Usually, I can’t come up with enough things for a Ten on Tuesday blog post.  For example, 10 all-time favorite movies?  No clue! BUT.  When I saw Jess post about  her 10 favorite childhood games?  I knew I could do it too. Easy Parcheesi!

Ten Favorite Games from your Childhood
(In no particular order)

This was so easy,  games were (apparently) a very big part of my childhood.  I was also a reader too, but I think I played games quite a bit though never as much as my sister would have liked (as I’m sure she will verify when she comments on this post!).

1.) Checkers – Played with my sister and with my dad. Always a good game on a sick day.

2.) Solitaire – Learned from my dad.  He was very particular in method.  My girls were playing one day and Dave actually apologized to them (for me) when I stopped to see what they were doing.  Yeah, it is the apple and the tree thing.

3.) Cribbage – Played with my dad and sister.  This was my dad’s favorite game and one that he would play with family friends.  We would go on vacation to a cabin in Vermont and the adults would play this games into the wee hours of the night and my sister and I would stand in our room on the top bunk and peek at them over the half walls (who could sleep with all that noise!) I would really like to relearn how to play Cribbage.  (The phrase that always goes through my head is 15-2, 15-4, and a pair is 6.) (He also used to play Pinochle with my grandfather when we were really young,  but I don’t remember much except for the table in my Nana’s kitchen and the cigarette smoke.  There was also Pepsi in bottles, Deviled Ham, and Shake-n-bake.)

4.) Screw your Neighbor – This is a card came that I think we learned from my brother, but we would also play it with the neighbor girl who lived down the street.

5.) Spit – This is the fast paced double solitaire game. I love this one!

6.) Parcheesi – My sister and  I played this one at our Nana’s house.  She had coloring books and Parcheesi for us to play when we were left there.  It is a childhood memory for me though I’m not sure it is one of my favorite games.  (zzzzzz) It does rank higher than Monopoly though. (double zzzzzz)

7.) The Alphabet Game – This is the car game which I played with my sister and dad.  When we were little we spent a lot of time driving around with my dad when he went to pick up apples or deliver cider for the mill.  We spent a lot of time look for those “Q’s.”  I used to think that antiques was pronounced an-ti-cues…  Did I say that I was little?

8.) Other card games like rummy, crazy eights, Uno, war – Played mostly with my sister. My mom can be a pretty competitive Uno player though!

9.) Scrabble – This was my mom’s game.  She is wicked scary good and can do amazing things with those triple letter scores!

10.) Make Believe – My sister and I would play make believe games like circus or school for hours on end with games that would continue over days.  We would also “play Legos” like this too. We would make “people” and houses and set up scenarios and situations to act out with the “people” (They didn’t actually have Lego people back then they were 2-ers on top of 4-ers and how many 4-ers would indicate their age ( a 1 high would be a young child, a 2 high a teen, and a 3 high an adult).  We would also make tee-pees, covered wagons, and other types of “homes” out in the back yard and woods.

11.) Pool – When we were really little, we had a “pool room” in our house.  This room later became my sister’s bedroom, but prior to that it housed a pool table.  Relatives would come over to play with my dad and my sister and I would play pool sometimes.  Sometimes we would use it has a house for make believe and other times it was the holder of piles of laundry.

12.) Chinese Checkers -  This was a favorite game of ours when we were home for sick days or snow days.  We also used the Chinese Checker board for make believe games too. (And yes, the photo above is our actual Chinese Checker board. Can this be called vintage?)

Okay,  I could probably go on, but I seem to have hit 12 already.  I’m sure I’ll think of more in the middle of the night (and maybe even think of the one that I really can’t remember the name of or even enough about it to Google search it). So what were your favorite games?  Any of these?

The fiber is merino in Shaded Sapas.  I really enjoy spinning this.  I love how merino makes such a bouncy, springy, elastic yarn which is just so soft and yummy.

