For Tammy

Deep in corners of the mind
Curled and peeled as fading time
Lies a gold-tint aura glow
And knows not strength and loving so.

And through the quiet of this dream
There comes resounding, crashing stream
of type, of song, of aching shout
that pulls all down and spits all out

Angst of loss is crushing blow.
Thus eats the gold-tint aura glow.

I shut my ears and screen my eyes
I push it all and break the ties
I leave it where it just belongs
I hear the rumpled, din, dim song.

Song weak and far and true in pain
and lost and lonely and bathed in rain.
A hand, a guiding light is burst.
A spot, a point, a growing thirst.

That sound erupts, the song sung strains
the glowing aura there remains
The voices join and ebb and flow
we bathe in forever’s warming glow.

It will not, cannot leave us cold,
for we are joined with magic old.
And above all song, a whisper fast.
Body gone. Love will last.

***

Goodbye, Tammy. May we meet again some day.

***

I had previously posted about my friend Tammy. You may read it here. Sadly, my mom called this morning to let me know that Tammy passed away this morning around 6:00 a.m. She died at home, surrounded by her family after a very brave fight with cancer. She will be very missed.

Year of Colour and Cables

2010 is nearly at an end. I managed to fulfill my goal of designing five things (although one is not yet published). Two shawls, two socks and a scarf. Not too shabby. Now the time comes to plan my knitting goal for 2011.

This year, I've decided to add to the challenge. I intend to purchase patterns, intricate ones that will challenge me, and I will knit them. These patterns will be colour and cables. Perhaps not in both, but something to challenge me in colourwork, whether it be stranded, fair isle or intarsia, and the cables will be CRAZY awesome.

So far, ideas on the table are:

Meisi


Royale


Durmstrang Socks


And maybe something Starmore? I'm not sure yet on that one.

I want to do at least one sweater in each, cables and colour, and I want to do maybe one of the beautiful stranded baby blankets that you see on Ravelry. Knit in the round, steeked and then lined, they're absolutely beautiful.

So. I intend to start the first project in January. I'm thinking Royale will be it. Now to search for the perfect yarn. YAY!

Progress

I have lost 30 pounds in six months! YAY!

My BMI has gone from 31 to 26.2. I have gone from obese to overweight, and considering a "normal" BMI is 18.1 to 24.9, I'm getting closer. Almost there! My goal is no longer for a weight loss of 60 pounds, but for a total loss of 45-50. That will put me at 140-145, and I'll be perfectly happy. I fully expect it will take another six months before I reach that goal.

Some pictures:

Before @ 192 pounds:





After at 162 pounds:








Ignore some of the makeup in that top picture. I was an elf in a Christmas show. Hence the ears.

So YAY me! Onward!!

What's in a Name?

Quite a lot, actually.

Today, I cast off my latest shawl design.



It's lovely and a good size, and I like the knit-on edge, the designed centre rather than a "spine" and the yarn. The picture really does not do it justice because it's winter, and although only 5:00 p.m., it's already dark out. Yay northern hemisphere.

There is just one problem. I have NO idea what to name it. Any suggestions?

Secondary

As of today, my husband and I have been trying to have our second baby for two years. That's 24 months, 104 weeks, 730 days, 17,520 hours of my life, just trying to do what women are made to do. All those weeks and days and hours, I have tried to give my daughter a sibling, someone to have when my husband and I are gone. Throughout that time, I have been told that I'm being selfish, that I should be happy with what I have, that I am complete as it is. I am a sufferer of secondary infertility, and it sucks.

Secondary infertility means, quite simply, that you got pregnant fine the first time around, and the second time around, you are having "difficulty achieving pregnancy." Primary infertility means you can't get pregnant with the first. Primaries don't really understand us secondaries. They seem to have even less pity for those of us (including yours truly) who got pregnant quite by accident (I'm looking at you, birth control pill). I can't say I blame them. I have felt pregnant. More than pregnant. I have felt like a great, waddling, fluffy berry of some kind, definitely overripe and in need of juicing. I've had little niggles rubbing my innards, hugged the toilet while losing the contents of my stomach yet again, and bought ridiculously expensive pants to cling to my ever-expanding waist.

