Coolest Experience of my Life

The coolest experience of my life was flying Tim Air in a Cessna from Montego Bay to Negril in Jamaica this past January. Our pilot was Fraser and he was super cool. On the way to Negil I flew with my family of 5, along with my dad, and on the way home, my brother & his girlfriend joined us as well. Honestly, it was one of the coolest experience of my life.

Isn’t the scenery stunning? Look at the turquoise water!

This is a video (above) of us in the Cessna taking off from Montego Bay to Negril on the first day of our vacation. I sat in the 3rd row (we were 6 of us plus the pilot on board). I took video of us landing, but my camera battery died while I was filming and the video file is corrupted. I’m not sure if there is a way to salvage the file? Does anyone have any ideas?

This is a video (above) of us in the Cessna taking off from Negril to Montego Bay on the way home from our vacation, to catch our flight from Montego Bay to Montreal. On the way home, I sat in the first row behind the pilot and my father. (Both ways I sat in the same row as Quentin).

This is a video (above) of us landing in Montego Bay in the Cessna. My dad was giving me the play by play with how many feet we had until we landed (not sure why, lol).

One Happy Kid

When we were in Jamaica, there was one thing that drew Sean almost every day while we were there: The water slides. There were 2 slides, one super fast one and one slower one, which Sean went on over and over and over again.

He had a blast.

I think he would have taken the water slide home with him if he could.

He tried to do something differently each time he went down!

Thumbs up!

Cool dude.

The daring devil!

I think we’ll have to take the kids to the local water park this summer.

Knitting on the Beach

I got a little bit of knitting done while I was in Jamaica. It was so nice & relaxing to knit on the beach with a Frozen Margarita in hand! I promised Jamie that the next knitting item I’d finish is his OVERDUE socks, that I promised him for Xmas 2009. (Oops!) One is completely finished, but the other isn’t. At least sock 2 has been started. I designed so many pairs of socks between 2008-2009 that by the end of 2009, I was all “socked-out”, as I called it. But now, I’m back and plan to finish his socks as soon as possibly!

Yeah Man!

I just got back (on Saturday evening) from an 8 day trip in Negril, Jamaica with my entire family. (We were 11 of us!) We stayed at the Sesame Street Beaches Resort and had a blast. I have a ton of photos to sort through (from my iphone, waterproof digital camera, my pocket camera & my Nikon professional). I have a LOT to talk about, so stay tuned! Luckily the week we went was the COLDEST week in Montreal in years, (-39C with the wind factor) and it was a good week to get away.

Home Sweet Home

Whew! What a week! We spent the last week in Toronto (Mississauga) and in Sandbanks, Ontario. A much needed change of scenery and fun. I have a ton of photos to sort through, will tell you about it very soon. It was the perfect family vacation. But now, it's back to reality (and a lot of laundry).

08.15.10

Poor cat. Sean came into my office today saying "Look what I got"... Oy! Zeus is slowing down in his old age. He can't run away from the kids as fast as he used to be able to.


I decided that I would get some baking done today. I've finally gotten my cooking/baking mojo back. I made one zucchini bread with chocolate chips and the other plain. The chocolate chip one is almost gone. So delicious.


Here is some progress on my current knitting project. The Dream in Color Classy is absolutely wonderful to work with. And this project is perfect for a lonely skein of the colorway I have. I'm currently (since this photo making progress on it). Hopefully this will be a nice quick knit.

To wrap up the last day of our trip, on Monday August 9th, 2010, we left my friend's house bright & early and headed to the Philadelphia Eagles Training Camp. My hubby is a HUGE Eagles fan, for years now.

Everyone dressed up in their gear.

Got to meet some Eagles cheerleaders.

Sat happily in the stroller.

Watched the guys on the field.


Watched them tackle.

Oh yeah, got some autographs too!

We "used" the birthday girl to get the autographs, then I piped in that we were fans from Canada. It worked. They got their football autographed, and we got Mack's hat autographed:

It's sitting pretty in a case now, and I have a new hat on it's way from Philly to replace this one, as Mack's quite upset that he cannot wear his hat.

After leaving training camp (just before lunch) we headed on the road home. We were in upstate PA, so we were close to the New Jersey border. Apparently I slept through an entire state, as I woke up in New York. It was a nice nap. We stopped for lunch. I took over driving for about an hour and a bit (the only driving I actually did the entire trip). Jamie rested his eyes while I was on the road. The kids napped a bit. We limited the kids drinking intake as we wanted to make the least amount of stops as possible. We got to the Canadian border. Got a really nice customs agent, had very few questions asked, and we were in our driveway just after 8pm.

We had a fantastic time on our trip. It was so nice to see family & friends. Celebrate a 1st birthday party. Go to Sesame Place. Check out some yarn shops in another city. Checking out the Museum, the Jersey Shore & the training camp for the Philadelphia Eagles. But now, my next wish is a vacation without the kids. Lying on a beach somewhere. Reading novels. Knitting. Ahhh..... that would be very nice. I doubt it'll happen for a while. Definitely not for a while after baby number 3 is born...

Please Touch Museum & South Street

On August 8th, 2010 we headed into Philadelphia, a good 35-40 minute drive from where we were staying at my friend Lauren's house. Above is a view of the skyline as we were approaching the city.

Our first stop today was to Loop on South Street.

The colors that were in this store were hard to resist. So inspiring.

Our next stop was to the Please Touch Museum.
I highly recommend this to anyone with kids.

There were way too many awesome photos to show you, so I selected my fave.

