Ewe Aren't Going to Believe This...

This is a belated post regarding the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival that I attended on the 5th of May.

It was AMAZING!

It was so fun to spend the day with Emily. We arrived just as it opened - the picture above is the parking area just as it was opening - there were probably 5 more double rows of cars on the left side of the picture. The entrance is near the poles that you can see at the back of the picture. I have been going for the past seven years and every year it just gets bigger and bigger. I'm tempted to stop telling people about it because it was almost too crowded this year!

Emily as sheep. Emily was a great festival pal and hung in there with me all day (we walked in at 9:10 am and walked out of the gates at 4:10). We also met up with two of my knitting friends. The baby lambs and goats, llamas and alpacas kept her occupied, as did the people watching, fair-food, and yarns. She is a good little knitter - she thinks she would like to try a purse next.

Part of my new stash (the picture below - not above - Craig made me promise not to bring back anything that was alive - with the exception of Emily of course). I fell in love with a new yarn manufacturer Tilli Thomas . If you love fiber in any form check out their website. Some skeins are threaded with Swarovski crystals (only $100/skein), there was also silk-ribbon yarn and MORE, including some great grommet bags. The magenta yarn on the left is Tilli Thomas and actually self-gathers/ruffles - I had half of scarf finished before calling it a night!
Other favorites included:

Tess Designer Yarns
Kiparoo Farms

Carodan Farm Wool Shop

and more!

Concert and Musical

I'm a week behind blogging (more than that in housework, laundry, etc.)! I guess I'll start in reverse order. Family and friends know about Emily's busy week - but I thought I'd post this article from the Washington Post - that way it is a journalist, not the mom doing the reporting! Needless to say, it was a great concert. The top picture is from a rehearsal with the women from Sweet Honey in the Rock - they are amazing - what an experience to hear them rehearse with the Children's Chorus and then to hear their performance. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.



The concert was sandwiched between two performances of "Guys and Dolls" at the middle school. Emily danced/performed as a Hot Box Dancer and although the rehearsals were challenging it was a good experience. For those of you not familiar with "Guys and Dolls", some recognizable songs are "A Bushel and a Peck", "Luck be a Lady", "If I were a Bell", and "Sit-Down, You're Rocking the Boat". Emily's Havana Club dance partner is on the far left, the other guys she reports as being "her guys"?.

She's Back....

E spent the beginning of the week at Outdoor Ed at Summit Lake with 1/2 of her 6th grade class (the other half are there now). She had a great time even though she wouldn't describe herself as being particularly "outdoorsy". Her favorites were an activity called "Predator or Prey" (unfortunately as a herbivore she got eaten quite a few times). Some other favorites were the ROPES course, a stream study and orienteering to name a few. She also LOVED the homemade bread they served in the dining hall. I should have taken a before and an after picture - she came home tired and in need of a shower.

Cara and I picked up the balloons right before we picked her up - she said that as the buses pulled in she saw someone with balloons and asked her friends, "who in the world would bring balloons?" Then she realized it was Cara with the balloons :) We were happy to have her home - Cara didn't enjoy being an only child as much as she thought she would!

Almost No Rules Pinewood Derby

We recently attended a "no-rules" Pinewood Derby. It was hilarious. The cars were divided into two groups - kid cars and serious get-out-of-the-way-here-come-the-Dads cars. It was too fun. The top picture is of a car made of pressure-rated PVC pipe that used compressed air - it was beat by a car with a serious motorized propeller*. The 3rd place car also used a propeller. There were also heavily weighted cars (antique irons, wedges used to split wood, a jar of peanut butter, hand weights, etc), even a remote controlled car.

Unfortunately we didn't have an entry this year. A few years ago we entered a pink girly-girl car and we attached a Barbie bicycle (complete with Barbie rider) - the girls even made personalized license plates with sequins and jewels. The car with the Polly pocket in it (above) was covered in jewels and was named the Pollinator!

*There was a bit of an accident with the motorized propeller car that involved several cuts (on one person) that ended up needing 11 stitches. Ya gotta love church activities!

Things are Looking Up?

I had an interesting moment the other day while driving in DC. I was searching for a parking place and ended up going around a particular block twice in order to find the entrance to a small parking lot on top of a building. After running my errand, I looked up and saw the WAMU sign. Now the WAMU sign is only important because I love this local NPR radio station. My car radio is always tuned to it, I generally fall asleep to it (not in the car) and always wake up to it. In fact, the girls lovingly(?) refer to it as "get smart radio". If you never listen to NPR - take a minute today to program your local station into your radio!

The reason I posted it? The sign totally caught me by surprise. As I drove away I realized that I had had a number of opportunities to see the sign while trying to find a parking place, while getting in and out of the car, etc., etc. - if only I had looked up. How often does that happen? What else have I missed? I think I'm going to start looking up!

SPT

Hmm, a treasured item - but smaller than a deck of cards?! Too many things were too big (Craig, the girls, etc.) so I chose my wedding ring which I guess in a way encompasses and symbolizes both Craig and the girls. You can see that my hand has aged (along with the rest of me) in the almost-24 years that we have been married. I would be sad if something happened to my ring - but its value is more than the monetary value of gold and diamonds. What it represents is what I truly treasure.