Fair Play

My cream pineapple sweater won a blue ribbon at the Puyallup fair!



And the little yellow sweater that I made for Kate got a red ribbon.

This is my third year entering.  (Some day I'd like to try a drawing or painting.  So far it's just been crochet.)



We went to the fair on Monday evening, after Kate got home from school.  I picked Monday because the rides were half price that day. Kate brought home a ticket from school, and I got two adult tickets at half price as a Groupon deal.  (Andy was free.)  We took along our own food.  We do the fair cheap!

We've usually gone in the Blue Gate, but this time we found a place to park for $5 that was about three blocks from the Green Gate, so we went in that way. (That's Green Gate One, for any Three Investigator fans.) It's kind of the back entrance. All the horse trailers are parked over there. So we had to walk all the way across the fair to get to the Art Hall to see how my sweaters did, and then the kids were all antsy and I didn't really get to look at anything else.  Next time I'll just go without the kids on opening day so I can check out all the other creations!



I spotted this dragon at the chainsaw carver.



Kate on the little dragon roller coaster.  I reminded her that she hadn't enjoyed it last time, but she insisted that she wanted to ride it.  She didn't enjoy it this time either. 



The canoe ride was well received by both kids. 




This was a fun house for smaller kids, and they let parents accompany the really little ones.



Big long slide!



Andy had such a great time he wanted to go again.  I took him through the second time, while Kate sat in Andy's stroller and groused about wanting a toy.




We didn't really want to spend any money on a toy for Kate, but we did spot this game that had cute dolphin-hammer prizes.  This being a special kids' game, you got a prize whether or not you managed to ring the bell, so we used some of our ride tickets on that. 



Kate had a little trouble with the heavy hammer, and got some help from Daddy.



Ding!



This car ride was also a big hit.  (They only had four cars going and the line was pretty long--Doug took Andy on something else while Kate and I held a spot.)




The last ride of the day was this Wally Gator thing that just went around in a circle and over some gentle bumps. 



Waiting for the ride to start.



Andy seemed quite fascinated by all the rides.  He likes watching roller coaster videos, but I don't think he'd ever been on any kind of ride before.



Kate with her dolphin-hammer thingy.  (It's pink!) It squeaks when you whack things with it. She has named it Kissy.

Kate wanted to get a slushie at a particular place that was back on the other side of the fair, so Doug took her to do that while Andy and I went to get the car.  (At this point we were expecting it to be a school night, so we wanted to get home at a reasonable time.)

We were only there for a couple of hours, but we had a good time.  I realized--it's not so much the crowds, it's the noise. Makes it hard to carry on any kind of conversation.  "Do you want to go on this ride?"  "WHAT?"  "WHAT?"  And then I walked out the gate into the quiet cool evening and just kind of went "Ahhhhhh!"



I knew that Monday was Chuseok but I didn't really think of it till Andy and I were walking back up the hill toward the lot where we parked, and we saw the moon all huge and round on the horizon. Not particularly bright, right then, as it was still getting dark and it was also pretty hazy on the horizon, but still impressive.  A fall harvest moon and family fun!  A good day.

15 years

September 6th (Tuesday) was our anniversary.  Our fifteenth anniversary, in fact. Seems like an auspicious number.

Catharine Tracy came over on Wednesday and took some pictures for us with my camera.  (We were going to do it on Monday, but Kate was in the middle of a major screaming fit, so we had to reschedule.) We went over to the field behind our apartments at about 7:00 and got some nice evening light.



"Look at the camera, Andy!"

Of course, we had to take some goofy shots too.





Andy loves being upside-down. (Sensory disorientation is fun!)

My family called and sang Happy Anniversary to us, and Barb and Kyle regaled us with their version (to the William Tell Overture). Doug's mom sent us this card that she made:



Fifteen years--how time flies!  For our tenth anniversary, Doug wrote something for me about what it's like to choose to spend your life with someone.  Five years later, here we are.  In some ways it seems like we're still in the same place, but there have been changes,  too.  We work together to find the best path for our little family. 

Wright Park Sprayground

We had a lovely warm sunny day for the Labor Day holiday, so we took the kids down to the sprayground at Wright Park.



This park has some great details. And there's something about the setting and the sound of the pentatonic wooden xylophone nearby that gives it kind of an urban vibe. The first time we brought the kids to the sprayground, I thought, "I must come back here with my camera!"



One two-hundredth of a second is not fast enough to freeze water drops. 







I love the effect of the light in the water here.




As we were leaving we ran into this guy who was taking his snake for a walk (a slither) in the park--an albino Python named Missy.  Kate thought it was very cool.  I think this was the first time she's touched a snake. 

