Beach Weekend - Thanksgiving 2013

We've used the beach house for the weekend before, this time it was after celebrating with my family in Corvallis, Thanksgiving. This trip was a Household trip for the Golden Bees. We had Dawn-Marie with her husband Brent, their daughter Larissa and Jenna along. Turns out that they all came down without having a Thanksgiving dinner. I had received a free turkey that month for shopping, so brought it and some potatoes for making mashed ones. Jenna brought the green bean casserole and Dawn-Marie made deviled eggs and cranberry sauce and brought a small brown sugar ham from Fred Meyer.

Friday we put it all together and had it for our dinner. That was after grocery shopping for weekend supplies and having lunch at Abbey's Pizza. There was also movie watching and taking Leeloo down to the beach at low tide.  She loves the beach! It's a community beach and there weren't a lot of people and its long enough that you can see people. So I felt free to let her run off leash and have fun being a dog.

Before taking leash off

Still dragging leash

Can you see the leash?

Going to dad!

Off leash and running back and forth from mom to dad!

Brandon and Larissa skipping rocks

 He had the camera on a burst - these are us trying to get her to run over the abandoned sandcastle...

I LOVE the BEACH!

Saturday Dawn-Marie, Larissa and Brent went in to look at the shops. They left Devin, their Chihuahua with us. He cried and fussed. So couldn't find his gear so put him in Leeloo's harness and walked him down to the beach. The little sausage could back right out of it if he decided that, no I'm not going forward. You wouldn't think that he'd get cold but after a bit Brandon had to carry him around because he was shivering. Could have been fear too. Leeloo had a blast while we were there, but went back up because he was cold.

She didn't enjoy the baths after because the sink doesn't have a sprayer so it took longer. Plus I hadn't thought about it, so didn't have her shampoo. Small price to pay for all the fun!

Brandon got some sewing done while we were there and I tried out the pattern pieces that Jaime had created from a bodice that had gotten too big for me. Jenna tried cutting out some fabric while we were at the beach, but overall it was just a relaxing weekend. Watching sing along movies - Pitch Perfect, Rock of Ages, and Mamma Mia! As well as introducing Jenna to Cards Against Humanity.

So long as Brandon's Uncle Dave has the house, we'll try for another beach weekend late spring as another household get away.

50,678 stitches

This is what it looks like with that many stitches:

Middle of Chart C and I have D and E with an inch or so of ribbing to do. It's still kind of bolero-ish right now, so definitely need those rows!

Spent Sunday afternoon in the kinship. Jenna and Heidi came over as planned. Heidi brought Kathy along too. Brent met us online near the beginning of where we all started together. It was fun spending the afternoon all together in the same room gaming. We're going to try for a few more in person sessions before Heidi makes her final move back east to Pennsylvania.

Jenna's planning to come over after work on Tuesday. She needs to come to the JoAnn's Superstore by us to fabric shop for the weekend.

We're doing another household beach trip over Thanksgiving weekend. William has work and homework that he'll have to do so he'll be home keeping the home fires burning. 

Beach Fiber Weekend

Friday afternoon I picked up Tammy and Sara and we headed towards the beach. While on the way I discovered that neither of them had actually been to Woodland Woolworks and since we were going to be going through Carlton, we had to stop! We technically arrived after closing, but the door was still unlocked and the open sign out. We went on in and started checking things out. Ran into one of the lovely employees there that said she'd have to kick us out at 4:45. Tammy found a skein of yarn to be able to put buttons on her Central Park Hoody. I found out that someone else had beat me to trying to put the New Zealand castle wheel on layaway. Wasn't meant to be!

We arrived at the beach house and met up with Shelia and Duffy. In short order we were all settled in and awaiting the enchilada dinner that Sara prepared for us all, along with the Spanish Rice Tammy made. After dinner it was a relaxing evening of knitting, chatting and some TV viewing.

Saturday we were up bright and early and enjoyed some coffee cake that Shelia brought for us to enjoy.  We then drove the half an hour further south to the spin-in at the Newport High School. We arrived early so that we were assured of parking and so we could pick out our seats. ;-) Robyn, we spin with her on Wednesdays, was there selling some of her handknits/crochet items along with a friend of hers that does handdyed fiber. Stitchjones, aka Sharon, was also there, so lots of familiar faces for us.