Spinning time for Stage 16, day 18… about 3 hours throughout the day

I am working on… being smiled back at.  You know when you smile at someone, they smile back.  Well, yeah, I’m working on that happening in my house. I seem to have about a 50/50 chance currently.  Maybe I need to smile bigger.

I am thankful for... Sykpe. Through the magical powers of the internets, I was able to spin with my sister today!

From the kitchen… nothing!!!  I had to go to the post office so I picked up a pizza on the way home.  I do usually cook more, it is just that it is so hot and sticky still and I have to spin, you know!  Tomorrow I HAVE to make yogurt.  I also want to make some summer favorites like gazpacho and tabbouleh.  Next week is our vacation week and the tour will be over so maybe there will be some more time for cooking.  With Dave home there will probably be dough and that means grilled pizza too, yum!

I am wearing… see above

I am hoping... K is back from camp and I hope that she gets a lot of rest tonight and that she feels better tomorrow.  She had a good time except for being hit on the head a lot.

I am hearing… Night bugs outdoors and footsteps as everyone readies for bed.

Here is picture I am sharing…

1.)  Ornamental grass like this:

2.)  A Cricut die-cut machine

3.)  A vacation home somewhere warm and sunny with little traffic and nice friendly neighbors who like to knit and scrapbook and have fun

4.)  A dragonfly waterbottle like this one:

5.) A housekeeper who excels at washing floors

6.)  A new lens for my camera

7.) A purple garden hose

8.)  A really cool camera bag like this one

9.)  New bedroom furniture

10.)  New dishes – well, these I would buy for myself, I just have not found the ones that I want yet

Wow, coming up with 10 things was really much easier than I thought it was going to be and this was even without thinking too much!  I thought to help push me back into the land of habitual blogging, it might be good to try to follow a few memes.   Ten on Tuesday seems like a good one. Any other suggestions out there? Perhaps I can find one for everyday.  Which does remind me that after the holidays, I am going to go back to Finish or Frog Fridays for the winter and see what else I can get done.  I still have that apron pending from July 2007…

Oh yes, I have more!

Here is my Damson:

Pattern:  Damson by Ysolda Teague,  I purchased it as a Ravelry download, however.

My Ravelry link:  Here

Yarn:  Superwash Blue Faced Leicester, fingering weight

Needles: U.S.  Size 4,  I believe

Colorway:  Hand-dyed Grape Goddess, a Spincerely yours colorway

Thoughts:  This was a great pattern to knit.  I love patterns where the designer “spells out” for you how many stitches you should have on each row. That being said, I do have to admit that I was always off, so just stopped counting after a while.  I started over a few times, but then just gave up.  I just knit until I had the correct number of stitches to start the lace section.  Oh yes, and how can I forget?  I LOVE the clever way this shawls starts out.  It is super-nifty.

So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It is so hard to believe as November has passed so swiftly this year.  I guess that is what happens when one is not home for an entire month of Saturdays (and this Saturday I have to work at the library).  We are gathering at my parents this year and my sister (Llamafarmgirl) and my BIL are also coming.  They decided at the last minute so it is an extra-special treat.  The girls were so excited when we told them.

My Thankful List:

I am thankful for:

- An incredible husband who takes care of us ferociously and supports me in everything that I do.

- Three lovely and healthy daughters who are kind, loving, and try their best in everything they do.

- My mom and dad who call me every morning to wish me a happy day.

- My sister and her husband who are strong, supportive, fun, loving, and generous.

- My house – even though it is a ton of work, it keeps us warm and dry.

- My job which gets me out of my house and into the world where I get to practice being with people and feeling more confident in myself.

- My Etsy shop which lets me be creative with color and fiber and share it with the world.

- My friends who I never get to see enough but love dearly.

- My cat Snickerdoodle because he brings good cheer to my family and he is orange and he is soft.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Enjoy your day!

