gee it's good to be back home again

but I miss BA. This is a picture of the woman's bridge in puerto madero. Our real last evening out to do something on the town. DS was so cute last night as we were going through emigrations he pulled me down to whisper in my ear "mommy, I miss apo, aba and VV already" and started to cry. My heart broke for him... of course now, he's back to playing the Wii so I think he's OK.

We found out tonight that they closed all the schools in BA province for a month and we checked out the cost of flight tickets comparing them round trip from here and round trip from there. Right now, it's 50% more expensive to fly from south to north and return then from north to south and return... and at Christmas vice versa. We were thinking about making a trip at Christmas, but I doubt that will happen now with the cost of the tickets.



My list for today's 10 on Tuesday 10 Guilty Pleasures on TV:

• House, MD
  
• CSI
  
• Law and Order
  
• Burn Notice
  
• NCIS
  
• In Plain Sight
  
• Friends
  
• Gilmore Girls
  
• Dirty Jobs
  
• Unwrapped
  

Not that I get to watch that much TV but when I do.....

and there you have it 30 posts in 30 days... whew!

I'll post some pictures over the next month of the trip... and perhaps a video or two.

saturdays

are for fairs... but san telmo was a bit of a disappointment. The last time I was there, there were lots of tango dancers, bandolino players and human statues.... today... there were some artisans selling their wares but none of the rest of it. And no antiques in the square. I was hoping for lots of cool pictures...SIL tells me we should have gone on Sunday...but tmrw is election day here and I´ve been told that almost everything is closed.

The cathedral is beautiful. There were a few babies being baptized when we went in, so I didn´t get many pictures there either.

The HUGE houses were originally owned by rich aristocrats but when the yellow fever came they flew to sections of BA like Palermo. Squatters came in and took over the properties often with one family living in each of the rooms. The quads were shared gardens, I assume... Now each room houses a different shop. Quite interesting and really beautiful architecture.

We visited the San Telmo market... where you can buy almost anything. Meat, veggies, fruit, clothing, antiques, toys... incredible all the little shops.

On the way back Puerto Madero... really beautiful at sunset. With its huge sailing ship that was used at one time to sail the naval graduates around the world.

Some gorgeous sights for another beautiful day in Buenos Aires... We´ve been blessed with terrific weather.

2 more days in the city then returning home... it went fast!

oops

we went out last night to dinner and the movies... and didn´t get back until very late.. so this post is for yesterday.

Went for a long walk, about 6 miles. Saw lots of stuff and enjoyed the exercise. All this was while the bookends went on a train to Tigre and DS1 stayed home with aba.

then we went out for dinner....and a movie. WE saw Angels and Demons Dinner started at about 10 and the movie at 11. When we were leaving the cinema, the lines for the movies that started at 1AM were incredibly long... it´s a lifestyle so different than I´m accustomed to.

Stopped at the store where the yarn for the endless cabled poncho was bought.. .was hoping to get a few hundred more grams, but they don´t have any like that now...guess I´ll have to finish with what I have and then try to rip back the first piece to a size that will be OK and finish the second piece with that... cables use so much yarn!

monday, monday

DH is out with his buddies tonight.... so I am here with the kids and the ILs. DD ate and went to bed. DS1 fell asleep early. I was carrying DS2 upstairs (asleep) when he woke up. So back down he came... shortly thereafter DS1 woke up. Neither had eaten dinner, so they´re back to the movie with a plateful of noodles... the only thing they´ll eat here. It´s kind of maddening......

Today... hm well there was a walk to puerto olivos to take pictures of the boats... and a stop at the ice cream store for a coffee... and lots of knitting....

And that is all she wrote!

Perhaps if we´re lucky, tomorrow Temaiken

caminar

what a lovely day for a walk... I started out with SIL and DD but DD really isn´t feeling up to snuff so she and SIL went back to the ILs to paint pictures with the ginko leaves we collected.

I walked down to the antique market at the train station on Peru (no not the country.. the name of the street) and took lots of fun pictures of old things... many trains, lots of vehicles (DS2 will be so happy), some sewing machines and some other stuff. The pictures are really fun. Then I came back ´home´ BUt on the way back I stopped at the confeteria del Sol and bought medialunas de manteca all by myself. I have to say it was a proud moment. First time for everything and better to venture into a place where I know what I want and the price is on the wall. LOL
I was out for 3 hours in the beatiful fall weather. TOok lots of pictures of doors and houses as well and some nature shots and one great shot of a bassett hound sitting outside his house. How I wish I could post them. Depending on how the kids feel tmrw, I may go searching Tues or Wed for a cafe that I can put pictures up on.

Later in the afternoon we met some friends and went to the river for a picnic... facturas and coffee.... the baked goods here are incredibly tasty and I need to watch myself that I eat very few.

if the kids feel better (I have a feeling they won´t though) we may go to temaiken tomorrow. Tuesdays are half price day and I could spend the whole day there with a big smile on my face!

I found out today that there was a case of swine flu at the kids school in DS1s grade. They closed the school early.... 2 days but I really need to watch him I think.

I hope to post pictures soon... I have so many delightful ones to share!

goodies in the mail

The mail was finally delivered Monday and in it were my two exchange packages. One from Tina the moderator of the Love2Knit Dishcloths yahoo group and this is what she sent:
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And the other from Lorri from ravelry's weekly dishcloth KAL group (not that I knit a cloth a week... far from that! This package was far beyond my expectation. I really was treated like a queen. Thanks Lorri so much!