Our $4 entry fee, covered I'm sure the building rental, but also the snacks and lunch type items that the local guild provided. Soups, taco salad, dips and chips, cookies, and a variety of cakes. So more great food. After getting all settled and having our circle quickly filled, there were all the booths tempting you with their wares. I was quickly tempted by an oval basket and after resisting went back for it. I thought I was going really well at resisting all the other temptations - fleeces, hand dyed rovings, special batts designed to allow for striping, yarns, and buttons. Then I was going around with Sara and back in the Custom Coverups booth and found a bag of white Falkland that I couldn't resist bringing home. Kind of funny that I brought home some Falkland wool from South America and MIL, Judy couldn't get there on her two week cruise around SA because of rough seas!

By the time 4pm rolled around a lot of spinning, talking and shopping had occurred! I was almost able to do up the first two ounces of my second four ounce ball of Portland Punch. Sara was close to finishing up the green/blue that is also from Stitchjones, Duffy finished up some pretty blue stuff she had brought along, Tammy plied a couple of singles and learned how to use a nostepinne and create a center-pull ball. Shelia was also spinning up some yellow and green roving also dyed by Stitchjones. I swear we did not coordinate and plan to show off Sharon's stuff while we were there! 

As we entered in the morning we were given a ticket for the door prizes donated by the vendors. There were lots of very nice things being offered too! Imagine my surprise to have mine drawn at the beginning! At first I was a little bewildered by it, but by the end of the day I loved my prize. What is it? A seat cushion crocheted from Pendleton Wool Mill ends:

Abby's Pizza gave us the option to get personal pizzas and then we headed back to the beach house. I finished up my two ounces of Portland Punch and Sara tried really hard to finish hers up too. Other knitting and lots more talking and laughing occurred before heading off to bed. This morning I made up the buttermilk scones I'd partially pre-prepared and served those with the summer canned raspberry jam. Shelia taught us the joys of organic eggs from her chickens and scrambled some up for us. Delicious! Then there was the general cleaning/laundry duties before heading home. Shelia and Duffy planned a stop at the Outlet stores, while I stopped at the taffy store I grew up stopping at, different owners of course! Couple bags of salt water taffy and a few licorice pieces for me and I was set to head home. 

I've gotten everything unpacked, put away and laundry going. My brain said it was just too tired to try to knit, so of course it only made sense to pull out the second two ounces of Portland Punch to see if I can get it all spun up this week. 

Duffy was taking lots of pictures, so maybe more will show up on her blog. I teased Sara about her blog neglect. We'll have to see if the rest of the group posts anything.

I do foresee another fiber group trip to the beach house in the future!

Added, slurped from Duffy's Facebook Album:

New Yarn

I had been looking at my queue and the Orion socks that I'd like to start soon had Malabrigo sock planned for them. I have the Malabrigo sock yarn, but looking at other projects I just wasn't feeling it with the yarns I had picked. So looked at the Shibuiknits sock yarns and decided on the cool named Roppongi and their new sock yarn Staccato - 65% superwash merino, 30% silk and 5% nylon in a pretty yellow aptly named 'Butter'. 

If I don't finish Gail's second sock tonight, it will be done tomorrow. I then have another pair of the Burnside Winter Twilight Mitts to make for Susan to use in her booth. These will be totally out of her Abstract Fiber since she sent me a skein of 'Little Black Dress' an all black skein. So kind of three different contract knitting projects to get done all before February 12th. I'm also working on another pair of socks for holiday gift giving for sister Tanya.

Why such a hard deadline? I've committed myself to two teams for Ravelympics - Team BMFA and Team Spin-Knit. I may get wild and do a third event. I have Sock Hockey with BMFA and a pair of socks for my sister Jennifer. For Team Spin-Knit I planned the Short Track Shawl but may also add in Flying Camel Spin. I don't think I'll have any problems getting the cast ons done during the opening event. It's also getting in the spinning time. I think if I did an hour each day that it might work.  After all if you're doing an event you're not doing it every day of the Olympics usually, right?

My sister Tanya will be coming down from Snohomish on the 15th, along with mom flying in from Reno. We're finally going to get Grandma Dona settled in with Grandpa Howard up at Willamette National Cemetery.

After back to back colds and a cold sore thrown in along for the fun, I'm starting to be healthy. Next weekend there's a Spin-In down in Newport. I have permission to use the beach house so some of use will be driving down Friday night and spending the weekend down there. It should be fun!

ETA: Changed post title and took out a sample info and pics, hope this isn't too confusing......