It has been too long since I’ve been here and I just have way too much content slewing around in my brain trying to gush out in a not-so-becoming-manner.  How to even start…  What about a quick and to the point summation like maybe a bulleted list?

So dear blog readers, it has been 66 days since I have last blogged. In that time I have:

• read 3 books. My favorite was The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Murial Barbery.
• driven more carpools than I can count.
• scrapbooked 24 pages.
• completed knitting at least 3 items.
• reached a thousand hearts on Etsy.
• logged at least 99 hours on Facebook.
• started a Facebook Fan page for Spincerely yours.
• started a mailing list for Spincerely yours.
• met with 12 teachers during parent/teacher conferences.
• not yet seen New Moon.
• presented my first library program (yarn construction).
• seen a play (Avenue Q) with my husband for our 19th anniversary.
• had 3 children and a husband home sick for a week with the flu.
• cheered-on  my daughter through her never-ending field hockey season.
• watched a few disks of Mad Men.
• vended at my second fiber event.
• stuffed a bunch of envelopes for the Land Trust.
• driven back and forth to the school a million times.
• stacked a bit of wood (though not as much as my husband).
• urged my new baby grassies to start growing before winter comes.
• returned to the Great Escape with my whole family and rocked their water slides!
• sent out 60 some-odd samples to the November Phat Fiber box.
• wished for a year with better weather oh-way-too-many times to count.
• driven a bunch of carpools (did I mention that yet?)  So did my husband. He drove a lot too.
• been away from home for 3 weekends in a row.
• begun making holiday plans with my husband to try to find new things to do to keep it fresh.
• vowed to jump back on the blogging wagon.
• been thankful for my wonderful family, nice home, healthy children, and a wickedly excellent husband.

‘Til next time…  let’s hope this *confession* of sorts makes the way for it to be sooner, rather than later…

You would think I would know me by now being that I’ve 4 whole decades on me, but no, sometimes it takes a while for me to catch on.  I thought I could live with a certain little mistake in my Damson shawl. I knew it was there and continued to knit on.  6 rows later, at 300 stitches per row, I had to rip.  So for the last 3 days I’ve been ripping and tinking and now I think I’m finally back to my error and moving forward once again.

I’m knitting Damson by Ysolda.  I think this may actually be my first shawl (or a least a can’t think of another at the moment).  I’m knitting it  in Grape Goddess.  Grape Goddess is my favorite late summer color – I can’t resist its purples, greens, and golds for the goldenrods and purple asters.  I think it may even smell of  ripening grapes.

Here are some quick project details:

Pattern:  Damson by Ysolda which I purchased and downloaded from Ravelry

Yarn:  Superwash BFL in Grape Goddess by Spincerely yours

Needles:  Size 5 Addi Turbos – the pattern calls for size 6, but I liked the look of the stitches at size 5

Thoughts: This pattern is very well written. I like the detail given to how many stitches you should have on your needles on any particular row.  Mine seemed to be a bit off from time to time, but after restarting once, I continued on.  This is very addictive knitting and does make for good travel.

More thoughts:  And the cleverness! The cast on for this shawl is so incredibly clever! There is no seam at all!  I forgot to take a close-up of the beginning so I’ll have to save that for the next post, but I’m in awe!

I’m through with the garter section and it is in the lace section where I made my big mistake.  I forgot to do one decrease.  I thought, “oh, no big deal, no one will notice” and I knit on. And on. And on.  And then I couldn’t take it any more and ripped out.  Didn’t rip out far enough so had to tink back. Dropped a few stitches so had to pick them up and now three days later I’m knitting on again. Phew…

Well, as I haven’t been seen around these woods of my blog lately, I suppose I should give some quicky updates. Here goes:

Weather: September weather has been awesome!  Must give it its due.  Good job September, you rock!

Reading: Just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and have started on Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah.  They are both for book clubs. Both book clubs are meeting on Monday, Sept. 21.  Since one of them is meeting at my house, I think that is the one I will go to.

