Baby Surprise Jacket

No, I'm not pregnant! But many, many of my friends are and it has kicked off a season of baby knits. For the past few weeks I've been cranking out a cute little EZ classic!

The Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket

The Needles: US 3's

The Yarn: Artyarns (Teal & Brown), Dream in Color Smooshy (Romeo Blue)

The Verdict: This sweater is a quick knit with an interesting construction. Garter stitch lends itself to movie theatre knitting which is where I've been working on the bulk of these! I can also customize each with fun yarn and cute little buttons. I have a few more planned for September and October babies!


In addition to catching up on current movies (Harry Potter 6, GI Joe and Inglorious Basterds!) we've also been geocaching. Yesterday we headed down to Paola, KS to visit The BBQ Shack (featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!) and did some geocaching around Lake Miola. We were kept from a couple caches by Muggles, but we managed to find 2 out of 3! (which ain't bad!)

The garden is still growing. So far our biggest successes have been the peppers - we've had half a dozen green peppers and a bunch of jalapenos! We've started the cucumbers again and are just getting some spiky buds. Our tomato plants are finally producing blooms and little tomatoes after we got our act together and got both tomato cages and fertilizer. I hope to have pics of those to show you soon!

Otherwise we're cleaning the house today, doing loads of laundry, hitting up the grocery store, and one of us is trying to squeeze in some knitting. My current project? Sleeves. Badly in need of sleeves:

Outdoors

After last weekend, the last thing I expected was good weather this weekend, but it's the Midwest and you just never know. Yesterday was cold and there were a few flurries, but today it was in the 50's and we got out and did some geocaching. Sadly, we only found a few of the caches we were looking for, but we had a good time and enjoyed being outdoors. We saw the usual assortment of trees and bridges, but I was quite taken with this section of railroad track.



I've continued with the knitting and have cranked out another child-sized sweater for a LYS a shawl to donate to the Sunflower Knitters Guild supported charities for the holidays. I've still got plenty on the needles and will share some of those accomplishments later this week.

July 4th Weekend

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes!



1. Summer's best fruits!, 2. Climbing through the fields., 3. Bushwhacking for treasure., 4. Kansas isn't flat!, 5. Mortimer the Rhibra, 6. IMG_1732, 7. The cool water feels great!, 8. Cooling off at the lake., 9. Fireworks, 10. Ferris Wheel in Motion, 11. Riding the tractor, 12. The car wash?

Patriotic Geocaching

Wes and I decided that we wanted to geocache at least once on our 3-day holiday weekend. So we set out this morning in search of some fountains. Kansas City is actually known as the city of fountains - the only city in the world with more fountains is Rome! Now some enterprising geocacher decided that many of the fountains needed geocaches, and I thought it would be a great way for us to see the city. So today, I selected 4 fountains for us to go see.


The first two were in the old part of town, on the scenic Ward Parkway. What I didn't realize when I selected the fountains I did was that we were going to take a little patriotic tour. The first fountain we visited was the Meyer Circle Fountain, which is the start of the Avenue of Trees, a greenway that was planted in honor of the men who died in the second World War. The fountain itself was beautiful, the geocache was found and a patriotic sight was seen. These eagles appeared atop walls across the street from the fountain that bore plaques honoring those killed in World War II.


The second fountain we visited was just up the street, the Mirror Fountain. This was a beautiful pool of water, and a slightly tricky cache to find. However we got to sit and enjoy the view of duck butt while we were waiting.


Next we headed downtown to the Crown Center Fountain. As it turned out Crown Center was not really the place to be today - the entire plaza and fountain was taken over by a family fest for the Memorial Day Weekend. So much for caching there! But, we got to visit both Union Station and the Liberty Memorial. The Liberty Memorial was erected for World War I Veterans. Today we got to mill about and watch them set up for the spectacle tomorrow - a concert, fireworks, and a speech by the only known remaining surviving veteran of World War I.


We grabbed lunch in Union Station and wandered the shops and then meandered through the elevated walkways to Crown Center and the Hyatt Crown Center. Wes really wanted to show me the amazing lobby sculpture. The pictures don't do it justice really.

So that was how we spent our first day off. Here's to more fun before the weekend is over!

