Hazel bought these flowers for me "just because". She was out shopping with Owen and picked these flowers out all by herself! I thought it was so sweet of her! Apparently roses are Hazel's "signature flower" for any arrangements that she picks out. Lucky me!!
This little one is the last rose of the year.
It's hanging in there, during the rain and cold.
Nature is pretty awesome that way.
I had the most wonderful Birthday weekend!
It started on Thursday. My mom came up after work and babysat Hazel for the evening, so Owen and I could go to dinner! We went to the Melting Pot, my most favorite restaurant. When they seated us at our table, the gave me a birthday card and there were roses from Owen already on the table. We had a lovely California salad, Wisonconsin cheese trio fondue and a flaming dark turtle dessert fondue. With dessert they brought out a little plate that had my name written in chocolate, I thought that was a nice touch. I indulged and got a cocktail, it was so yummy, it didn't taste like alcohol (the kind of drink I like), it was a "Love Martini" (Love at first sip! Malibu rum, peach schnapps, cranberry juice and fresh strawberries). After all that we still had a little time before we had to be home, so we went to Voodoo. I ordered my first voodoo doll and it had a unicorn on it! How did they know???? It was delicious for the eyes and tummy!
On Friday the 24th (my real bday) I woke up and had to get over to the chiropracter. Owen and I were in a small car accident that left the front of the car slightly damaged and my back in a little bit of pain from the impact. So after being adjusted I went to my Friday knitting group to knit and chat! Hazel and Owen showed up after an hour or so and we had lunch, then they went back home and I knitted some more! After Hazel's afternoon nap the three of us went out to dinner to La Hacienda (my favorite Mexican restaurant). We next went to the mall to buy Hazel new shoes and we went to build a bear. Hazel picked out the pink bear and I picked out the outfit. It's name is "rainbow bear", yeah, original I know :) They had a balloon guy out front and he made me a turtle :) Hazel spent some time playing in the play area while we watched from the side.
On Saturday I was up early for Oregon Flock and Fiber! That will be a separate post, with pix later (when I get more time to write), but Owen and Hazel showed up in the afternoon and we had a yummy sheep cake (not sheet cake) that Owen and I made so that I could celebrate with my knitting friends!
On Sunday was OFFF again and I had dinner at Red Robin with my friends from college! It was fun seeing them, but it went so fast, so I don't feel like we got to talk too much :( Hazel loved it because my mom was there doting on her. Outside she showed me the flower she would pick for me if I'd let her.
I am pretty tired from that long weekend and all the celebrating! I will post more pix soon :)
Last weekend we went on a small road trip up to Seattle! Hazel did really well in the car! On Saturday we left in the afternoon from Owen's grandma's house in Camas, and had a 1 hour stop at Shipwreck Beads. Then stopped for dinner in Tacoma - we got Olive Garden to go and went to a nearby park/duck pond to eat, but it got windy and cold as soon as the sun went down. We made it to our hotel by 8pm and had time for a swim in the pool, before putting all of us to bed early!
Sunday we went to the Chittenden Locks - Hazel had a blast! She loved walking around, waving to the boats and checking out the fish ladder. She was so cute walking with her backpack leash, and she tolerated it really well! Hazel got a bit of a nap while we drove around in the car. She did wake up when we got to the U Village to get Trophy Cupcakes. So she got to play in the playground there and in the turtle fountain! After that we drove to the MOHAI museum and walked on Arboretum Waterfront Trail - it has bridges over the water and onto the marsh islands of Lake Washington, it was really cool and a moderately easy trail to follow (There was a little bit of mud on the trail and some of the wooden walkways were slick from the water splashing up). We had dinner at the Red Robin in Bellevue. We got back to the hotel and swam a bit, then headed to bed.
Monday was another jam packed day! First we had to check out of the hotel. Then we drove to downtown Seattle and parked at Pike Place Market. I got my pic taken with Rachel the Pig, Hazel went to the First Starbucks and we walked to the downtown westlake mall to go to Daiso (a Japanese store) then headed back to the car. Hazel bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the market! One of the things that we made sure to do was take Hazel on her first WA Ferry ride! We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, which also has a bridge back to the mainland and we drove down to Tacoma, over the Narrows Bridge (galloping gertie). We stopped in DuPont for Starbucks and our last stop was in Kelso to have a snack and let Hazel run around on the playground for a bit. She fell asleep from there and we drove over the Longview Bridge and took Hwy 30 home.
Stuff I learned:
This was a quick weekend, packed with so many things! The next time we go it'll be for a week! Every yarn shop I came across was closed on Sundays or Monday for the holiday - LAME! I did not allow enough time in Shipwreck Beads to take it all in. Hazel does well in the car for long periods when she's sleeping, but if she's awake, we do have to take time to stop so she can run around and play. This was good practice for our road trip down to Tahoe in a few months!
All of these photos were taken today at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. Yeah, it was overcast and yeah, it rained, but ya know what? It wasn't crowded! Which is how it usually is if the weather is nice. And our family doesn't do crowds terribly well, so having it basically to ourselves was nice.
Hazel had lots of fun having her picture taken. She especially loved being in the large wooden shoe. She could reach down and pick up the sawdust shavings on the ground and try to put them in her mouth (ugh). It was a little cold for her, so we warmed up in their gift shop. So many cutesy things, but none went home with me. I did buy a couple bunches of cut tulips and a pot of "rip van winkle" narcissus. On the round about way home, we stopped at my mom's so that Hazel could crawl around and I left her a bunch of the tulips I bought. She is flying home tonight from Hawaii and I think she will be delighted that we thought of her. Of course she may be a little annoyed that we stopped by when she wasn't home, but oh well...
Oh, I should talk about yesterday too! I had originally planned to go out to Woodland Woolworks to try out the double treadle Lendrum that I am lusting after, but got a notice on Facebook that Pico Accuardi Dyeworks was having an event this weekend in their workshop. I thought that the natural dyeing lesson sounded cool, so I nixed the WW plan and invited Tami to go with me to PAD instead. We dyed up some mini skeins of sock yarn and a mini skein of Columbia wool from Imperial Stock Ranch. Who would have thought that yellow onion skins would dye wool green, or that a baking soda spritz would turn a burgundy to purple??? I also am intrigued by indigo, when you dip your fiber in, it turns green, but once the chemcial in the indigo hits the oxygen in the air, it turns blue. I had no idea that natural dyeing could be so much fun!
Here's some pictures of what I dyed up:
This one had an unfortunate "spaghetti incident" so I only have pics of it reskeined.
There is cochineal, logwood, logwood spritzed with baking soda, and indigo.
madder/black walnut mix, cochineal, black walnut, and indigo, then the whole thing went into the indigo pot (by accident of course, but I like how it turned out.
Indigo, walnut, madder, yellow onion skin, and again the whole skein went into the indigo pot.
