is very insistent on “helping” me. I took this one last weekend while The Webmaster was taking his Father’s Day nap. We had fun, but I think we need some practice making our “fake smiles” look genuine.

Next time I may be posting from the great outdoors, but we had a slight setback involving frozen brake calipers so it’s kind of up in the air. Hopefully Firestone will come through for us and we’ll have only missed a day or two of camping.

It’s time for the June shipment of Hazel Knits Artisan Sock club.  I need some cheering up since the weather hasn’t been very summer like here.  I always look forward to the sock club, but this month I was really looking to have my spirits lifted. I guess one of the positive things about living where it’s cloudy and raining most of the time is that we’re that much more thankful when the sun does come out to play.   Ok on to the yarn.

When I opened the blue tissue wrapped package this is what I found.

That little “knit happy” booklet holds post-it notes in various sizes. Here’s a picture of the inside of the book.

Belle is the blue/purple skein, and I love it with all my heart.

Leaf is the green/yellow skein and I’m loving the way the splashes of yellow burst through the green.

Next weekend we’re going camping and I’m hoping it’s not a total wash out. Fingers crossed we get to enjoy some of this scenery.

This weekend was beautiful, and it was about time we got outside to pull some of those weeds.  We haven’t had enough sun to ripen any of our strawberries which were being choked out by all the weeds.  I decided to tackle that one little strawberry patch and spent about 2 and 1/2 hours in there.  I forgot to take a before photo, but you probably wouldn’t have been able to see anything except a weed patch anyways.  When I was finished it looked like this.

There were also lots of slugs hiding in that mess and eating our strawberries so we had to put some slug bait down. I had a full wagon load of weeds when I was finished which JO was nice enough to take to the back of the yard and dispose of.

I also caught JY being silly wearing these fake safety glasses the other day.

On the knitting front, I have another pair of socks to show you. The pattern is Devon from Sock Innovation by Cookie A. The yarn is Have You Any Wool Luxe Sock in Bordeaux. I came to close for comfort to running out of yarn. I knit the pattern pretty much as written, and with the cuff being long-ish and my feet being large-ish it was close. All that worry for nothing though because these turned out perfectly.

That’s all for now and I’m crossing my fingers that we get some more sun so our garden starts growing.

Yes of course this road trip had to do with yarn.  Not just any yarn, mind you, but my very favorite sock yarn Hazel Knits Artisan Sock.   On Friday, I helped my sister in law move from Seattle, to her new apartment in Lynnwood.  Her new apartment is on the third floor so needless to say I’ve been nursing some very sore muscles since then.  What does that have to do with yarn you ask.   Well the money I earned helping her move was burning a hole in my pocket and I just happened to notice that Wild Fibers in Mount Vernon was having their anniversary sale this weekend.  I also just happened to see that Wendee, of Hazel Knits fame, was sending a big shipment of yarn their way, and debuting some brand new colors.  Mt Vernon is about 1 1/2 hours from where we live so I asked The Webmaster if he was up for a road trip, and he agreed.  So the stars aligned and we hopped in the minivan and started driving. We made the trip without pit stops and got to the store around 4:30.

The Hazel Knits yarn greeted me,  front and center,  as soon as I walked in the door. The Webmaster, JO, and JY went to get comfortable on the couch, and the boys managed to find some toys to play with. They could have ran out the back door yelling and screaming and I would have never noticed because I was engrossed in this…

And this…

I managed to capture a close up of Serenity, one of the new colors. Its the light blue in the middle of the photo.

Here is a shot of Cherry Fizz, which is another new color. Cherry Fizz is the pink one surrounded by it’s friends Daphne on the left and Fireberry on the right

I managed to bring home 5 lovelies bought with my blood, sweat, and tears. OK…take out the blood and tears and keep the sweat and add some sore muscles. First we have Chocoberry, which I wanted based on the preview photos from the Hazel Knits web site.

Then there a was a rogue gray that just jumped into my hot little hands.