School: All the girls are back at school and they all have way too much homework. We have finally finished going to all the open houses and maybe we will be able to breath again.

Fall Sports:  Agent K made the varsity field hockey team and scored a goal in her first game!  Between field hockey, school, and all her clubs, haven’t seen her too much lately.  I did clean her room the other day, but I will withhold all info on the *interesting* specimens found wherein.  Agent B is running cross country for the first time and is sticking to it even though I believe her feelings  toward it are less than love-filled.  Agent J is not playing fall softball as there were not enough girls for a team, but instead she is taking an art class that she loves, so all is well. (And we can rejoice that our weekends are sports free!)

Etsy shop: I’m busy trying to find new ways to promote my Etsy shop. I’m starting a mailing list (you can see my sidebar for info on how to join) and I’m starting a Facebook Fan page.  I’m still debating on starting a Ravelry group.  I’m not sure how many different things I can maintain and I have to admit to being less than stellar at keeping up with bulletin boards and always figuring out the best things to write without wanting to go back and delete.

Gardening: My flower gardens are starting to perk up with the return of the sunshine, but it was just a little too little, a little too late for the veggies this year.

Nature: It felt like last summer there was always something new and unusual in my yard to blog about. Not so much this year. I have not even seen a turtle.  Haven’t seen any snakes either, but that is way good.  Not too many butterflies and no interesting metamorphosis stories to tell.  We did have a great crop of very friendly and personable hummingbirds this year.  They have all moved on now. I think the one at my feeder this morning was a traveler from a distant land as he just didn’t look familiar to me.

This weekend: Tomorrow I have to work at the library, but after a long week away from my dye dungeon studio, I hope to get back down to it on Sunday morning.  I have lots of wonderful special requests to brew up for you!

I know, it has been a while… I just saw this Meme on Karen_MST’s blog and thought maybe it would be a good way to get a jump start on writing again.

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
I really hate paying them all, that is why Dave is the bill payer here.  He prefers paying them to hearing me complain about them. (I also think he doesn’t want to risk me putting him on a budget after I freak out from paying the bills.)  Just because my husband pays the bills at home, it doesn’t mean that I’m bill free, however. One of my tasks at my job is to keep the bills in order…

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
This is really sad. I just don’t remember.  I think perhaps we are way overdue.

3. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Spinning or knitting or reading…

4. How many colleges did you attend?
One – University of Hartford

5. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It is very, very soft.

6. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
I think that they are completely arbitrary and there is no need for them to be so high but I also think that the only way we are going to ever move on to alternative energy sources is for the gas prices to be high.

7. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
Alarm?

8. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
I wish I could spin in the morning.

9. Do you miss being a child?
No.  Really – not at all.

10. What errand/chore do you despise?
Grocery shopping. The stores around here all suck.

11. Get up early or sleep in?
I wish I would just wake up early every day – but I usually sleep until a medium time – not too early and not too late.

12. Have you found real love yet?
Yes:)

13. Favorite lunch meat?
Don’t really have a favorite because the grocery stores here are stupid and never really carry the same stuff consistently.

14. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
A headache.

15. Beach or lake?
Depends.  Lake Michigan is much nicer than Long Island Sound for example…

16. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
No, I think marriage is wonderful but everyone should be able to make their own choices for what is best for them.

17. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
I’ve never seen the Sopranos and I don’t love Desperate Housewives. It was fun in the first season, but went downhill from there…

18. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
?

20. Ever use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
No.

21. Ring tone?
I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas

22. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
I can’t think of anywhere strange.  I wonder what this question means?

23. Somewhere in California you’ve never been and would like to go?
I’ve only been to the LA area – would love to see more – maybe Napa Valley?

23. Do you go to church?
No. I used to, but then it started making me too unhappy.

24. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
New career. Would also like to know what that new career would be.