Geocaching Saturday

Despite the fact that it's not quite warm enough yet here, it is officially spring, and Wes and I decided to celebrate that fact by exploring Kansas City a little and geocaching today. We headed out to try and find a number of caches in the Olathe Park series. In general the parks in Olathe were different than the park caches that we did in LA. I think it's for a couple of reasons. First, I knew a lot of LA. But when we would go out on caches, sometimes I would find places I never knew existed. Here everything is new, so it was less like finding a hidden treasure in my own city. Second, some of the parks here weren't very park-ish. Several butted right up against high schools, and many of these had baseball or soccer fields right next to the fence. Anyhow, we had a fun day despite the cold, and the one cache that we couldn't find but apparently missed somehow. We also found possibly the best hiding job we've seen since the great phone booth debacle a few years ago. Enjoy a few pictures!

Geocaching gone wrong.

My friend and coworker (who is Dutch) forwarded me this link. Obviously I didn't get much from it (and neither will you unless you speak Dutch).

The story is this: Over the holiday a farmer in the Netherlands saw a bunch of people suspiciously walking around an area. After they were gone he went to see what was there, and found an ammo can (marked "munitions"). He immediately called the police, who sent in the bomb squad, and the bomb squad blew up the can. The punch line is that the ammo can was, of course, not a bomb but a cache. Guess we can mark that one off the list!

A bit of geocaching, sightseeing and barns we have known.

Today dawned bright and sunny, and unseasonably warm here in Kansas. By the time it was almost 50 degrees, Wes and I decided we needed to spend some time outdoors (this is, of course, before it snows again on Monday). So we set out for a little geocaching.

We started out at Wildcat Creek Park, looking for a little walk and a geocache. We spent a lot of time walking down snowy and slushy paths in the warm sunshine and just enjoying the outdoors. After about a third of a mile we reached our destination and found a geocache. We took a little souvenir and left a toy helicopter for other people to find.




Sadly, we couldn't do our second intended cache because we had to cross the creek and it was just a bit too full of melting snow and icy water. So we headed out to Rocky Ford to check out a virtual cache and the ford itself. This area was once used by the pioneers and the ford operated a grist (flour) mill. Now the ford's power is harnessed by the Rocky Ford Power company and serves as an area for local fishermen.

Finally, I'm adding here a little collage of abandoned barns, structures and sights we've seen this season either driving back and forth to Virginia or out on our caching trip today. All photos were taken by Wes or myself. Enjoy!

A Good Weekend

Wes and I got to spend our first weekend together in a while. Friday night we laid low, ordered some yummy Thai food and watched the movie The Covenant. It wasn't a great movie, but it whetted our appetites for some magic.

Saturday was double feature day. We joined up with Knitmeister S and Blogless Will for a morning showing of Transformers followed by an afternoon showing of Harry Potter. Both movies were excellent. Transformers was good old fashioned summer fun (Yeah Bumblebee!) and Harry didn't disappoint either. Thought I'm not into the Harry Potter books (thus avoiding the lines this weekend for #7) I do enjoy the movies.

Saturday night we met my parents for a great Italian dinner to celebrate Dad's 61st birthday! I got him a few good reads: Wicked and Wild Trees, which he's planning to take with him on their trip to Canada this week. It was a lot of fun.

Today was exercise and outdoors day (since yesterday was sit on our ass, watch movies, and eat food day!). We started this morning with a workout. He, who has been training for a while, ran several miles this morning. I, who am a total workout wimp, walked a mile on the treadmill, cycled 2.5 on the bike, and did the weights circuit in the gym, followed by situps. I feel sore already, so tomorrow ought to be fun. This afternoon we headed out to pick up a few things in Target (why are there no 1 piece swimsuits for women this year?!? but that's a subject for another post...) and then went Geocaching a bit. Unfortunately for us it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and what we were looking for was mostly hidden in parks overrun with children and people. We did manage to find one however, and find a nice bench to chill on for a few.

Tonight we're home watching more movies (The Clearing starring Robert Redford, Willem Defoe and Helen Mirren - it was interesting), some Man v. Wild, and have a little dinner. The only good part about starting a new week is that we're a little closer to our cruise!

Geocaching

Today we spent some time with my in-laws (to-be) and heading out to show them Calamigos Ranch (where we're getting married!). Then we went into the Santa Monica Mountains on a long hike and geocaching trip. I made it in 2 miles and saw the beautiful waterfall, but I didn't quite make it to the geocache as the last 400 feet were heavy rock climbing ones.




Poor Wes twisted his ankle on the rock climbing so we're going to take it easy tomorrow. Just some game and resting. I'll leave you with a picture of the little guy we saw on the way out.

Splendiferous Weekend Update

Even though I returned to work last week, the last vestiges of Holiday Break were still clinging because school hadn't started yet and Wes was still here. Well school starts tonight and Wes leaves tomorrow morning and I don't like it one bit.