I have my stretch marks, badges I wear with pride rather than shame. I can say that I begged and begged and *begged* for an epidural, only to change my mind and eventually have a baby without any medication. Hell, those are things I'm proud of. I have nursed an infant at all hours of the day and night, spent hours just sticking my tongue out in an effort to get a baby to mimic me, been barfed on, seen a first smile, heard a first giggle, watched the first step she took with such gusto, not knowing how much it would hurt when she fell. I've quelled fears from nightmares, kicked my husband out of bed to let me have a sleep-in day, sent her off for her first day in daycare, told stories, sang songs and largely learned to play again (not something that comes naturally when you spend a great deal of time in your teens trying to show how cool and mature you are).

I am a mom, and that is something that I value so much, I cannot tell you.

However.

However, I find that as a mom of one, I have a lot of fears I don't think some of my friends have. I worry, what if something happens to my brave, beautiful daughter? What if I lose her? How will I live? How will I survive? I will not. That's the simple answer. I would have no reason to at that point. I've confessed this rather odd and disconcerting fear to friends of multiple children, and they confessed they had the same fear. One even went so far as to tell me that when her second was born, one of her first thoughts (besides, "Thank god *that's* over", and "Hey, a baby!" I'm sure) was, "Good. Now if something happens to baby one, I will have a reason to continue."

Part of me wonders if this is in our genetic makeup. I have reason to believe it's in mine. My great-grandmother on my mother's paternal side had 16 children. Two died at birth, and the rest all survived. They were a farming family, and they needed lots of boys to help with the farm and lots of girls to feed them all. Also, they are French Catholics, so that might have something to do with it.

I always loved my large, extended family. My mom has 56 cousins on ONE side. Family reunions consist of literally hundreds of people. Somewhere in the vicinity of 350 last time, I think. There's a reason we only have it once every four years. Our family is loud with everyone swearing (in French, of course), and there's always too much food and too much wine and too many people, but it's great. Kids never go hungry, and there's always someone to play with, whether you're seven and chasing your cousins (and second cousins and third cousins, and sometimes aunts and uncles who happen to be the same age as you), or you're an adult and kicking ass and taking names at cards.

Anyway, I got sidetracked. I love big families. Love them. I've always wanted one. I remember as a kid telling my mom I wanted 12 kids. My mom thought I was crazy, but I wanted to own a bus and drive those kids to school in a short bus. Now that I think about it, that would've been a very stupid idea, but even now, I want three biological children and at least one adopted child (older, so the plan was always to adopt them later in life in order to provide them with the means to best meet their needs). But here we are, facing reality, and reality is we may have an only child.

Adoption is expensive, and we are in no place right now to shell out big bucks for a baby or to provide a stable home and welcome an older child with special needs in. We simply would not have the time to properly support them. My husband is halfway through his master's degree, and we both work.

In vitro fertilization is much more expensive in this province than we originally thought. It's $5,700 for the procedure, one shot, and an additional $5,000 in medication, which may or may not be covered through our healthcare plan.

And my smart, beautiful daughter is almost five. I so wanted her to experience being a sibling, and have someone in her life that would be constant, even after Robbie and I are gone. Right now, I find it so hard to watch my friends and family members get pregnant all around me. I have massive pangs of jealousy when I see their pictures on Facebook. It makes me thoroughly mad when they complain about their pregnancies. Truly, it's not them. It's me. It's that I can't seem to have a second child. My body is broken somehow. And more than anything, I feel secondary. I'm secondary. It feels like my desires are secondary to everybody else's, even though I know it's not the case, and there's no such thing as a universe exacting revenge (at least, I don't believe so), and if anything, I'm a good person who tries hard to be good to others, so if there IS Karma, my goodness should count for something, right?!