The had a 100 year old carousel that had been restored. It's gorgeous. All 4 of us went on.

After we were done at the museum, we headed to South Street.

It was a very funky street with neat shops.

We were going to have some Cheesesteaks on South Street but the line up for it was a little long. My feet were killing me from all the walking (my poor pregnant feet were so swollen) and the kids were getting tired & restless. So we decided to pick up cheesesteak and eat back at the house. That was a much better idea in the end.

08.13.10 :: yarn p0rn Friday

Because I know you all want to see the loot from my trip, I'll start off this post with my new edition of Yarn P0rn Friday. (Now that I think about it, I still have a bit of birthday yarn that I picked up in Vancouver, B.C. this past spring, that has been photographed, but hasn't made it to the blog yet... so stay tuned next week for some more Yarn P0rn Friday).

I've been dying to get my hands on some Madelinetosh DK (sock as well see below!). I finally was gifted some while in the USA, from my wonderful husband. (He deserves mucho appreciation after driving 99% of the entire trip (I did drive 1 hour on the way home when he had to rest his eyes for a bit). (It was an 8 hour drive there, all the driving in NJ, almost an hour to our location in PA, all the driving in PA, and 7 of the 8 hour drive home). AND he bought me yarn. Must be love. Above left is 3 skeins of Madelinetosh DK Oxblood and above right is 5 skeins of Madelinetosh DK Terra.

Had to get my hands on some Madelinetosh Sock as well. Right? Above left is Logwood and above right is Baltic. I don't even think these skeins are worthy of socks to get worn out on feet. I think they'll have to become shawls or scarves. Though, it's a little short on yardage with only 395 yards per skein. I'll have to find a perfect pattern so that I don't run out of yarn.

Next up we have some Dream in Color Smooshy in Blue Lagoon (the colorway I used for my February Lady Sweater.... maybe to make something matching to go with my sweater?!). In the middle above you have Black Bunny Fibers, which is a local dyer to Loop Yarns in Philadelphia. The nice shade of green is called Green Giant. (I only noticed after getting back to Canada that there are some nasty "drops" of red splattered on a part of it... ick! I might have to find a way to hide that in whatever I'll use this yarn to knit. Fun. And above, on your right you have 3 skeins of Sheep Shop Yarn (Sheep #2) in the colorway Royalty. It's a nice Super Bulky yarn, that according to Ravelry is now discontinued. Which the shop owner would have told me that. Hopefully the 3 skeins (90 yards each) will be enough for a nice cowl of some sort.

And lastly, while I was out of town, some lovely yarn arrived in the mail from my friend Melissa. I received a lovely skein (on your left above) of Sundara Sock in Caribbean and Yarn Love Anne Shirley in the Sparkling Colorway. The nice thing is that this worsted weight has 250 yards, so there is plenty to do something small with it.

Speaking of yarn, I got VERY frustrated with a skein of Dream in Color Classy tonight. I was wounding a skein for a project I wanted to cast on tonight, and well, what do you know... I spent 3 hours untangling it...! This is the first time I've had an issue with a skein of DIC Classy (and it's not my first time using it). I guess it was just a stubborn skein. It took me 2 epsiodes of Big Brother from this week (minus commercials), an episode from Sunday of Entourage and an episode of Last Comic Standing to get the thing untangled. I'm not a happy camper, but I did manage to get through it.

I want to talk today about Saturday, Aug 7, 2010.

We had this beauty's 1st birthday party, in a gorgeous park in Pennsylvania.

It was so nice to celebrate it with them. I've been friends with Lauren (the beauty's mom) for about 13 years now. It's amazing how time flies.... I sometimes can't believe it's been that long).

Even Mr. Knit & Purl Mama got into the party spirit.

Mack wore his Habs shirt proud today. (We made sure to let those Flyers fans know that we had no beef with them knocking us out of the playoffs this past year either).

And Sean wore his full Eagles gear. (Hat & jersey - a lovely gift for the boys from Lauren & gang). Sean ended up wearing it for a few days straight. I see it as being a much loved & worn shirt. Thanks again Lauren & gang!

After the party was over, (and getting to catch up with a friend (who knits!) I'd met 5 years ago at Lauren's wedding (the last time we were in PA), and making a new friend (who is married to a Canadian - we instantly bonded!) we headed over to Lauren's parents house to open birthday gifts. My boys were fantastic helpers, and now Sean keeps asking me on a daily basis if it's his birthday yet. I really hope that the birthday girl loved all the clothes we got her. Seeing as though we're apparently (I'm still hoping there's a chance they made a mistake? I can hope, right?) having another boy, I had a field day shopping for baby girls clothes for the birthday girl. Everything is just soo.darn.cute. (I'll find out soon at my next ultrasound if it's 100% a boy. They say they don't like to give accurate answers before 20-22 weeks anyhow. I'm currently 20 weeks and 4 days now. I'll keep you posted. And if it's a 3rd boy, then bring it on. I'll forever be the Queen of my house, and I'll just know that I'll have my boys, and boys love their mommy.

After a long day of partying it up, the boys were fast asleep in the futon bed they were sharing. Good to know that if we travel again in the future, they're good to share a bed. One less thing to have to worry about when traveling. This evening we caught up on Big Brother (Lauren & her hubby watch it too) and hung out. Life after kids, makes for relaxing Saturday nights with friends (who have kids too - otherwise why on earth would they want to stay in and catch up on TV?)

Happy Friday the 13th y'all!