25. How old are you?
10.25

26. Do you have a go-to person?
Like my husband?  Then yes:)

27. Are you where you want to be in life?
Yes, but I have to remind myself this all the time.  I have a wonderful husband and 3 lovely daughters. We live in a nice town in a nice house.  I have a job where I get to get out and see people and work with books and I have a job at home where I work with fiber.  I don’t have that *career* that I had always hoped to have when I was young, instead, I have a bunch of smaller things which I guess together make up the whole of my life.

28. Growing up, what were your favorite cartoons?
Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo

29. What about you do you think has changed the most?
I think I love yarn and fiber more than I used to.

{Breaking news! Just at this moment my August Phat Fiber box has arrived! Yes, that is right–I have Phat Fiber in my house!}

30. Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life?
No, but there were some really good times.

31. Are there times you still feel like a kid?
Yes – I can be very silly.

32. Did you ever own troll dolls?
No.

33. Did you have a pager?
No.

34. Where was the hang out spot when you were a teenager?
In high school, everyone used to drive up and down Route 6. Don’t ask me why, but it was the thing to do on weekend nights. (This is what Karen wrote too – I just changed the route number, lol!)

35. Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with?
Maybe the me who learned from my mistakes but not the me before making them.

Brought to you by the letters B & R as in Brief and Random

1. I can’t stand seams in my clothes. (Don’t even get me started on tags…)

2. I spent a summer studying the relationship between algae and bacteria in a stream ecosystem.

3. I can eat an entire jar of Fluff in one sitting

4. Columbus Day is my favorite holiday.

5. I always have buyer’s remorse after a major purchase no matter how long the planning.

6. My favorite name used to be Delta Dawn. Agent K is lucky I grew out of that.

7. I once set my menu on fire on a date.

8. The night I was in the hospital in labor with Agent J, Dave and my sister both fell asleep on me. I kept myself entertained by singing Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax, Don’t Do It.�

9. I was a Candy Striper because I loved Cherry Ames Student Nurse.

10. I will remain bitter about the 2000 presidential election for the rest of my life.

11. I know how to make a lot of things from scratch like yogurt, bread, cheese, and yarn, but I never make brownies from scratch.

12. I have a goal of seeing every movie that John Cusack has been in. If I made it through The Ice Harvest, I can make it through 1408, right?

13. I think that sheep butts are funny.

14. Fish find me shocking.

15. I have a secret thing for Snape.

16. I stalk famous knitters.

17. Agent B was born in the Jacuzzi at The Birthing Center.

18. I’m tired of the debate about whether global warming is “real� or not. I think we should use universal precautions and always make the best choices for our environment.

19. I can’t remember ever wearing legwarmers. Either that or I’m repressing the memory.

20. I believe the owls are not what they seem.

21. Snakes absolutely terrify me. When I dream of them, I wake up screaming.

22. I have learned the hard way that 3 appletinis are way too many for me.

23. I hope when my daughters get married they do not play the song Celebration at their wedding reception.

24. Growing up with a black and white TV, I was shocked to learn just how green Kermit really was.

25. When I’m in a bad mood, I listen to the Violent Femmes really loud and it makes me feel better.

So there you have it. This is a meme that has been going around on Facebook. I actually did it once, but it turned out to be neither brief nor random and only one person commented on it so I took it down and started working on a second list.
I can’t believe that I haven’t even posted here yet in February. Don’t worry though, I have not abandoned this blog, and I do have some finished and up-and-coming knitting to show you. Stay tuned…I’ll be back…

“No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,/ No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, – November!â€? -Thomas Hood

I’m having a difficult time remembering the last day I saw some sun poking through these heavy November clouds. I know it was sunny early on election day, but it didn’t last long because it was overcast by the field hockey game. What a huge contrast from the glory days of October. October was so nice that I forgot about the dreary days to follow.

My November started on a cloudy day in Vermont. It was a week ago when LFG and I loaded up my van to head to Brattleboro for the Southern Vermont Fiber Fest. We had a pretty good day! I liked selling my fibers at an event — it was nice to get out and meet people and chat fiber. The morning was pretty busy with the foot traffic slowing a bit after lunch. We had tables in the back, right in front of all the American Legion flags actually.

