pictures for ravelry fiberswap

sorry to interupt the photo contest-but i need to post these pics for a reason-long story. won't go into detail-just enjoy them.

there are so many examples of bouguereau-there are too many to post.

mystery photo contest

just when you thought i was done posting about our vacation....... you should be so lucky! i've decided to torture you all a bit more. instead of staying at yosemite for our entire trip like most "normal" folks would have done we changed our locale for a completely different view. a different geographical/topographical situation- can you say A.D.D.?

i've decided to run a little contest. i will post a picture from the town we ventured off to. if you can guess-you win a prize-you don't have to be a knitter/spinner to play. i will "gift" appropriate to your likes. here we go!here's a clue: we stayed in the state of california. the town is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . if no one can guess we can play hang man/wheel of fortune-you can guess letters! let the contest begin!!!!!

i updated my etsy shop with some rovings-the pictures suck-so i have to redo them all-oh the bother!!!! i just can't get the colors right. they look so much better in real life!! here's a few:i did some more dying today. i have more color-ways to add. i do tend to go a bit over board with the greens/golds/yellow trip. my goal this summer is to expand my color experience.

i'm tired of the smoke-i over did it yesterday with outdoor activity and woke up with sore lungs! we did find a new swimming hole-we named it "fiddle hole." sorry no pictures.

it's fog-really it is!!!

well- i wanted to keep posting on our vay-cay, but life keeps happening(aren't you glad?)

i want to to throw a heart felt thanks to all the hard working fire-fighters who are working so hard to put all our wild fires out. there are so many. we are currently under no threat(knock on wood.) but we are experiencing a lot of smoke-making breathing an effort-we have sore throats, nausea and head aches. it's kind of a catch 22 as we need to keep windows closed to keep the smoke out yet we are so hot-needing to open windows-ugh! i haven't done laundry in days as i don't want the clothes to smell like smoke when i hang them to dry.

kama is pleased at the mountain of laundry growing-she sneaks in the house-climbs up a skate board to the top of the pile:
and she lays the golden egg!thanks kama!

normally we have a beautiful view from our front porch-now we see nothing but smoke. i try to trick myself and convince myself-i really live at the coast and this is really fog not smoke! ha! that's a stretch.

we were fed up with the smell and yucky breathing and wanted to go to the river- we decided to go to the north fork and escape it but we forgot about the cal-ida fire. i took this picture-so much for getting out of the smoke.we decided to stay as there was no escape. the river was a bit too cold for my liking so i practiced my banjo while liam and hubby swam.but we found a new swimming hole on the way home-not as cold-i could even enjoy it.- we named it tanager bend as we saw a beautiful one there leading the way.i did some fiber dying this past week end-i wanted to do some solar dying but since the sun was deeply covered in smog-it wasn't nearly as hot-so it was stove top for me. here's pre- steaming examples:sorry- no time for finished product photos-maybe another time. i'm pooped! gonna hit the hay.

vay-cay part 3

one of the best parts of our yosemite trip was leaving the crowded valley floor and heading to tuolumne meadows. here's a shot of the back side of the infamous half dome from olmstead point. check out all that granite!
gotta love the succulents growing out of that granite!picnic lunch at tenaya lake:next stop- the grand lembert dome.we decided to climb it. we chose NOT to take the trail but blaze our own. it was very amazing-and steep!we finally made it to the top:got boulders?going up was one thing-coming down was a totally different thing-can you say scary? mama bear kicked in and i just wanted my family safely down on the ground with no cracked skulls. carey led the way-remember-he's 6'2". what was easy for him was a bit harder for liam and i. yes, i was secretly freaking. although-hubby noticed big time i was not being very secretive. anyway- we did make it down safely and we all felt very empowered.

V-A-C-A-tion part 2

let's get back to the VAY-CAY.

