I have no knitting progress to report, so will show cute kid photos instead. My surprise weekend trip was to Sacramento to visit my niece, Donna, and her family. She graduated from her master’s program this week, and I flew down to surprise her and attend the festivities. My sister Linda was there also, so we had a fun time (yes, Diane, we talked about you, you should have come).
Here are those cute photos just to get started. You can see that my niece is raising her daughters with the proper queenly expectations.
Notice that somebody got her ears pierced; she was very brave for the procedure:
Here’s the graduate and her mom, my sister Linda:
And one after the ceremony with Donna and I:
And Donna and her sister, Jan:
There was a post-graduation party where everybody had lots of food and drinks and a great time. Oh heck, I’ll show a photo from that as well. Before you see this one, you need to know that Donna is not much of a party girl-drinker. Master’s degrees don’t come every day though, so she decided to celebrate with her friends:
That guy in the middle is her husband, Brian. The party was luau-themed, so there was a grass skirt and coconut bra involved, but since this generally is a family-rated blog, I won’t show them.
Congratulations, Donna!
There was knitting involved, actually. I worked on the green lace Forest Canopy shawl, and finished a couple more repeats. I have about an ounce and a half of the yarn left, and would like to just use it all up. It’s just a blob at present, and not very photogenic. I’m also still working on that eggplant Jo Sharp sweater, knitting more miles of seed stitch collar. The pattern has two options, one for a short mock turtleneck type of collar, and the second for more of a cowl collar. I’m aiming for something in between, more like a real turtleneck that folds over, but not quite as floppy as a cowl. We’ll see. It better work; I’ll cry if I have to rip and knit much more seed stitch.
Typepad was on drugs last week, as some of you noticed when you tried to comment. To their credit, once I figured it out and emailed them, they responded quickly, fixed it, then emailed me to let me know they’d fixed it. Hopefully it’s working now. If you can’t comment, email me (link over there to the lower right in the sidebar) to let me know.
We’re off on a road trip for the next week. We’re headed east and north, through eastern Washington, Idaho, British Columbia, and aiming to end up around Banff. We don’t have a definite plan, and though we’re leaving today, we’re not exactly packed either. The “plan” so far is that when we get to an intersection, we’ll flip a coin to see whether we go right or left. It makes my husband nervous when I drive, which is perfect. He gets to drive, I get to knit all the way. We’re taking the laptop, but seriously doubt that there will be wireless access where we’re going. If I’m wrong, I’ll post, if not, I might have some finished stuff to show you when I get back!
Have a great time whereever you go! Congrats to your niece on a jon well done! Those girls are just too cute!
That road trip sounds grand. I love road trips… they’re the best.
See ya when you get back. Happy driving, knitting (and happy yarn shop visiting too! Shhh….Don’t tell John I said that.)
Congratulations to your niece. Seeing these grad photos has made me realise how far off I actually am…
Those little girls are real cuties!
Have a fun trip.
Congratulations to your niece! It looks like you had a wonderful time. And have lots of fun on your vacation, too.
Congrats! I’m just waiting for you to visit CT and/or NYC. We’ll have to get together and knit. Have fun!
Looks like a great time! Glad that typepad is off drugs now.
Cute family pictures and congrats to the niece! I did try to comment on your last post, but no luck. Hope it’s fixed now.
Lorette- Lovely little girls, and congratulations to the Graduate.
If you’re going to Vancouver, Granville Island Market is a must see. Have a great trip.
adorable girls. i miss dress up.
Congrats to the niece!! and the girls are precious! Your vacation trip sound perfect–sit in the car and knit. My kind of vacation….
sounds like a perfect road trip to me!
what a beautiful family you have!
If you’re spending time in Vancouver and want knitting company or a yarn tour, let me know.
Li
Congratulations on a great milestone for your niece. (They look SO young.)
I do like your traveling algorithm and random coin flipping. Banff must be beautiful in the summer.
Thanks for the nice comment.
As for what the swatch is for, you’ll just have to keep coming back to find out. I will be posting other swatches. Maybe you can guess then.
😉
Love to see all those high-achieving wimmin and the queenly young achievers-in-training. The sky’s the limit. Nice looking family.
Wow, where to start? Adorable nieces? Outstanding graduate? Exciting road trip? What fun! Enjoy the vacation.
How bizarre…I’m visitin my sister and we were looking at the pictures on this entry and when we got the picture of Donna and Jan we both thought, and said, at the same time that Jan looks almost exactly like me! How funny…I have heard that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world – I guess I know where mine is!