Author: eaumaison (Page 46 of 210)

Jack and Sam wanted to go to the zoo last week, but the crowds were insane for some special event.  We promised that we would go the next weekend, when it will be International Tiger Day.  That was exciting news for my little tiger lovers.  We couldn’t let a broken ankle break our promise!

We arrived and had a quick snack from VooDoo Donuts before going inside.

I’ve learned that wearing work-out clothes is the best option for spending half a day at the zoo.  Too much walking and heat to bother with nice clothes and shoes!  The hip pack and mini cooler slung around my neck really finish the outfit.

Our zoo has a new tiger exhibit called the Edge.  It’s a larger and more varied habitat, back where the camels used to be behind the Northern Shores area.  Jack had already seen the new tiger home during his spring field trip at the end of first grade.  There were extra activity tables, volunteers, and tiger demonstrations for the special day.

There’s also this weird “Dinos Live!” exhibit through the fall.  Large animatronic dinosaurs are scattered throughout the park.  They sway their heads and tails, open eyes and mouth, and have recorded sounds.  The kids loved them.

After the Tiger show we had lunch and watched the Elephant demonstration.

We rounded out the trip with penguins, the bird palace, a primate visit near monkey island, and saw the mountain goats and sheep.  When we had circled half the zoo and were back at the entrance the kids let it be known that they REALLY wanted to see the komodo dragons  The lizards live on the edge of the park inside Tropical Discovery – where we had spent most of the morning watching sea otters and waiting for the tiger demonstration.  Really guys?  Sigh.  I parked Ben’s chair in the lion house in case of rain and trekked back east to get a look at those dragons.  Satisfied, we passed the polar bears, giraffes, and zebras for the third time today and finally left.

It was a fun trip and I’m glad we went.  It’s fairly handicapped accessible, as zoos go.  Sam couldn’t remember going before (though he has at least three times) so everything was exciting and new to him.  At one point he asked me if the rhino was real, and I wondered if he was having a hard time discerning the real animals with the fake dinosaurs there too.  Educational trip 🙂

Yesterday morning Ben twisted his ankle while taking out the trash. He said he heard a snap and it was rapidly swelling. A trip to urgent care confirmed my suspicion: he broke his ankle!

The good news is they said it was a clean break through the lateral malleolus of his fibula. It's lined up nicely and shouldn't need pins or other surgery to help it heal. The bad news is it's his right foot, so we are unsure how long he cannot drive. He has an appointment with orthopedics next week. Fingers crossed he can get a walking boot!

Figured I should share the finished product:

This is the first of two shawls I made this summer. I ended up following the original pattern almost to completion, then ripped it out and started again. I combined the pattern with another I like. Many details posted on my ravelry page.

I love it. Blanket-like, bright happy colors, and a delicate lace pattern.

Oh I hate July. Summer, please end, I hate you.

Jack loves to read.  I took some pictures of him reading during two lazy summer afternoons.

We rounded out July with another trip to visit grandparents.  There was A. Lot. of swimming.  Jack worked hard to coordinate using a snorkel for the first time and he had great success!  He and Sam both enjoyed the novelty of flippers until their feet were raw with blisters from the rubber.  They swam every morning and every evening for the weekend we were there.

One of the office staff had baby goats the Friday we arrived.  She invited us over to see the farm animals.  The boys were very brave and outgoing petting and feeding the goats and horses, and pestering the sweet kitty.

Sam drew a thank you card, with complete goat anatomy.  Can you spot the eyes, nose, horns, beard, and “pumps”? (“Because it’s a woman goat.”)

Here’s a hodgepodge of photos I took over the summer.

This is called yarn chicken:

When you are binding off with a limited amount of yarn and hope it’s enough.

I play it often, wanting to squeeze all I can out of each skein.  

 But this one is a doozy.  Roughly 1,400 stitches across with a bind off that’s a pain-in-the-butt to undo if you have to rip it out (“Icelandic bind-off”).  I’m going to be very cranky when this doesn’t quite fit…but I’m too bull-headed to chicken out first.

. . .

Later today:

Dang it!  So close.  I’m going to try something radical.  Instead of picking back the bind off and the previous row, I’m going to drop the remaining stitches and try to bind off using the top row- in essence only ripping out my remainder.  It might be a little lopsided but with blocking it won’t be very noticeable.  Fingers crossed this works!

Esjan, one of several projects I finished recently.  This is a pattern from “celebrity” knit designer Stephen West.  I loved the large size and crazy, loopy tiers.  I made sure to stop by Purl Soho while in NYC to get yarn for it.  I love buying yarn as a souvenir!

I ended up knitting this shawl twice.  The first time I made a few mods to the pattern to account for my chosen yarn being smaller than what the pattern called for.  Still too small, and with too much leftover gray, I decided to rip the whole thing out and start again.

For those who always ask me how long it takes to knit – I made this twice in less than a month while simultaneously knitting a complete pair of socks, 4 inches of a fine gauge sleeve, and a few thousand stitches on another shawl.

