Clear Lake fun

Sweet daughter, dear son and cute Wrigley visited my beautiful oldest friend in Clear Lake last weekend.

We went to the Art Sail (pun intended). The weather was perfect and it was so fun to look at all of the art, pottery and such in the town square. We also took some time to go through the quaint shops in town.

The kids really enjoyed the lake. Hanging out at the dock was so relaxing and fun.

Our gracious host, the Captain, was very patient in taking the kids tubing and putting up with all of our girl talk.

We tried something new called geocaching. I had heard of it before and when beautiful friend mentioned going, I was game! Have you heard of it or tried it? It is like a scavenger hunt using your GPS and the Geocashing website. The kids made friends with two girls who were "pros" and had the supplies to go on the hunt with us.

First you put in your zip code to figure out where the geocaching sites are. Once you figure out which site you want to find, you write down the coordinates for your GPS.

Here is one of girl's backpack. It has all the essentials, bug spray, first aid kit and so forth.

Here is the GPS that one of the girls had. It was fun to go through the woods looking for the cache site.

The mom's wore hats to keep the ticks off, the kids laughed at us but neither of us came away with ticks! Unfortunately, none of us came away with the geocache either. Not sure if someone moved it or what. I think next Fall when the leaves and weeds are down we should try again. It was really fun and a great way to get kids outdoors, I recommend it the next time you hear your kids say "I am bored".

Wrigley enjoyed his first swim!

It was so cute to see him paddling away and to see him soaking wet.

Tubing was the thrill of the day. With dear son's encouragement, I even tried it for a short time. I was a little worried about hurting my back so asked the Captain to go slow and easy. it was fun but about 10 minutes was enough for me.

Look at the smile on sweet daughter's face!

All fun things have to come to an end (is that really true?). We headed back to Cedar Rapids Sunday afternoon. We sure enjoyed our weekend at the lake. Except for that part with the speeding ticket on the way up Friday night, that was not enjoyable at all.

Liesl Sweater

Liesl sweater

Here is the finished cardigan, blocked, buttoned and ready to wear. I like it a lot. Trying to figure out if it gaping the way it does looks OK on me. I like it on the stick thin models.

I love the way the lace pattern looks in the back. I plan to wear this, it is the first sweater I have 1) finished and 2) will actually wear!

Crafting weekend

What a GREAT weekend! Nothing better than a weekend devoted to crafts with wonderful women and BABIES!!!!

I enjoyed having my beautiful nieces, great-nephew and great-niece over Friday night. We worked on a quilt for great-niece. We did not have a pattern which made the estimation for completion very difficult. Kind of like writing software without requirements, OK if you aren't a computer geek you totally do not know what that means.

This is my dinning room dubbed "craft central".

Sweet daughter and youngest beautiful niece do not look quite as excited as older beautiful niece and I were during this weekend. Next time we are going to work on a surfing car quilt for sweet-pea great-nephew.

The quilt is dubbed a "Poppie quilt" although I kept thinking pansy......

All appliqued and just pieced borders. We ran out of heat and bond at 9:15 pm, this put us way behind schedule. However we still had enough to do to keep us up until mid-night. Think talking, knitting and so forth.

This picture was taken about mid-night. Check out this ADORABLE poncho. Sweet daughter totally thinks she needs one so I am thrilled because gifting knitting makes me happy happy!

Saturday morning we went to Iowa City (boy do I miss Iowa City!) New Pioneer Coop, Home Ec and Common Threads (North liberty) were the destinations.

The babies were not quite as thrilled as I was with the weekend. Here is sweet-pea great nephew. he is so darn cute!!!! His papa is fighting for our country and mama is spending time in Iowa before heading back to San Diego.

Adorable great-niece was so fun! I am thinking she might be saying "less about you, more about me" right now? if only she knew the whole weekend was to make her this adorable quilt!

This is the BEST DAMN SALAD EVER!

Close to finished, getting cocky picture.

Only the binding left. Some hand sewing to give it that perfect touch.

The only thing I would change about the weekend would be to have the girls stay one more night so we could relax and talk more. NEXT TIME!

Gardens and sweaters

The nice looooong weekend gave me some time to enjoy my yard. I found a Japanese maple on sale for 1/2 price at Theisens. I planted it in the corner where my weeping pussy willow had been last year. The pussy willow did not make it so now I am trying something different. I love the look of the Japanese maple. Unfortunately I heard on the radio the day after planting this that the Japanese beetle likes these little trees too. Hopefully I can fight them off this year!

The daises and cone flowers are looking well.

The basil is growing well too and I can't wait to enjoy it with fresh tomatoes soon!

I am giving peas a try this year and I think they are doing well. I am growing beans again this year too. I am trying organic and no pesticides. Not easy but I am trying. Have you all heard about the honey bee population ? They are dying off and disappearing. Some scientist blame the hybrid corn that has built in insecticides. However, there is a lot of debate on this. Obviously we need bees for pollination so I am doing my best to not use insecticides and to help the bees. Remind me of this when the Japanese beetles show up and I want to powder my yard in 7.

Aren't the bloom on these beans pretty!?

I finally finished my sweater!!!! I washed and blocked it this afternoon. I can't wait to see how it turns out. It seemed to really grow when I blocked it. This just might be the first sweater that I will actually wear! Stay tuned for more pictures.

Thanks to all of you who left comments a couple weeks ago! It is nice to know you are out there and reading my blog.

flag cake

Sweet daughter, a neighbor girl and I made a cake on Friday night. I've wanted to try this cake ever since I first saw it in Barefoot Contessa's cook book. It isn't quite like the Flag Cake that Ina makes as I used both raspberries and strawberries because I didn't have enough raspberries. Also, I made only 1/2 of the cake so it turned out a little more like bars. I would compare it to fruit pizza that I've tried. I think it turned out pretty well. The flavor was delish and the decorating not bad considering it is the first time any of us have tried cake decorating.