Booby prize and a peacock....

A few months ago a local Portland yarn store called Twisted had a little contest to name their Blue Footed Booby that was knit from a pattern called "Feathers" By Knitting at Knoon. I wrote in with the name suggestion of "Indigo Montoya" inspired by Inigo Montoya from the movie Princess Bride. I got an e-mail a few weeks ago that they voted and my name won by a landslide. I won a copy of the pattern "Feathers" along with a cute crocheted cake key chain by Lantern Moon.

One of the patterns in "feathers" was a peacock. When we first moved to Portland back in 2003 I was talking to my Dad on the phone telling him all about the city and how we had roses in our yard in January when a giant bird head peeked into the window of our upstairs apartment where I was sitting and nearly gave me a heart attack. My next words were "Dad, there is a peacock on my roof!" I think he thought I moved to some tropical paradise which it kind of was compared to near Buffalo New York where Ben,Sophie and I were moving from and Wisconsin where I grew up as a child. The Peacock lived on our roof for about a week. I have no idea where he came from or who he belonged to. I thought since so many Portland people had chickens running around in their yards that Peacocks were just part of the norm too. Keep Portland Weird!
So I just had to knit one. The pattern was a bit finicky and I ripped the body out completely twice due to funkiness in the neck. Third times a charm or, well , good enough at least.

Sanctuary....

Walking the Labyrinth...

Walk and meditate? When you are a kid, no way...run and giggle is more like it.

This Moment....

A moment from our week to cherish and remember. Inspired by Soulemama.

Ice cube painting....

Today at the little afternoon arts and crafts class that I teach every Wednesday we painted with ice cubes and it was tons of fun. I just used a little food coloring and water and froze it in an ice cube tray and added Popsicle stick halves for gripping. They worked best during the first half hour when they were still pretty frozen but the colors dulled quite a bit as they melted. It was still a ton of fun. A great summer craft for sure!

Happy Father's Day!

(Good reason to eat and ice cream cake ;)..)
Happy Father's Day to all the Papas out there!

A little bit crazy these days....

"Self portrait" by Solomon ( I love finding pictures he has taken:)

Sorry I have been kind of M.I.A. over here. Things have been so busy with the last few days of school and now summer vacation is in full swing. Our main laptop bit the dust yesterday when Sollie threw a wooden block at the screen and it turned into a big black spiderweb....ouch.

So my connection to the internet is very limited.

Sophie is headed off for a vacation to the other side of the country to visit her grandparents in a few days. I have never been away from her for more than a night so we will see how she does and how mama does. I am sure she will have a ton of fun with two sets of grandparents to spoil her rotten. She might not want to come home....

Small beauties...

Another roadside attraction.......

This makes me sad, poor tree. But alas I am a hypocrite since I paid 5 bucks to drive through it. How is this tree healthy with a giant hole chainsawed through it?

And across the road...

Emus!
I was reading the brochure for the tree and thought it said "Come see our Emus(rhymes with male body part)" , and I was like "Ben what is an Emus?" Duh.


We cant forget these guys...

Paul and Babe. These guys were huge. Notice the little girl on his shoe. When we got there he was having a conversation with her. It was cute. Sophie was super shy and made us promise that we wouldn't make her talk to him. Imagine having that guys job...shouting hi to all the tourists and talking to little kids all day.



This picture pretty much sums up the nastiness of this bathroom.
Getting sick of our vacation photos yet?

Animal friends.....by land and by sea

Can you spot the Sea Lions?

Here is a closer look...

Yes this is an Emu (more on that later).

We saw two large herds of Elk. Both times they were standing in the middle of the road. The first batch was on a back road to a coastal hiking trail and the second herd with huge males was standing in the middle of Hwy 101 right beyond a sharp turn. I pulled over and got a few blurry shots.

I am relieved we saw no bears. I love bears but never want to cross paths with one while hiking with my children.

Most Beautiful Pacific....

You didn't really think I wasn't going to overload my blog with our trip photos did you? Well, In fact I took so many I had to break them up into categories. Yes, I am a picture junky. When I was in High School I dreamed of becoming a photographer for National Geographic. It is so beautiful on the West Coast it is easy to take great pictures. The first four photographs are near Crescent City, California, after that the photos are near Bandon, Oregon.

Under Giants...

We just spent a few days down in California to visit the Redwoods for our 10th Anniversary. This trail is called the Damnation Creek trail and took us through majestic Redwood groves down to the Ocean. The trail was steep and fun going down but going up was another matter. It is a 4 mile round trip hike and the last 1. 4 miles drops 1,000 feet from the forest to the Ocean. I carried Sollie up in the backpack most of the way back up and man that was a workout. It was a beautiful hike and I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in the Del Norte Coast Redwoods.