There were quite a few vendors there selling all sorts of fibery things fromspinning fiber to yarn to hats to sweaters and jewelry. A very pretty table belonged to Cheryl Flett from Cheryl Avenue. She had gorgeous felted items including vessels, necklaces, bracelets, and a whole troupe of Santas.

She has an etsy shop at www.cherylavenue.etsy.com in case you would like to see more.

After the Fiber Event, LFG and I returned to her home for some dinner and rest before we headed back to Brattleboro for the Witches Ball. Even though she didn’t win the scariest costume prize, I think that she had the scaries costume of all – at least I kept having little fright attacks every time I looked at her! Yes — you guessed it! She went at Sarah Palin and she was good too. In order to gain entry to the ball we had to explain her away as being the “Wicked Witch of Alaska.” The Ball was a great time. A few highlights include belly dancing, LED hula hooping, dream analysis, some pretty good wine from South America, and Tarot Card reading. Here is a photo of us (which I just stole from Spinning Spider Jenny’s blog) followed by LFG’s solo performance as S.P.

Sunday was my driving home and recovery day though I did stop at the Brattleboro Coop to stock up on some healthy groceries and later in the afternoon we made our first attempt at making homemade mozzarella cheese.

Monday. Hum, I forgot what Monday was for. That was the day before the election and I must have gone to work. Oh, yes, now I remember. I made salad in the morning for K’s Pasta dinner and then went to work. Was it sunny on Monday? I don’t think so. Would that be 3 days of clouds and rain thus far in November?

Tuesday. Election day! My dad and I went to the polls. It was sunny! My mom worked at the polls all day so we saw her there doing her thing. Her job was to directed people to the correct line (as our town has a split district) and to answer any questions. She loves that stuff. Her “day job” is a food demonstrator so you can imagine she is all sorts of people person. I went to work early so that I could make it to K’s field hockey game at 2. Her team won their league and they are now in the state tournament. K is even getting to play in these games. She has come a long way since the beginning of the season.

I still have to master the art of taking good field hockey photos and the weather was bleck, but here she is number 7! Next week they play in the state semifinals!

Wednesday. What a crazy (and cloudy) day. It was my first “catch up” day at home and my list was long. I didn’t even turn on my computer. I did all sorts of things like changing out the summer/winter clothes, making yogurt, vacuuming, doing some of the more obscure laundry like winter coats. I was cruising. I was happy. I had all the TVs on in my house so I wouldn’t miss a moment of the news and another opportunity to see a tear-jerking moment (The View, did you see The View?). Then in the early afternoon, my mom calls. and my dad is sick. I quickly took a shower and headed next door. When my dad gets a fever, it means a trip to the ER, so we called the ambulance and they took him to our local hospital. After a few hours there he was sent to Hartford.

Thursday. Thursday we waited to see if they could find out what was wrong with my dad. I thought that it might be a return of the past infection he had picked up when he had his heart valve transplant but my mom insisted it was different this time. It was cloudy and rainy. I had lunch with a couple of Mad Knitting friends which was very nice and then I went to work. I was tired and it was 82 degrees at the library. 82 degrees is too many for me and did I say that I was tired? It was a long night.

Friday. Cloudy again. I went to my first Library conference. It was a day of seminars just for support staff. It was good and I learned a bit. My favorite session was reader’s advisory. Dave drove me and when he picked me up we went to Hartford to see my dad. My mom had talked to Dave earlier in the day and we knew his diagnosis. Ehrlichiosis. My mom was right, it was different this time. If you don’t know, Ehrlichiosis is a tick borne disease which can cause mild to severe symptoms. My dad, guess what: severe. When we arrived at the hospital, his fever was starting to break but he was pretty out of it. It was a difficult visit, a difficult ride home, and a difficult night.