being that Liam and i went to yosemite last year for a school trip-we had lots of exciting things to show pops and carey. our teacher took us up to sierra point-which is no longer a trail and rangers highly discourage anyone from doing it-danger factor. i wanted to take the boys up there but the trail is sketchy and hard to find-i know i could find it again-but it would take awhile and time was limited. plus, i wasn't in as good of shape as i was a year ago and it was hard on my knees coming down. i didn't want to risk messing up the rest of the vacation. so, we opted to hike to the top of vernal falls instead-something liam and i never did. it was a 1000 feet elevation gain over a short hike-shit! it hurt! my pics don't do it justice.
this is the cutest bathroom ever- about half way up the trail-can you say cute????who hikes up the toilet paper? the toilets even flushed!!!!! yipee!here's the falls:the greatest part was when you were beginning to really hot the mists would saturate you-ahhh! hence the name-mist trail!we were famished and on our way down we promised the kids pizza on the valley floor in curry village. well, when we got there every other person in yosemite had the same idea-the line was off the patio and down the trail. damn! sorry kids. we had to leave as we had to move to yet another campsite-don't even ask me how many times we did this on our trip- you see we waited to the last minute to decide we were even going to yosemite-camping reservations are impossible if you don't make them fricken 10 years in advance. it was getting dark -we needed to drive outside the park to our new site and set up camp and make dinner. gads! it was tofu dogs for us once we set up camp. our new campsite was filled with gooseberries!!!! does anyone know if they loose their prickles when they are ripe?

sorry to interrupt...

sorry to interrupt our vacation post(although a friend pointed out to me that camping is NOT a vacation) but.........the celtics kicked ass tonight and won the NBA finals and here in northern california there's nothing like seeing the Lakers lose a championship- they are dirty pool players and i hate them. yes- i know hate is strong word-but i can actually say-"I HATE THE LAKERS" and feel good about it. yippee-yeah celtics!! i draped the T.V. in green wool last sunday for the game and the celtics lost. so my great friend anne(from high school) who lives in MPLS. decided as we watched the game together via telephone-we were drinking the wrong thing. she was drinking wine-WTF?-who drinks wine watching basketball? i was drinking nectar ale IPA. but we needed to be drinking guiness(the luck of the irish). we agreed to both drink guiness for the next game. well- no one around here sells guiness and i was not going to drive miles to obtain it-but i had a great mojo IPA and adorned the family with shamrock stickers.-YES! we kicked ass! by the way- anne was drinking vodka during the game-the combo worked!!

v-a-c-a-tion: part 1

two very excited and happy guys ready to embark on a journey. liam's mandolin teacher wanted him to bring his instrument on the trip with us-ha! as you can see the back of our subaru is packed to the brim. sorry barry!

we are very lucky that our library has a great selection of books on tape-which we always check out to help with boredom on long car rides. this story kept the whole family captivated-although carey already knew the story as he had read the book. we were packed and ready to go by 10:38 a.m. a bit later than we wanted-but not too bad. we journeyed for many hours. our destination.........................can you guess? that huge solid piece of granite is el capitan. yep-destination- yosemite national park. carey had never been and it had been 20 years since hubby was there. we thought it important to see it again before carey is all grown up-damn, it happens so quick!! it is such an awe inspiring place to be. it's almost unreal. surreal. paradise. we started off simple and slow. a mellow walk to mirror lake.we did a short climb to devil's bathtub. roy and carey encountered a big ole rattle snake-that happens to them a lot. liam and i were checking out old phone/powerlines-looking for insulators. the climb was short and easy-in fact i get more winded walking up our hill to neighbor rhodie. what a view! we got to watch the rescue helicopter hard at work.hubby and carey were a bit disappointed with devil's bathtub. the water trickles down a shear cliff into a crevice pocket forming small pools. you can sit in them-to cool off-which we found to contain small leeches. here's what the view looks like looking straight up from the pool.i have a better picture but liam is begging me not to post it as he is rolling his eyes-ha! later we had snacks in curry village-boys-ice cream, hubby and i-beer. then back to the campsite for burritos and a few games of spades.

the past 8 days

i haven't posted in awhile as for the last 8 days we have been living in this: (note the feather comforter)

and i've been cooking for a family of 4 on this:sorry no time for details-we are off to the river to cool off. will update soon!

dye miracle!

i just hate seeing good dye go to waste. but i also like to experiment and play. so i had dye from this skein:and dye left from this skein:a little mad chemist mixing-in equal amounts if my memory serves me-and i got this! love it!!then spun up-now- you may think this nothing much- but in real life-it is uuuoooooh la la! soft merino- mellow pond scum sedation- or shall i say seduction(can you tell i'm listening to michael franti? ha ha) i'm still trying to decide weather to sell it or keep it for my very own.

go obama!
go wings!!

.....and they lived to tell the tale!

a few weekends ago hubby and older son-carey went river rafting on the north fork of the yuba river. they did Maytag.........and they lived to tell the tale. liam and i were going to hike in and watch-as it is right by one of our summer swimming holes. liam ended up sick and we stayed home. luckily the rafting company has their own photographer so they came home with a disk loaded with awesome photos. here's a few more: carey(he's the blonde one) very happy below. hubby is on the left.