Thor's Birthday Weekend with Cait & Vince!

Two weekends ago our friend Cait & her boyfriend, Vince, came to visit us from Canada. They brought their mountain bikes with them and on Saturday we went and rode a trail near our house called Browns Camp. It was a beautiful trail -- here's a picture of Thor where you can see the amazing undergrowth.

Thor, Vince & Cait - at our snack break.

Here's me -- trying to show off the cut I got on my leg!

Cait - trying to show how much fun she is having at the end of the ride, but I think you can see in her face how tired we actually all were - it was a long day!


Sunday we went to the Oregon Coast for Thor's birthday -- we headed out there around noon and just spent the day reading and playing frisbee on the beach. Here's Laea and I hanging out on the beach together.

Cait & Vince.

The waterfall & pools at the end of the beach.

Random bike pic.

Here's a random shot of me biking out at the weekly Monday night race series, PIR. I've got the pink hat on in case one of you reading doesn't know that my kit is orange!

Daphne's Graduation Weekend

Last weekend we went to Boulder, CO for Thor's sister's graduation. She graduated from Naropa University which is a neat little school right on the edge of the CU campus.

Here's Thor, Daphne & I right after the graduation ceremony on Saturday.

On Sunday, after we had Mother's Day breakfast with Sheri, Thor and I were pretty much on our own for the day. We decided to take an afternoon hike and enjoy some of the lovely Colorado weather that I'm always hearing about.

Here's me. With my hood up. In the pouring rain. Yes - it does look like I'm in Sitka, AK, but I assure you I'm actually in Boulder. Hmph.

King Salmon Fishing in Alaska

Two weekends ago Thor went up to Alaska for his annual king salmon fishing trip with his friends Andy Mitchell, Ian Thomas and his dad, Ralph. They had great weather for the duration of their trip and Cook Inlet was beyond calm. Here are a couple photos that Thor took while they were out in the water. For a much more eloquently written account of the trip check out Ralph's Open Salon article on the trip (Ralph also has great pictures of Mt. Redoubt smoking, and some of the fish that they caught while they were out).

A shot from Thor's boat to Ian's.

I included this picture just for fun -- Thor took this shot of Andy at midnight in Alaska (just to give you non-Alaska folks an idea of how light it is up there in the evenings - and it's not even mid-summer yet!)

Amy's Baby Sweater

I finished this baby sweater for my friend, Amy, last week. Amy races on the same bike team as I do, and although we're VERY excited about her new little addition it has been a bummer not to get to spend time with her on the bike this past winter.


I used a pattern from Blue Moon Fiber Arts called 'Baby Mine' by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Loved it! The pattern was easy to follow - and I think turned out really well. I knit the 6 month old size using one skein of Blue Moon Socks That Rock in their mediumweight - the colorway I used was Quilla (one of their 'spirit way' colorways).

The gauge called for 6 sts/" - which for me is about a US size 2. When I went to root up my needles though - I discovered that my double points are 2.75 mm and my circulars are 3.0 mm, but both US size 2. Hmph. I didn't feel like buying new needles just for this project - so I winged it. In retrospect I wish I had gone out and bought a 2.75 mm circular needle for the project. I don't think anyone else will be able to tell the difference between the sleeves and the body of the sweater, but I like the feel of the material knit on the smaller needles better.

The buttons I used are Dill Buttons. As far as I can tell there is no identifying style number or colorway on the packaging (except one number -870 - but I'm not sure what that refers to) - this is too bad because the buttons are really cute and perfect for this sweater. They are a 1/2" diameter -- the only hard thing about them is that the actual hole in the shank is so small that Thor had to rig me a little button threader out of fishing line to get my yarn through the hole!