We find out definitively next week if we can have children at all. Once and for all, I will know. We make our choice from there. From now on, though, I do not want to be labeled as secondary. I would like to be called "willing to do it all again."

A Promise Broken

Well...crap. Sorry, dudes. I apparently fell off the face of the earth. It's been a ridiculously busy week with work. Not to mention they had a server crash, and there was a REALLY stupid mistake (not on my part) that screwed me over and put me behind, so stuff was Cra. Zy.

Anyway. Tomorrow. TOMORROW, I will show you those things I promised in my last post. PROMISE.

A Promise Made

Sorry I've been away for a while. Dealing with hard news is, well, hard to deal with. The HSG was supposed to take place tomorrow, but alas, it will not. The doctor had a family emergency and will be out of the office for two weeks. So next cycle I will brave the procedure and get it done. *sigh*

In other news, I have stuff to show you tomorrow. Tonight I am working a lot, and tomorrow I will have time to write a decent post and show you some pictures. Here's what I'm promising:

1) My stash. I went through it all in a fit of cleaning, and I'm tossing a whole box of crap, and looking for a shelter or a group to donate two big bags full of yarn to (all acrylic), and currently have a Rubbermaid bin full of yarn, a Rubbermaid bin full of fibre, a basket full of works in progress, and a large beach bag full of sock yarn.

2) My projects. I'm spinning for a new project. Pepper and I have spent too much time apart lately, and I gave him a good oiling and a good cleaning, and we've been hanging out.

3) Some wicked stash additions. I got the best little purchase in the mail last week. In a rather significant box. Also, Annie had some great fibre from a destash that I got. YAY.

4) A new picture of moi. 28 pounds, folks. 28 pounds lighter is a significant amount.

Official Diagnosis

A few weeks ago, I met with the OB/GYN who did my surgery, and we discussed exactly the findings. I also got a copy of the report. Here's the info:

1. The big cyst was not attached to an ovary. It was literally hanging out in the pelvic cavity, attached to nothing. Very odd. It was removed without incident and was benign.
2. The smaller cyst was attached to the right ovary, and removed without incident. It was benign.
3. The right fallopian tube is adhered to the pelvic wall, kinked and heavily scarred.
4. The right ovary is adhered to the uterus and heavily scarred.
5. The left ovary is very minimally scarred.
6. The left fallopian tube is very minimally scarred and very minimally adhered to the uterus.
7. Chances for conception on the right side are significantly reduced.
8. Chances for conception on the left side are minimally reduced and should work as normal.
9. Histology of the scarring is suspected to be the infection post-partum from a bad stitch job by a newbie doctor and/or a uterine infection in December of 2009, cause unknown.
10. The cysts are not expected to recur.
11. The endometrial biopsy was normal, suspected chronic inflammation caused by diet (it dropped significantly after I stopped consuming copious amounts of shit).
12. There was no sign or symptoms of endometriosis, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, poly-cystic ovaries, or malignancy.

The verdict: I need to have what's called a hysterosalpingogram, which is where they shoot dye through your lady bits and image them via ultrasound to make sure everything's clear. But at this point, we could have normal fertility or very reduced fertility. I have been trying to come to terms with the chance of never conceiving again. We are not willing to go to IVF (IUI would not work if the fallopian tubes are blocked). I am not sure how far we would go with hormone treatments, and surgery may be an option if the fallopian tubes are blocked.

So. Half shitty, half good, I guess.

On Being Thankful

There's a lot to be said about thanks. So often, it comes off as this flippant, habitual response to nearly anything people say or do. I must say thanks or thank you at least 20 times a day, and I write it even more. In fact, I sign nearly every email with a thanks. To be honest, I rarely mean it.

