Alive in Maryland

 I'm back!!  Yes, we got all moved in.  Man, was it painful.  We arrived to a dirty house (floors, carpets decks...all filthy), no electricity, no hotel...I'm not kiddin'; it sucked.  I was ready to take the recommendation of my neighbor who suggested I give Maryland the middle finger and high-tail it back to Florida!  Then she told me everything would be fine, and she was right.  We had to clean the house as best we could without our stuff (took two tries to find a Target with power and buy cleaning supplies).  Our power was restored on Sunday (day before move in).  The top AC unit wasn't working, but AC guy came out and rigged it to "work" till part came in to fix it fully.  Then bottom AC unit broke.  Both are fixed now (along with the dryer which didn't work either).  Now, I think we have wasps in the attic.  Good Friggin' Grief!!!  Anyway here are some photos from our first week or so...

 We hung out in the garage marking off numbers for the movers as they climbed stairs after stairs and put our stuff in the house.  Bless their hearts.

 My house was a sea of boxes and black trash bags FULL of packing paper. 

 Took a while to figure out the furniture layout.  This isn't it.

 Takin' a break on the deck with my furry girl.

 Veronica made chocolate covered strawberries over the weekend...yum! Things slowly getting back to normal.

 There's a skate shop with a small skate park (ramps, half-pipe, etc) around the corner from the house.  Perfect for Joey!

Now we're talkin'...shoes and blankets all over the floor, knitting all over the table and kids zoning out infront of the TV.  Sounds like summer to me!

We've done some exploring, mostly shopping.  Even went to IKEA last week.  To get there you have to travel under the Chesapeake Bay in a tunnel...you know...under the water!  Very cool.  And expensive, too; $3 each way.  The girls and I found grocery stores, Trader Joe's, Michael's, Joanns, and the mall.  Not the DC Mall, but the Annapolis Mall.  They even have a Nordstrom (and Nordstrom Rack...yeah, bargains!).  Mike is working on getting the cars registered.  You have to have two inspections, one for emissions and one to make sure your car is in good working order (fix this light, tighten that screw and all that crap).  Not an easy (or cheap) task, but the man is on it! 

More pics of the house to come when it's cleaner and I'm not in the middle of doing laundry.

On a sad note:  Our outdoor kitty, Jake, is missing. He ventured out and hasn't returned yet.  We're hoping he will someday. I hope he's safe where he is and told our neighbor in Fleming Island to keep an eye out for him.  He's probably living it up on someone elses couch.  All other animals, including the kids, are doing fine. 

Anyone out there feel like wrestling a few wasps?



MD Here We Come!

Posting from my iPod in the hotel on moving day! Packing and loading went very well. Yesterday we worked on the house. Weird with the house so empty, all our stuff gone, even all cars. Tearful good-byes all week. Trying to focus on pretty drive ahead of us and the adventure that awaits. Full post with pics to come once we're back online. For today...we hit the road, van loaded to the gills! Roll Beverly Hillbillys song!!

Yard Sale Washout

 We had high hopes on getting rid of a bunch of stuff a today's yard sale.  I really hate to see that table and chairs go but not enough room in the new house unfortunately.  The day started off cloudy and rain wasn't expected till Noon or so.

 Mike's ready to roll!

Then it started to rain, then it started to POUR!!  Crap!  We all got soaked trying to drag everything into the garage.  Believe it or not, people still drove by the house in the pouring rain, expecting us to be there...go figure.  Maybe it would help if we took our sign down.  Ya think.

Not a happy camper.

Yummy Birthday Yarn

Here's a shot of my birthday yarn:

Two skeins of Malabrigo Rasta on each end.  The yarn is super bulky and SUPER soft.  I'm thinking a cowl and/or hat for the cold winter I have coming to me.  I've never knit with a super bulky before...Ooooo, new yarn experience! The second from the left is one of my favorite yarns, Madelinetosh Sock.  The colorway is Cherry.  Maybe socks or a shawl.  The monkey-in-the-middle is Baah! La Jolla sock yarn.  The colorway is Grape Vine; plum/olive mix. Again, socks or shawl, probably socks. The blue yarn is Pagewood Farms Willow Creek.  It's a lace weight and has 1350 yds in the skein. I'm going to make a lace sweater.  Here's a picture of the pattern:

Front

 Back (Two different sweaters, obviously.)

It's called Rocio by Joji Locatelli. Won't that be cute in the blue?! 

Thanks Dad, Mom, Marylou and Al for the shopping trip to my LYS!

Don't expect me to cast on anytime soon.  I'm swamped with "getting ready to move" stuff.  Tomorrow we're having a yard sale and will hopefully get rid of a bunch of stuff. 

Have a great weekend!

50 and Counting

Today I am 50 years old.  Half a century...piece of cake!  Bring on the next half, baby!

Haven't lost my sense of humor either.

Yeah Justine!

Justine received an award (and medal) for making the A-B Honor Roll all year!  Here she is shaking the hand of her Principle and receiving her award.  It was a great assembly, all the kids proud (and a bit embarrassed) to get their awards.  The best part?  We had both sets of grand parents and my sister (the kids' favorite Aunt) there to see it all! 

Today is the last day of school for Joey and Justine. 

I think they're a little sad to see their time here coming to an end.  

Class of 2012

 Our beautiful graduate!

Graduation was so wonderful last night.  We're so thankful that so much of our family took the time (and expense) to travel all the way to Florida to see Veronica graduate!  Everyone came over to the house for pizza then we headed over to the high school.  We were keeping our fingers crossed because it was very cloudy and sprinkling.  The rain didn't get any worse and the clouds kept the heat from getting too bad.  So nice to have the graduation at 8pm, especially this time of year when the weather can be super hot.  The ceremony went quickly and before we knew it, it was over and we were giving our graduate a big hug and taking pictures in the quad. 

We're so proud of her!

Even the sky was celebrating!