Weekly Update

Poets Cove Resort

I'm so excited that Spring Break has started. Our break began last Thursday and goes until April 9th. I feel so lucky that we get to spend this time off together as a family.

Some things I'm knitting this week:
I'm working away on my Sadie baby dress, which I'm making for my soon-to-be-born niece. It's really cute and I love the Malabrigo Sock yarn that I chose. The Violeta Africana colour way is pretty and doesn't pool badly (for all of you non-knitters, that means that the light and dark colours don't group together badly, so that the project looks splotchy).

I also just bought the pattern for Jared Flood's Tweed Baby Blanket. I know that I keep putting off my cowl design that I want to write up, but I realized last week that I have another friend who is going to be having a baby shortly, and I thought it would really be nice to finish a project before the baby actually comes. 

Some things I'm loving this week:

Poets Cove Resort

Good friends who volunteer to watch my kids. Overnight. When one of our friends heard that I had never been away from my kids overnight (M is 2 and a half years old and T is 9 months old) she suggested that she could watch them while my husband and I went away. It was challenging to get everything sorted but I was motivated. Pumping milk over a few days, since T is still nursing, cleaning, writing out instructions, prepping meals...all of it totally worth it to actually sleep through the night for the first time in 3/4 of a year.

Poets Cove Resort

We went to Poets Cove, which is a resort located on Pender Island, BC. We live on Vancouver Island, so it was a relatively short ferry ride for us. Of course, I was tired when I was reading the ferry schedule and we ended up taking the ferry that stopped at Mayne Island and Saturna Island before we actually stopped at Pender...a grand total of 2 and a half hours. I thought it was a short ferry ride so we didn't have breakfast first. We ended up raiding T's rice husk teething biscuits from our emergency car stash. After such a delicious, filling breakfast, we napped in our car on the ferry. I could tell my husband was tired when he slept through the ferry docking and three cement trucks backing on to the ferry, parking beside our car.

We made it to the hotel, where we napped, went for a walk, went for dinner and then slept through the night. Glorious! The hotel was really beautiful, as you can see from the pictures. Of course, we didn't see as much of it as we could have since we were sleeping most of the time. The island was also really lovely, with green, lush forests everywhere you look. We'll definitely be going back.

On a side note - our kids ended up not going to bed easily, waking up (between the two of them) four times during the night and M got up for good at 5 am. My friend was impressed that we do this everyday. I think it would be a great form of birth control for people to try once or twice. 

Some things I'm working on this week:

With the start of Spring Break, plus going away overnight, I decided that I was going to prep meals ahead of time and freeze them. My favourite way of cooking is the crockpot, hands down. I now have a freezer full of prepped meals that are kid-friendly, gluten-, dairy-, soy- and peanut-free, and can all be cooked in the crockpot. If I can muster the energy, I'll post what I did in the next few days.

All three pictures labelled Poets Cove Resort are from the Poets Cove Resort website.

Weekly Update

Well, I'm only a week or so behind with my weekly update, but who's counting? We've had a lot of upheaval lately but the dust seems to be settling. Just to add an extra challenge to our lives, we're going to host a small party at our apartment after work. My husband invited 35 people. I would guess that our apartment could comfortably fit 10. Maybe 12. I guess we'll be cosy!

Some things I'm knitting this week:
I finished my socks, which I love. When M saw them, she asked me for a pair for herself. I've been working on those when I have a few moments, but they're few and far in between. I'm sticking with my challenge of knitting every day...however, sometimes I'm picking up the needles at 1 am. That still counts though, right?

On the horizon, the cowl that I started a while ago. I love the pattern (created by yours truly) but need to size up the needles. I'm going to rip it back and start over, writing down the instructions this time.

I also just bought a lovely skein of Malabrigo Sock in Violeta Africana, a beautiful variegated purple. I'm going to make a little knit dress for my new niece (the very first one, after four nephews!) who will be born sometime in March. Hopefully I will finish this project before my niece turns 8.

Some things I'm loving this week:
This blog makes me laugh all the time. You know when you need a good laugh? Go check this out. I think I can relate to 99% of what she writes about. The only reason it's not 100% is because her kids are slightly older than mine. That's it.
http://crappypictures.com/

Posts I can especially relate to:
http://crappypictures.com/2011/05/what-it-is-like-to-change-diapers-illustrated-with-crappy-pictures.html

and this:
http://crappypictures.com/2011/07/my-cat-before-after-kidsillustrated-with-crappy-pictures.html

Making soap...I'll post more info soon.

Some things I'm working on this week:
Hanging on for dear life. While party planning.

Off to go wake up the kids from their nap. Just kidding! M has been crashing around in their room the entire 'nap' time and is now alternately yelling "MAMA!" and playing a trumpet.