The weekend, however, was really delightful. Friday night we snuggled at home, he beat my ass at Scrabble again, and we went to bed early. Saturday morning we slept in a little bit, and then went out for some walking/eating/shopping at the local mall, a quick stop by the yarn store for a pattern I needed, and then some geocaching. We walked two miles and found two fun caches.


Saturday night we had dinner with my parents at a great restaurant, the Sonora Cafe, and then went to see the new musical 13 at the Mark Taper. I was originally a little skeptical about this one - it's the story of thirteen 13-year-olds. The entire cast and orchestra were right around 13. It was really fabulous! The kids did a great job, and the book/lyrics were very funny and heartwarming. I would really recommend that if you're in the area, and don't mind a brief reminder of how horrible it was to be thirteen, you check it out!


Sunday was spent catching up a little - we saw three movies, I knitted up a storm and we even got out for a little walk midday. We saw Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, Apocalypse Now, and Superman Returns. All three were very good. Pirates had great special effects and was a real swashbuckling adventure. I had never seen Apocalypse Now but I read Heart of Darkness when I was in high school. Martin Sheen was fantastic and it was one creepy movie. Superman was probably the weakest of the three movies although I still enjoyed it. I'm not sure I bought that the young-looking characters had just come back from a 5 year absence, nor that Clark Kent and Superman could return after 5 years on the exact same day and no one would notice. But, you know.... it was still a good watch.


Lastly, knitting progress. I've been slacking on the knitting part of this blog but I do have the first few finished objects of 2007 to show you. The first is a reversible cable scarf in Noro Silk Garden and will be a (belated) Christmas gift for a friend. The second is an Irish Hiking Scarf in a lovely rusty merino, also destined for a New Year's gift. (Can you tell I got into cables over break?) Finally, something I whipped up in the past few days - the first of a pair of birthday socks for my sweetie.

I think that's all the news that's fit to print for now. More later as I find juicy tidbits!

California Cachin'

Since we've been back we've been mostly lazy - sleeping late, watching movies. I've become slightly domestic and even cooked dinner last night, but we had to eat out tonight because I wouldn't want to be TOO domestic two nights in a row.

We have gotten some exercise though because we've been geocaching out here. My sister pointed out that not everyone knows what I'm talking about. Our trusty friend Wikipedia can tell you more about geocaching. Of course, Wes's definition is that geocaching is the sport where "people use trillion-dollar satellite systems to troll for nickel and dime treasures."

We did a few geocaches yesterday and got stuck on one. The first clue is here in Los Angeles and the second clue is hidden in a park in Midtown Manhattan, NYC. If anyone who reads wants to find clue #2, we'd love the help! Otherwise we'll have to travel.


The second cache was located near the movie studios. The quest was entitled King Kong Gone as the site was where the King of Kings set was built and was later used for the original King Kong and Gone with the Wind. Very historic LA. We also placed a travel bug in there - a Dorothy Charm (from the Wizard of Oz) and a Wicked Witch toy. We're hoping that Dorothy can find her way home to Kansas and Wes.



Today we started out just south of LAX in the town of El Segundo where we retrieved Big Hearted Red Bear. He's a travel bug that longs to see the world, so Wes is going to take him to Kansas (I'm not sure it's the mecca of the world, but he hasn't visited that state yet, so Go Big Red!)


Our second cache of the day was located in the beautiful Kenneth Hahn Park in Los Angeles. It's amazing how I've lived here all my life, and even driven past the entrance on my way to school but never been there. It was beautiful and provided some great views of the city and even the moon! We found the cache fairly easily, though we did have to do some waiting so no one was around when we dove into the bush.

Tonight we're hanging out, possibly devising our own cache to hide here in LA, and looking forward to New Year's Eve tomorrow. Plans include hitting one more cache (we have one more bug from Kansas to place in California) and having dinner with my parents at my favorite restaurant ever.

Happy New Year all!

Christmas Cache

We ended up opening presents up last night, on Christmas Eve, which left us free to play with our new toys and go geocaching today.

We hit 4 caches, walked at least a mile, climbed through fields, and up and down rocky hills, careful not to disturb residents of a cemetary or lose our footing on hills that advertised needing a "goat-like" climber. All in all a good outdoors day.


At the second stop, Wes handed me the GPS and sent me out searching. I found a cache and even found a travel bug which I'm going to relocate to sunny California. Other than the cold (got to road test my new hat and scarf) it was lots of fun!