So it's nice that there's one weekend a year for being thankful for all the really awesome things that one has in their life. For us here in Canada, that's this weekend, Thanksgiving weekend. It's no different than the American Thanksgiving. Well, I guess we don't have the pilgrims. But it's the turkey and the trimmings and the stuffing and the wishbone breaking and the family and pumpkin pie and wine and laughter and company. It's my grandma's kitchen and warm buns and fresh jam and combines in the field and fall jackets and walks to nowhere for no particular reason. It's my grandpa's hugs, my mom's smile, my dad's laugh, and me and my brother being terrible winners at cards.

And it's my daughter dressing up like a princess and my husband holding my hand while we fall asleep in our warm, safe, secure home.

When I share in this weekend, I don't need to remember all the things I'm thankful for because they're all around me and at their best.

New Pattern: Lace Sampler Scarf

Hello folks!

I've just released my fourth pattern on Ravelry. It's the Lace Sampler Scarf, and it's purdy.



It's four panels, with a fifth that you can either design or leave blank or leave out entirely. It's a nice, fast knit, and I'm so excited to wear it for winter!! I've never owned a hand-knit scarf before (I know, I know, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD knitter).



The best part is that for a limited time, this pattern is free! Only till December 1st, so if you have Christmas knitting that you want to get a head start on, this is the pattern for you!

Click here to go to the pattern page (Ravelery only).

Weighing in.

I weighed in a day early today because my nutritionist is not in the office tomorrow. I lost another two pounds! Let me tell you, I have not seen this weight since Elodie was one. I feel so much better, look so much better, and I'm enjoying my new way of life. (I may or may not be eating chips right now...as a reward)

Also, I have some more finished objects to show you!

First up is my lace sampler scarf that I designed for the Knitting Room's introductory lace class that I'll be teaching next month.



The scarf has four main lace panels, which are repeated, as well as "blanks" for the knitter to design their own or leave plain stocking stitch.



Because this scarf is knit with my own handspun, and I didn't have the exact yardage figured, I did end up having to cut out a repeat near the end so that I could finish the scarf. I literally had less than a yard left.

Next, I did some contract knitting last week. A lovely person from my town hired me to knit two baby scarves. These were knit with *cashmere*. All I can say is lucky baby.



I really enjoyed this pattern. It was super fast and adorable. For the scarves themselves, I pinned out the pink one while blocking, while I laid the white one flat to dry. You can see the difference in the sizes. Just goes to show you what a difference blocking makes.



I've also finished Terra's baby blankie, but I'm not going to post the completed pictures until it's in her hands. I love surprises!

Weigh In Friday

I got weighed in on Friday. I lost another 2.75 pounds, which is awesome! It was also the second day of my cycle, so I was pretty bloated. I'm down to 169 pounds and now have a BMI of 27.2. YAY ME!

My goal is to lose 2.5 pounds each week until Christmas. That'll be a weight loss of 55 pounds in six months. Not sure if I can do it, but it'll be awesome if I can!

Awesome.

So this is the BEST blog I've read in a long time.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

It's a comic/humor blog, and seriously, it's unique and funny and well written. If you have a chance, check it out.

A Woman of my Word

I promised you pictures, and pictures you shall have.

I currently have four projects on the go, three you can see and one secret one. I'm working on a goal-weight cardigan.



This little curly-Q is going to be a cardigan. I'm going to steek (AH), and it'll have raglan decreases for the arms. Here's a picture of my stranded pattern (I'm designing this).



I'm knitting it to fit me minus 30 pounds (my goal weight). So about a size six or eight.

Next on the docket is a baby blankie that I'm finishing up for my friend Terra. See, Terra is expecting a little munchkin in March, and wants to knit only wee baby things. I can't say I blame her, so she bribed me (with lace) to finish this blanket. It's Hemlock Ring, also known as the Swamp Thing pre-blocking.



I'm just really excited to be casting off. Really excited.



The cast off for Hemlock Ring takes FOREVER because it's essentially like knitting three rows while casting off a blocked edge, and in between every four stitches, you increase five to make the hole. It's a nightmare, but worth the result.

