Sisters Weekend 2013

I'm having a hard time being motivated to blog... apparently lots the blogging bug.  But I do want share pictures of sisters weekend... so here they are.  I always say I'm not going to do alot of journaling between the pictures but this time I really mean it :).

Most of you know we (Jenny) planned sisters weekend for when we would all be together in Utah, ie when Jenny and Neita would be bring their daughters up to school in Provo.  It actually worked out rather nice cuz we got a cabin in Heber and were there over labor day to enjoy Swiss days at Midway and the sheepdog trials at Soldiers Hollows.  The only sad part was that Angela couldn't make it cuz she was just starting her student teaching :(.  Next time!

I actually didn't take alot of pictures. I asked Mom to send me some of the ones Dad had taken with her camera... so Dad send me a few.  Mom says she's gonna blog about it so she didn't want Dad to send me very many.  Sorry Mom!  Dad enjoyed sending them over skype :)

So here goes.

First there was there was a moose outside the cabin one morning.

 I never saw it.

I was asleep in the laundry room.  Amy showed me a video of it on her phone...

while i was in my pjs out on the deck.  The dog was a neighbor dog that came to scare the moose away.

There was much eating during sisters weekend...

 Dad was the griller extrodinaire...

much talking...

Hot tubing...

relaxing...

and pretty much lots of fun all around.

We went to Swiss Days and all the pictures I took were on the bus over..

 Looking for food... (Its a craft fair)

 And one of Amy and I all done :)

Didn't really stay there long as it was very hot and very crowded.  I did take a video of one of the entertainers yodeling but I will spare you...

Then that Saturday of course we went to watch the sheep dog trials.

Dad took great pictures with Mom's camera.

My cute nieces! They were invited to sister/girls weekend cuz we love them too :)

Serious watchers.

It was crowded but we still got seats under cover.

This was Dad's favorite picture..

Good thing only the cutest bums are showing...

That sunday a few of us went for a little drive up to the sacred hill... it has all the names of those who died in the wars that lived in the valley

I kept calling it the holy hill which Emily didn't like until she saw the sign on the way up.  It said this was a sacred place so please act accordingly...

Told her.

Dad took a bunch of beauty shots.

It really was pretty up there with the valley spread below

And the clouds and the rainbow.

Ya!  Pictures of me on my blog!  Weird... I know.

Emily and Dad.

And then we all went home... :(

It was so much fun to be with my family even though I was a little bit grumpy cuz of lack of sleep.  I liked that we spent quite a bit of time together just chilling at the cabin.  We got to just talk and discuss life things.  Can't wait to do it again!  Maybe we can do a siblings weekend....

PS.  This is the picture Bethanie and I sent to show everyone out dinner on the way back to Vegas...

Ice cream in Beaver!  Never miss a chance to stop.

Andrew

So... I'm still going to blog about sisters weekend 2 weeks ago but since I don't have any good pictures (just didn't pull my camera out as much as I should have) I've asked all 3 residents at HQ to send me the ones Dad took with Mom's camera, especially at the dog trials... I didn't pull my camera out once while there.

I'm not holding my breath... but thought I'd post these pictures of Andrew while I'm breathing since his birthday is tomorrow (the 12th). These are again from the Holidays. Us old fogies were practicing a song to sing at Grandma Ritchie's funeral with the ward choir so to entertain Andrew I gave him my phone.

Here I am showing him how it works with the camera turned toward the picture taker.

Ah.. he figured out how to turn it back around. That is the back of his sister's head who is reading.

Hmm.. is this how you turn it back around?

Wait.. back again for a picture of his other sister knitting... with I think some of the yarn we repurposed.

Lets see... back around again?

No.. the choir, but mostly my cute shoe. Great photo composition, eh?

Here I am.

And again.

And again!

This went on for sometime on my camera. Actually there were lots of ones in between the last 3 I put up but I thought I'd whittle it down to just the different expressions. Yes, the finger is in every one of them.

So while many a mother expects to see these types of pictures on her camera, for me it was novel and fun. I need to live closer to my neices and nephews!

Next post, sisters weekend! With or without pictures from Mom's camera... might be a very short post :)

Repurposing Yarn

Over the holidays, I thought it would be fun to try repurposing yarn like I've seen on a couple of blogs. Sock yarn (its thin and stretchy) is way expensive so I thought this might be a way to get some.

When I originally went to DI for old sweaters, they were all pretty expensive for what I was going to do with them.  Then, after talking to my wonderful ward friends, I looked at the specials and took advantage of them.  I probably could have gotten even better deals with more research, but since I was just practicing it didn't matter as much.

It is very fun to pull apart work that isn't urs.

We used lots of different things to wrap the hanks of yarn around. Hannah was a good helper.

I had everybody going for a little while...  did this old kinda ugly green one first for practice.

Our basket of green noodles.

Hannah had some trouble taking a picture of me...

We washed it in the tub... Hannah was a very enthusiastic washer.

Then we hung it to dry.

Partly because of the enthusiasm of the washer but mostly because I should have tied the hanks together more often, it ended up in big clumps.

It could do with being respun... Emily said she'd take care of it, if I could just get her a spinning wheel. Not quite sure how respinning works but Emily is pretty smart... I'm sure she'd figure it out :)

I ended up unraveling 2 more sweaters with the help of the family although some of the interest had wained.  I tied the hanks together much better so it didn't end up in clumps after washing.

I was worried about the really small yarn because it kept breaking as it was unraveled.  I was afraid it wouldn't be knitable... kinda defeats the purpose of getting cheap usable sock yarn.

Tried taking a picture of one set while knitting on my bed.

 Heres a better picture of some of the socks I knitted off of the yarn...

 For comparison, here is a pair of socks I knitted from real sock yarn (did you see above how I've learned short row heels?  SO much easier and faster! I love the internet and utube videos).

Each sock took about one ball of yarn at 5 dollars each (total of 10 dollars)...

I've made 4 pairs of socks from the tan yarn and look at all this yarn I still have left from those 5 dollar sweaters!

Definitely cheaper...

Most of the green in the unraveling pictures I gave to Hannah since she helped so much and is into knitting... I think I gave alot of the red/pink stuff to the Dietrichs as well.  Its three strands that are pretty unravelry so its harder to work with.  Its not stretchy like the tan stuff so it really doesn't make great socks.

I need to live in a colder climate where everyone needs more than one pair of gloves, scarves, hats, and lots and lots of warmy sockys.

PS. Unfortunately in Vegas there isn't a very great selection of sweaters at the local DI/Goodwill.  For those of you in colder climates, if you happen to be in a second hand store, see a good sweater to unravel for sock yarn which you then send to me, I would definitely pay you back for ur efforts! :)...