Home Again, Home Again!

Ahhhh...to sleep in a warm, soft, comfy bed and have my feet up! To have the time to start my Queen of Beads!

These are finally started and I have reached the gusset!
I'm only beading the cuff...

We are back from a 3-day outdoor education that we helped chaperon. Lil' Emp's class went with the the other 3rd grade class to Point Reyes for a 3-day outdoor education. The facilities there are very nice, but let's face it-it was cabin camping!

As if I even had a desire to take a lukewarm shower in the freezing cold, I never really would have had the time to do it anyway! I was assigned to the Kitchen Crew and was kept pretty busy if not prepping, cooking or serving, then trying to be a participative parent in spending family time with Lil' Emp and SassyMan during the 'family' activities or looking after 'my girls' who were assigned to me since they were without parents. Love the girls, but waiting around for them to get ready meant I had little in between time.

I'm happy to report that I survived and am back home! I had very little knitting time at "camp", but managed to finish both hats for the teachers-one of them I had to rip back several times to get the right shaping of the top (it was too "coned" at first and after consulting with Nartian, decided it would be prudent to rip back and decrease every row vs. every-other...) WELL...I kinda had forgotten how many stitches I had and having finished a nearly-identical one for the other teacher, went into autopilot and went with the same stitch count. Bad idea, as one hat was fine decreasing every 6 stitches, while this other had needed to be decreased every 8! But I enjoyed showing one of the girls how to purl and decrease at the same time, so it was a worthwhile task.

No pics, as they are given away!

Before leaving on the trip, I stayed up late stringing my beads. I had wound the balls the night prior to discover 3 'sneaky' knots. I call them 'sneaky', as they consist of one ply, knotted, then spun with the second ply so that only one side is knotted. I cut where each knot was; hopefully the larger of the three balls of yarn will be enough for the one sock. And if I'm REALLY lucky, the second ball will also be enough for the other sock!

I've been lazy and recovering, but I will admit that Point Reyes is gorgeous...even in the Winter cold!

Clem Miller was our home for 3 days and 2 nights

And a very positive? It is now POURING down rain! We had a bit while on the trip, but luckily we missed the heavier rains.

On the first day, there was a small bit of rain; the kids had to hike down to the
Education Center since the bus was not allowed access all the way down

On Day 2, the kids hiked down to the beach, had lunch, flew kites and
made s'mores; the weather held out nicely for them that day!

And what would these pics be without knitting content?!
Handknit socks abound, as one of the dads on the trip promised
his wife (my bud, Knit One, Bling 2!) he would be wearing his handknit socks
while on the trip! So I photo-documented to keep him out of trouble!

And the same knitter had made socks for the teachers!
So of course, I had to show her that he wore his, too!

And to offer up my last knitting-related item: turns out that the women who direct the program are knitter! So they told me about a store in Petaluma that I will have to put on my list to visit!

Just think...all this--a little over an hours drive from San Francisco!A view Lil' Emp captured while on his hike

An Egret spotted on our way to set up lunch on the beach