I'm doing the ravelympics and plan to knit the brown bag from knitty for the felted freestyle and bag&tote backstroke as well as finish my cabled poncho pictured here in it's current half done state:

and hopefully my monkey socks. Both of these will be for the WIPs wrestling. I have a lovely soft yarn for them and the pattern is easy enough. I'd love to start a baby gift or two. I know 5 women who are due at the end of September/beginning October. I should get cracking and knit for them and I think of the five 4 are for sure boys and the remaining they just didn't find out (but I swear it's gonna be a boy!) So I may need to add the gift GIft Knits Pentathalon to my events list. All of this is why I belong to Team Hopelessly Overcommitted. All this has to be done while gritting down for the beginning of the school year, which starts mid-olympics. Am I nuts or what??

I finished knitting another lizard ridge block in color 156B. I cheated a bit because the way the colorway was flowing, I would have had two ridges in the same green. I think the cause of that was a knot in the skein from the company. At any rate, I like the blue next to the green. And I'll have to soon cast on another block. I think I'm going to do 5 columns of 6 in lieu of 4 columns and may substitute the attached i-cord edging for the crochet edge. But there's still time to change my mind LOL.


I thought I'd end with a few more shots of our vacation.
This first is from the Journey behind the falls. It's good they provide you with raincoats because you really get a soaking on the lower level of the walk farthest into the falls. It takes you about a third of the way into the Horseshoe Falls from the Canadian side.




There are lots of Bed and Breakfasts along the drive along the lower Niagara river. Some are huge housesand others small.



A view of the horseshoe falls from atop the Skylon Tower. We ate dinner here for DH's birthday. The 360° view of the area was incredible.








They put on fireworks every Wed, Fri and Sun evening in the park by the falls on the Canadian side at 10 PM. We were back to the hotel and the kids were so tired that they didn't make it to watch, but DH and I watched from our window






Back again on the American side, one of the things we went to see was the little aquarium that is in the state park. We saw the end of a seal show and got to see them feeding some anemone and small flounder in a little wave pool.


There's lots more photos but I'll save them for another time

we're back

from vacation with about 750 photos to upload and label (not to mention laundry, grocery shopping etc)

Just to give you a glimpse or two of where we were

the view from our hotel room window


yup, you guessed it Niagara Falls. So powerful, beautiful, inspiring.

While there we visited the Butterfly conservatory.





It's incredible. It was a rainy day and we had a ton of stuff on the schedule, so we, unfortunately for me, didn't spend any time at the botanical gardens. A must for my next trip to Niagara



other fun time spent:
Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. This picture was made from dryer lint. It's about 8 feet wide and 4 feet high!








Bette Midler, among many others, at the movieland wax museum of the stars. A NY show french horn player once told me I reminded him of her. I don't know if that's good or bad!







The skywheel which had breathtaking views of both the Canadian and American Falls. We really couldn't get enough of this powerhouse!











The Maid of the mist (twice, once from the US side and once from the Canadian side)

look for more highlights of the trip in days to come!







Opening day for the dishcloth exchange from the Love2Knit Dishcloth yahoo group was yesterday. I haven't gotten the mail from this week yet but this is what I sent my partner Tina (who is the moderator)

to whet the appetite

this is a short post....I have lots of pics and FOs to show but no time... we got our new windows Monday and Tuesday and I have to finish putting the house back together AND take the kids shopping for uniforms...but here we go.

These first two cloths came about because we went tot he beach for a week and I didn't want to take the computer (with all my knitting patterns on it) with me... With 3 kids and 3 adults we had enough to schlep. So I thought about take my knitting stitches Perpetual Calendar... and I could make cloths from those patterns! So here's what I came up with:


Pattern: adapted from 365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar
June 19 Checkerboard
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton
Color: Navy
Needle Size: 7
I was making this in the dark in the car and I lost track of how many rows I had done for each square near the end, so the pattern got a bit goofy.... so I decided to increase the size of the squares as they moved to one end. I was disappointed in the yarn, I came across 2 knots while making this dishcloth..... this never happens with P&C or S&C :-(


Pattern: adapted from 365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar
February 21 Tweed Mock Rib
Yarn: Lily's Sugar 'n Cream
Color: Blue Ombre ?
Needle Size: 7

I decided to try this as a cloth after I started making a bag for the triominoes set we were giving to the ILs. Of course we forgot to bring it along to the beach, so I didn't finish that there. My SIL went directly from the beach to the airport. Talk about a long trip home! (especially with 3 little ones)


Next is from the Love2Knit Dishcloth Yahoo Group Summer KAL:

Pattern: GW's Spinning Wheel
Yarn: Lily's Sugar 'n Cream
Color: Patio Pinks
Needle Size: 7

This was supposed to be done on a larger needle. I think because I that, I needed more pattern repeats to complete the round. When the last day came GW said to use the cast on tail to close up the hole. I had knitted the end in as I always do, so had no yarn to cinch the hole shut... oh well... I love the colors though!

And the last cloth is:

Pattern: Lacy Shamrock by Rachel
Yarn: Lily's Sugar 'n Cream
Color: Hot Pink
Needle Size: 6

I goofed this one up a bit... lost track of where I was in the pattern so it looks more like a flower. Oh well!

I finished the Lucy Purse at the beach... felted it at home.. pictures will be forthcoming as will the TriOminoes bag, once it's finished.

Here's one of the sand sculptures we made at the beach. DD helped decorate it and came up with the great idea of using spaghetti seaweed for the hair. Of course the day we made it, the ocean was really rough and clam shells were hard to find, otherwise her tail would have been more complete.

Happy crafting!