I really liked the ruffles which naturally occur from the pattern.  However, I wanted to smooth out the garter stitch tension and make it as large and blanket-like as possible.  I gently blocked it and it grew magnificently.  The edge flattened into a large zig-zag – not ruffles but still fun (I expected this based on the pattern photos and other ravelry users).

Tomorrow I’ll take up my other shawl sitting on needles.  It’s fingering weight (smaller yarn, takes longer to knit the same area size) and I had to buy more yarn from the shop in GJ when I was out last week.  I also completed it once, then ripped it out completely to start again with a modified pattern.  I should really stop doing that 😉

 

OK, one thing I will admit is nice about summer is that the boys are becoming closer friends than before. When we’re not doing separate trips or camps, they spend all day and night together and they seem to really enjoy it. Here’s some playtime photos from the last few days. As you can see, dressing up and playing superheroes is one of their top fun activities.

Jack made his costume crown during quiet time. I love that Sam wears this knight costume. I think he’s the same age Jack was when I made it for him.  It’s held up remarkably well considering it was cheap acrylic and has had heavy play!  

Jack says that he read Robin Hood to Sam during quiet time and afterwards they wanted to shoot arrows in the backyard. After Dad came home he assisted Sam with his first archery experience.  He seems so tiny to me! But this isn’t far off from when we started Jack on archery too.

Jack and I woke up around 7:30 and headed straight for Devil’s Tower.  Along the short drive to the visitor’s center, Jack realized what prarie dogs were for the first time and fell in love.  There was a huge field of them them right across the entrance to the park land.  At first he said “All I see is a lot of small rocks”, but I told him to look again and he soon saw the cute little buggers running all over.

We arrived at the visitor’s center a bit before they opened, so we headed up around the loop trail so we could see the tower from all sides.  The trail was pretty flat and paved, so it was easy going – there was also a pretty large amount of traffic for 7:45 in the morning.

The first feature we reached was the large boulder field.  Climbing is allowed in the boulder field up to the actual tower face without a permit, so I encouraged Jack to scramble up it a bit.  He was pretty nervous though, so he didn’t go far.

Once he got down from the boulders, we continued along the trail.  Soon, we saw a deer up ahead.  I stopped and was pointing to Jack and the person behind us thought we were pulling over to make room for us and charged ahead with a thank you.  I whispered “There’s a deer there!” and he stopped and gawked with us for a few moments.  It became clear that the deer was going nowhere fast and they guy asked if I thought he could continue up the trail (I don’t think he was from the US).  I told him the deer would probably run off as soon as we got a little closer, so we continued on.  I was wrong though – that deer had no intention of abandoning its sweet grazing spot.  We eventually passed right by it, not 10 feet away.

Just past the deer we saw a bunch of people off the trail looking at the tower and we realized they were watching climbers scamper up the sheer rock face like little spiders.  Seriously, these guys were way quicker than I would have expected.

We continued around the rest of the trail.  On the eastern side, I got to touch the face of the tower, which was my main goal.  We also saw lots of prayer bundles and prayer flags, but we didn’t learn the full significance of them.  I also saw a group of little figures that I liked.

Back at the visitor’s center, Jack decided he didn’t want to do the junior ranger program here, I think partially because it was becoming VERY busy.  He just asked to get a Devil’s Tower coin, mostly because it had prarie dogs on the back.  We climbed back in the car and plunged deeper into Wyoming.

One planned stop I had was to visit the site of the Sundance Kid’s incarceration.  However, since it was July 3rd, the museum and courthouse were closed.  A small bummer, but Jack was very much not interested in this historical figure, since he was a bad guy.  I had to coerce him to take a photo with the statue they had on site by saying he could beat him up.

After many more miles on the Wyoming highways, Jack was ready for a stop.  Lusk, WY was the next reasonably sized town, so we stopped there for pizza and to visit their stagecoach museum.  It was lucky we stopped because I think Jack enjoyed something at this little museum more than anything on this trip.  As most of you know, Jack is very interested in the Gravity Falls tv show, which is about a lot of paranormal stuff.  When he saw this real two headed calf in the museum, he was more excited than I’ve seen him in a long time – he even demanded a photo!

Once we actually had our pizza, Jack realized he had eaten a half can of pringles and wasn’t actually hungry, so we took it to go.  I figured there had to be a reasonably nice park down the road.  Right when Jack was ready to eat, we came upon Lingle, WY and a lovely little park right next to the highway.  We pulled over and had a quick pic-nic.

We were hearing from Rachel and Sam that they were on the road home and we were on track to arrive around the same time as them.  When we got near Cheyenne, I was feeling a little road weary, so I asked Jack if he wanted to stop in for some mini golf.  That was not exactly a hard sell.

It wasn’t the best course, but it was definitely better than Ogi’s.  Jack liked them both the same though, which means he had a great time.  Refreshed, we hit the road for our final leg of the trip.  Soon we were back in the big city and back with the rest of the family.  Jack missed Sam a lot and I missed them too, so we were happy to be home and to have a nice chill evening with everyone together.

Jack and I had a great adventure.  I hope he remembers some of it 🙂