To Secret Beaches

Making the most of a summer evening at the beach near our house.

Rediscovering Canadian geese with visiting British friends.

Jesse getting his feet wet. (Though he says he doesn't like the beach.)

Graeme flying a kite, or just contemplating it. I think Graeme has a beautiful silhouette.

Alina relaxing on the sand. She's really not a baby anymore, but still adorable. All that hair!

Hopefully there will be many more beach filled evenings this summer.

Knitting Envy

I remember feeling this way on occasion, but I've matured since then.

Is that laughter I hear? Okay, but I am a better knitter than I was in the beginning. If not much faster.

Learning to Knit from Max Alexander on Vimeo.

Memorial Day Weekend

Since I spent the whole weekend with Opie, ahem, I mean Stephanie Kay Oppelaar. I'll let her tell you how our Memorial Day was, but I'll chime in by saying I had a really good time.

Weekend in a Nutshell.

Bellingham is always a retreat for me, but this was an especially calming and grounding visit.

Two Tickets to Paradise... Fibers that is

Besides the draw of Nerissa and Ian, lambs and goats, etc. Eastern Washington has Paradise Fibers. I convinced Jesse to indulge two of his favorite knitters in visiting this warehouse that is open to the public.

Nerissa has this devilish smile on her face because she has already been inside to see:

The Wall of Coned Yarn. However, she is facing the Wall of Sale Yarn and trying to make some baby knitting decisions. There really was a lot of yarn.

Not all of it was even coned, but I thought it looked the most luscious. Of course, we had to look at it all. Jesse meanwhile...



found a place among the books to get comfortable. While he is most at ease around books these were all about knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, etc. and therefore more my style than his. Still doesn't he look happy or at least patient?

While the staff said their in store shoppers are sort of "red headed stepchildren" to their online shoppers I didn't feel treated that way. They were quite kind to us. Definitely worth a visit when you find yourself in Spokane, WA.

Lambs!

A few weeks ago Jesse and I made the sojurn east to visit our friends Nerissa and Ian in the wilds of Cheney, WA.

Besides their lovely company there was the enticement of new lambs. Yes, freshly lambed lambs.



Now I wouldn't say the lambs wanted me to hold them, but I got away with it for a little while.



When they bleated, as this one was doing, their whole bodies shook!



It surprised me! But they didn't need to worry as mom was nearby and I was only interested in their fiber, not their meat.

Jenny's ranch had all kinds of sheep, an alpaca, a fainting goat, or was it two? A couple of big friendly dogs... I really liked it. She was very kind to show us city slickers around.



I think Ian and Jesse liked it too.



Don't they look amused?

part three

3) Do something you've never done before. Repeat as many times as possible.



I've never taken a cooking class before and neither has Jesse, so we decided to take one together while we were in Oaxaca.

We decided on a traditional Oaxacan menu. We arranged for a class with Nora Valencia through, Las Bugambilias Bed and Breakfast. Nora took us to a local market nearby where we shopped for our ingredients. She explained how to find the freshest and best of the market.



This vendor lives in the hills around Oaxaca and had fresh picked her ingredients of squash flowers, herbs, and corn early in the morning before coming to market.

I was enthralled with the families working the booths together. Even the booths I normally wouldn't find tasty were attractive.



Sausages anyone?

Then Nora took us into her lovely home, the highlight of which I must say was the cucina. A dream kitchen in any home.



We made tamales in this happy, and many times blessed, tamale pot.



We also made moles, a soup and the stuffed squash flowers seen above. They were gone so quickly I don't have any pictures of the rest. But we enjoyed eating them very much in Noras dining room.



A lovely experience, one our friend Alvin has written about much better in this article. We've already attempted to recreate the tamales here at home, while not quite as good as the ones we made in Oaxaca, they were tasty enough to keep trying. I'm hoping for many more culinary adventures in the New Year.

(Doesn't Jesse look cute in an apron?)

part two

2) Bring two of your best friends along with you.



Even though I had thought of celebrating la Dia de los Muertos for my birthday as a kid, I forgot when I grew up. Opie reminded me. She called me to say, we're turning 30. It's a big deal. We should do it together. She was right.

Opie got her first passport to make this trip! Here she is admiring a mermaid at the Santo Domingo Museum. Aren't they both lovely?

Opie and I have been best friends for 15 years. In high school we used to dream about going on trips like this, to see first hand what we were learning about in Art History. This was our chance to do that together.

Jesse is up for going anywhere, that doesn't have assassin bugs, that is. So I knew he'd be on board. Here he is in the Santo Domingo library which contains Pre-Columbian codices.


I know this isn't what the bookstore he works in looks like, but this is how I picture him at work. Surrounded by ancient leather bound manuscripts with a little smile on his face.

Jesse and Opie both have adventurous appetites, for music, food, language and culture. I'm so glad they wanted to go on this adventure with me.