Next up, Blueberry, which I had to have after seeing  that it was a blue leaning towards purple with pinkish tones underneath.

Splish Splash just jumped right out at me from the bottom row as I was taking another walk around the display. (I couldn’t get this one to photograph properly so I to mess around with the color on picnic)

Last, but certainly not least and the most surprising of all was Coveralls. I saw this one on the HK website and was meeehhh about it, but in person it’s the most perfect blueish gray with so much depth of color.

After I got back into the land of the living (or maybe the yarn fumes were wearing off) I paid for my yarn, and got the heck out of there. Well I did use the little girls room, but I left The Webmaster to guard my lovelies. The Webmaster saw a used book store across the street as we were leaving. We decided to go check it out, and lo and behold JO and JY found a couple things they wanted. Ooohhhh JO saw sea creatures.

JY spotted some trains.

We brushed the dust of Mount Vernon off our heels, and just to make the trip “worthwhile” we stopped in Lynnwood to see Aunt Jer. She has a cool playground in her new apartment complex.

The Webmaster even got in on the fun.

What a fun day, and I know I went home with this kind of smile on my face. Yes I looked just as goofy too.

Wow we’ve been having some rainy, soggy, chilly weather around here.  I think Mr. weather is confused and thinks it’s fall instead of  spring.  JO had a field trip to Saltwater State Park on Friday so  I went along as a chaperone, and of course it rained.  Here is a picture of JO with a couple of his friends. As you can see they are wearing their rain gear. I ended up chasing around these silly boys and getting soaking wet, but they had fun and that’s all that matters.

I finished a pair of socks knit out of Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in It’s a Wrap. This pattern by Cookie A, Wanida, is from  the Sock Innovation book. Once again with the rain, I had a hard time getting the color just right, and this is the best I could do.

I started a cardigan this weekend, seeing as the weather is at least conducive to knitting. This pattern is Cerisara and I’m knitting it out of The Sanguine Gryphon’s Free Range in Crevaceour. I’m loving the yarn, which kind of reminds me of Dream In Color Classy, but it’s an organic wool. This should be an interesting knit because the cardigan has a  unique construction.

Next time another pair of socks, and some cheerier weather (fingers crossed).

We’ve been having some crazy weather the past week. You would think with all the wind and rain we would be going into winter not summer. Mother’s day weekend was beautiful though, and very spring like so I will pull out some pictures I have of the boys swimming. You know just to cheer myself up. I was trying to get JY to smile because when you tell him to smile he just says “smile” and doesn’t actually smile. So I decided to show him a smile. Apparently I have a crazy smile, because this is what I got.

JO had to pretend he was aiming a gun.

I’ve been knitting on 3 pairs of socks, 2 of those need to be finished by the end of the month. They are all patterns by Cookie A, with 1 being a mystery sock. These are a bit more than halfway finished, and are being knit with Have You Any Wool Luxe Sock in bordeaux.

This pair is knit with Hazel Knit Artisan Sock in It’s a Wrap, and are also more than halfway finished.

And finally the mystery sock knit with The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Acmon blue. I have put these aside because they don’t have to be finished in the next week.

My fingers are crossed that I can finish these…well maybe my toes, because I need my fingers to knit.

JO had his first musical last Wednesday, and as luck would have it his class got to be sheep.  I was at a Dr’s appointment with The Webmaster’s Grandpa so I missed JO’s class song.  The Webmaster got it on video though.  I will post it but I have to warn you that JY was sitting next to The Webmaster so watching the video might make you motion sick. In this video they are singing “Old Mcdonald had a farm” which is kind of hard to hear. The other song that his class sang along was too hard to hear so I’m not posting that one. JO is in the top row third from the left. You can barely see him standing next to the tall boys.

The Webmaster also took some pictures so those of you who don’t want to watch the video  can still see the cute sheep. JO is the top sheep and the bottom sheep are his two friends.

Seeing as we’re talking sheep, and this is supposed to be a knitting blog I’ll show you my newest skein of Bugga in Dragon millipede.