BFF's Trip Home Part 1 of 2

So my BFF of 32 years came home this month for her big 40th birthday with her man and two of her three kids. (The oldest girl was here last summer, and the other two weren't.) One of the first nights here involved a karaoke night at our house til 4:30 am! Sign courtesy of the Littlest One.

The weekend was spent at her parents' place on a lake a ways outside of town. We went out Saturday and came home early Sunday morning. We had our tent, but we hadn't used it in years, and we didn't know the air mattress had a slow leak. Needless to say we had a sleepless night, and my back sure didn't appreciate it. So all was fun til bedtime. This is my BFF's son diving in. Her kids have never had swimming lessons and don't get to swim all that often, they just must be natural born swimmers, they jump right in.

Now anyone that knew my BFF when she was a kid knows what she was like, and her middle child is her to a T!

Long, skinny legs going every which way - I repeated myself many times the past couple of weeks, "You are SO your mother's child!"

My two boys on the right, her daughter, and her foster brother.

And there were some games of washers. (This is Hubs and her Hubs.)

This is her dad, notice the golf ball on top of the pop can...

...now notice the can is gone, but the ball is still there, lol.

The kids all had a blast.

Then the 22nd was her birthday, and she was so hoping that she was going to get more socks. Great minds think alike, lol. We went to the bar in the local family-owned inn where we both used to work many moons ago. Two of the family members we used to work with were there, so we reminisced til 1:30am. (And had wickedly good nachos, too.)

Links to the socks are here and here.

Happy knitting!

Oaklawn Farm

I finished up a pair of socks for Hubs. These ones were stared August 3 and finished on the 24th. I used 2.75mm needles, 64 sttich vanilla sock pattern with an eye of partridge heel, the yarn is Gedifra Fashion Trend Sportivo, Ravelry details here.

One of the girls at work had a birthday on the 19th, she turned a whopping 22. She's a Harry Potter fan, so I whipped her up a Hermione Cable and Eyelet Hat. The yarn is Kertzer Northern Worsted in pewter, started August 15, finished the 18th, Ravelry details here.

We took the boys to Oaklawn Farm Zoo on the 19th. The animals were a lot more active than they usually are. It had absolutely poured out for about 15 minutes before we got there. Then the sun came out again (it had been a sunny day, it was just a big, passing rain cloud), and it cooled off, the animals like it, I guess.

This place used to be the home of Rutledge, the world's heaviest lion at the time. He died in 2007. I put my hand up by the cast of his paw print to show how big his paws were. It was funny, although he was huge he wasn't the pride leader, Lambert was. He tried to overthrow Lambert on different occasions but never succeeded.

Big tortoise, coming through. Don't know where he was going, but he was in a hurry, lol.

They've got three kinds of lemurs, these two were quite entertaining.

This horse was comical - if the kids weren't feeding her grass she took her front foot and kicked the fence repeatedly til they fed her again. I thought she was going to knock the fence over, she did it so hard. I took a video of her, should have uploaded it here.

I love goats, especially little ones. I could have taken this little one home.

They have a couple of alpacas, too.

They were in with the goats, and this little guy was eating the straw and grass out of the alpaca's wool, lol. One way to keep clean, I guess.

Capybara!

Even the big cats were active. I'm glad there was a fence between these guys. There were a male and a female black panther next door to some tigers, one being a very large white tiger. They didn't look like they were exactly getting along. The white tiger was batting at the panther through the cage, there was a lot of growling going on. (Sure brought people running to see what was going on!) The panthers would have had to tag team the tiger, though, he was twice the size of one of the panthers. They're gorgeous, though - I love cats big and small!

I caught this jaguar in a yawn, lol. Big teeth!

The other jaguar was giving the evil eye to a serval in the pen outside of the owner's house clear across the yard. He was making all kinds of weird noises.

This is what he was staring at -- a very cranky serval. She hissed and hissed and hissed some more. Must have been having a bad day, lol.

There were lots of other animals there, too, but I'd have fifty pictures here if I posted them all. There will be lots more pictures to follow in the next post or two. My BFF was here for 11 days, so I'll have some pictures taken during her vacation.

Today Hurricane Irene is passing through. We have a wind warning and a tropical storm warning. So far today it has rained some, nothing torrential yet like the forecast says, and there's no wind yet. I guess it's mostly supposed to hit this afternoon, and the major wind gusts tonight. I'm worried about my trees -- I have one that always seems to lose a big branch or two during hurricane season. I've been debating where I should park as well -- either driveway has big trees all around. Oh, well, I have insurance!

Happy knitting!

Summer Slippers

I got a call from the lady who gets all those slippers from me all the time, she was still at her house in Ontario. She wanted a pair for the man who looks after her house here, and her daughter would pick them up. So I made mens medium, Patons Classic Wool in dark grey mix and black, the usual pattern, Ravelry details here.

Then I went through what little Classic Wool I had left and whipped up three more pairs, the variagated ones are ladies small, the other two are mediums. Ravelry details here.

I found something out knitting the bottom pair of slippers that didn't make me very happy. I have knit numerous pairs of these slippers, far more than what is on my Ravelry project page. (Nothing knit before joining Ravelry is on there.) I always, always, ALWAYS get a solid color pair of ladies medium slippers out of two skeins of Classic Wool. There isn't much left over, but still. I'm knitting these pink ones, and I've got everything done except for the bottom soles. I get one of the bottom soles done, look at what's left, and come to the conclusion that there is NOT enough yarn for the other sole. I rip it out, dig out some dark grey from the stash, and knit the first two or three rows of the bottom soles with the grey and switch back to pink (so you can't see it unless you look at the bottom of the slipper). I would have done grey cuffs or something had I known. Anyhoo, I had suspicions cuz when I did the mens pair I didn't think the yarn was going as far as it usually did. So I check out the ball and, and it says there is 192m. I'm thinking there was always over 200m. I get another skein, and that one says 205m. Hmmmm...... One was made in Turkey, one in Canada. I only have two skeins left in the stash, one has 205m, one has 192m, both were made in Turkey. So a note to anyone buying Classic Wool - check your yardage!! Not happy with Patons.

Happy knitting!