Saturday. Yet still cloudy and rainy. The girls and I started the day by watching Josie and Pussycats. Odd movie. Then cleaning and then friends over. We have double the female teen/tween population in our home for the night. Now, I’m writing this never ending blog entry and trying to make arrangements to get K to Hotchkiss School for field hockey practice tomorrow. She has field hockey practice an hour away from home in the opposite direction of Hartford Hospital. So far the only ride I have found is with a senior and as a freshman mom, I’m not sure if I’m ready for that yet. The report on dad is that he is doing much better today after starting his treatment and was even sitting up in a chair for a while! Maybe I’ll sleep tonight.

I believe that leaves the sun tally at 0.5 days or 6%. November is not my month.

We are back from our quick little VT weekend trip. We didn’t do much, but trying to narrow down what to say about it is becoming difficult! I guess that even though we didn’t really go anywhere, we did a lot of stuff just staying in. On Friday, I read Speak (which is the kind of book that once you start, you have to read through to the finish) and I photographed hummingbirds. LFG has millions of hummingbirds. They are really tricky to photograph and after a million attempts, this is the only one I have that is really in focus. I wanted to photograph the males as they are more striking with their red chests, but they are not as plentiful and very tricky. I mentioned to LFG that there seemed to be a harem quality to her hummingbird population and she said that there are typically 3 females to 1 male.

This photo has 3 hummingbirds in one frame, but not really much focus going on.

The girls all slept in a tent on the deck which was really nice and cozy! The last night it rained, so they moved the tent indoors.

On Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the Dam Diner. Agent B had a field day with that one – “Dam Diner!” she said. (OK, so we all did, not just her….) The wait was pretty long but the toast, bacon, coffee, and hash browns rocked!

We had our annual Family Film Festival on Saturday night (ok, so my storyline is a bit out of order…).

This year’s theme was “Good for the environment, good for you, and good for our family.” We had some really good entries this year. Agent J worked hard editing her videos all last week. She even went back into the archives and pulled out some really funny footage. LFG and I made our first video ever. We did a cooking show called Cooking Veganacula with Sparkle and Sunshine where we demonstrated how as vampires we must refrain from eating meat and how vegan food can be oh-so-lovely. It was a lot of fun to make, though I think we cracked each other up more than our audience. (Well, except for IHA, I think he really appreciated it.) Agent K made a music video to the song Stop and Stare. Agent B made some exercise infomercials. J and B made a series that was really funny. They went around and asked us our favorite things in the morning and then came back in the afternoon and asked exactly the same questions again to see how much our answers changed (we were under the impression that they had lost their footage). Mine were very consistent, but IHA – he really changed things up. They concluded that he doesn’t really know what he likes. IHA had another winning entry (last year’s was a music video edited to the song Summer of 69) – It was called Little Surfer Girl and it used Beach Boys songs in conjunction with footage from our Nantasket trip. LFB and Agent J threw together a last minute entry which featured talking llamas and fancy editing. I’ll have to check with IHA and see if we can get a couple short clips to put in our blogs…

I have bucket loads of pictures, but I just want to highlight this one with LFG and Agent J as I think it came out rather nice…

Moving onward, it seems like we are barely going to have time to get ourselves pulled back together from this trip before we have to start preparing for our next trip. This one is going to involve quite a bit of driving and we will be gone longer than we have ever been gone before. Next week we are going to Michigan to visit Crops-a-lot and her family via Niagara Falls. We are going to take 3 days getting to MI and 2 days coming home. We are going to have to stock up on our books on tape, that is for sure!

Now, I have a couple of questions for parents (or anyone who has opinions) about a couple of “pop-culture” type things that are really “in” right now with the early tween/teen crowd. I was just wondering what the thoughts are out there about The Clique Books and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Both of these are just driving me nuts. Maybe I can just hope that my children (only Agent K is allowed to watch The Secret Life) will see them for what they are and just move on…