The First Day of First Grade

... for our first first grader, on September first!

There's nothing like that first day of Kindergarten. I'd say the excitement level wasn't quite as high this time.  Perhaps Kate considers herself an old hand at this school thing by now.  (Compare last year's picture--she looks so big!)



She made cards the night before for her new teacher and for the gym teacher (she loves P.E.).  She does have a lot of friends in her class from last year.  Her teacher seems nice.  (I've barely been able to talk to her, since the meet-the-teacher night was canceled.)  So far so good.  I asked Kate "How does it seem different from Kindergarten?" and she said, "Just the room."  (Okay,  it's only been two days so far!)

We had a little mix-up at the end of the day when Kate came out one door and we were waiting for her at a different door, but we got that sorted out. And then we had a storm of tearful theatrics that night (and the next night) about her wanting to spend every waking minute with her friend Riley.  A bit overtired and overstimulated, perhaps.  We'll get the hang of things soon.

Anticipation (and octopoda)

We spent the last day of summer vacation wondering if was really the last day of summer vacation.  The school district and the teacher's union have been in labor negotiations--I don't know all the details, but they didn't come to an agreement before their contract expired.  There was supposed to be a meet-the-teacher-and-bring-in-school-supplies night on Wednesday evening, but it was canceled because they were having a meeting to vote on whether they were going to start the new school year without a contract, or go on strike.  So we didn't get to meet Kate's teacher, and we didn't know even whether she would be starting school on Thursday or not.  They were keeping parents informed via robo-calls and emails, but couldn't really give us anything definite beyond "We'll let you know as soon as we can."

At about 4:00 we finally got everybody out of the house and went to the zoo for a while.  There's a Giant Pacific Octopus that doesn't usually do much--most of the time it's just hiding squished under a rock, but this time it was out and moving around.  It's amazing to see how loose and fluid their skin is, and how thin.  It just ripples constantly as they move.  There was also a little octopus that I hadn't seen there before.  We were just fascinated watching it moving around in its tank, and we even got to see it change color a couple of times.  (Nothing as impressive as this video but pretty cool nonetheless.)  They are amazing animals.

Octopus is another one of those pesky plurals.  "Octopi" is apparently out of favor (since the word isn't actually Latin).  "Octopuses" is acceptable but kind of makes it sound like you have a stutter.  (Octopoda, which I used above, is the order.  Phylum Mollusca, class Cephalopoda.)  Maybe we will just avoid talking about more than one octopus at a time. 

In the evening, when I was supposed to be getting the kids' bath ready, I found a reporter tweeting on the strike vote and camped out on his feed, waiting to see what would happen.  We finally got the word just before 7:30--no strike!  School is on!

Cream Pineapple Crochet Sweater

I got my sweater all blocked and dry in time to enter it in the fair!  I took it down to Puyallup today, along with Kate's little yellow sweater.  It's kind of fun to drive onto the fairgrounds while they're getting things set up.  And the ladies at the Home Arts section are always so nice. I took Andy along with me and he got to flirt with everybody.




The pattern is from Let's Knit #16 (one of the Japanese books that I got).  It works up quickly but I would definitely call it an advanced pattern.  It only shows half of each piece, so you have to extrapolate the turns on the other side.

I used DMC Senso (cotton/wool blend)  and a G hook with pretty loose tension.  I think it's just a teeny bit too big. But it'll work.

Update: I got a blue ribbon!  Woo hoo!

I get a lot of hits on this post from people looking for crochet sweaters... if you have any questions feel free to email me!  helenajole at netscape dot net

All Summer in a Day

We are finally having our Pacific Northwest summer.  It's been very cool this year, but the past couple of weeks have been warm and sunny (just in time for the ripening blackberries!) Not uncomfortably hot like that record-breaking heat wave we had a couple of years ago (that was just miserable), but great swimming weather.  Most days start out a little overcast in the morning and then it clears up.  It's been very nice.

Kate got to go swimming  with her friend Molly's family.   They have some family-in-law with a pool, and  invited us to go over with them. It was the first time Kate had ever used a raft float like this and she thought it was just the coolest thing ever.




Kate isn't much of a swimmer yet but she rocks those arm floaties.




The other kids (not Kate) had fun on the slide, and I had fun taking action sequence shots.







We had a sky full of interesting clouds that day.  I had to take a picture of this one because it had dragon spikes.

After swimming we went over to Molly's house and hung out for a while.



Molly in a tree. 



Every back yard should have a swing!




Kate meets the cat.  (Molly says, "Let her sniff your hand.")




"Aaaaaaaah!"

What a great day--swimming, swinging,  and running around barefoot in the back yard. I feel like we're packing in as much summer as we can before school starts!