And finally, I'm going to be teaching a beginner's lace class at The Knitting Room in October. So I'm designing a little sampler scarf for the students.



It consists of four blocks--

Joined Rectangles


Spiders


Arrowhead


Wandering Ivy


And then one more block that the students will design together as a class to really understand how to chart lace.


I think the overall effect is quite pretty and delicate looking, but they're not particularly complicated patterns. Contact Annie at the store if you'd like to join.

The pattern will be available for purchase on Ravelry once the class is over. :)


Oh, and the other thing I promised. As of today, I have lost 20 pounds. In three months. As my great-grandmother would have said, Hokey Ned.

Stay Tuned

I know I haven't been posting much lately. Tomorrow, however, I will be posting my weigh-in update and pictures of a blanket I'm finishing for a friend and a new cardigan I'm designing for myself. Check in...

YAY

Resolve.

It's over. I'm home. Surgery went...well, as good as can be expected, I suppose. Once my doctor got in there, he discovered that he could do just laprascopic surgery, so there was no additional slicing, dicing or hospital stay. Just three punctures, one in my bell button (the most painful), one underneath my belly button on the bikini line and one above my right ovary. They removed one 11cm cyst, one 3cm cyst and took a good look at the lady bits.

Here's the news. My right ovary and fallopian tube are 50% damaged from what he thinks might be endometriosis. The left ovary is 5% damaged, and the left tube is undamaged. However, there was no current evidence of endometriosis seen in the cavity, and my edometrial biopsy looked good. There was no cancer, no lumps, no things that shouldn't have been there (save for the cysts), and so he says that I have a very good chance of conceiving, perhaps using Clomid or something like that to stimulate that lefty.

As for the surgery, I remember crying because I was afraid and regretting not bringing my daughter's teddy bear in the operating room with me (it was in my bag). They told me to take some deep breaths with the oxygen mask, so I did. Then they said, we're turning on the medication. So I took another deep breath. They said, take one more. I took one more and then the next thing I remember, I was being wheeled into recovery. I had a dream while out, but I don't remember what it was about.

In recovery, I cried more (apparently the drugs can make people really emotional), and tried to keep my eyes open. My throat hurt from the breathing tube, and my voice was scratchy, but after coughing a bit, that went away. They monitored me for about half an hour, and then I was sent back into day surgery. I fell asleep pretty much instantly for an hour and a half.

When I woke up from that nap, I had to pee, so I stood up and waddled to the bathroom (with some help from a nurse). While in the bathroom, I totally blanched, and nearly barfed. I just had this horrific wave of nausea wash over me (a few times). Apparently I opened the door as white as a sheet, and I was broken out in a cold sweat. They put me back in bed and tossed a bag of Gravol onto my IV. I slept more.

Elodie and Robbie apparently were ducking in and out throughout this time. Finally, at 6:00, I felt well enough to sit up again, and get dressed. Robbie wheeled me down to the car, and then drove me home. I went to bed. I slept. There may have been some macaroons eaten. Robbie cooked me tomato soup for dinner. It was the best tomato soup ever (especially considering I hadn't eaten since 10:00 p.m. the night before).

Today, I'm sore. I mean, I'm as sore as yesterday, but in a different way. The bellybutton incision is hurting the most at this point, and I'm bloated and tired. There was quite a bit of pain from the gas that was used to inflate my tum, and it was radiating into my shoulder. But I can't complain really. My cyst is gone. My body is going to recover quickly. I am healthy. I'm sad about my ovarian damage, but I think with eating the right way, eating well, it's okay. I will be fine. It will handle the damage.

So. ONWARD! 2011 will be my year for a baby!!!

Weigh-in Friday

I'm down three and a half pounds this week. Not bad.

So Long...

My great-uncle and godfather, Danny, passed away today. He was not yet 60.

I hadn't seen him in the last decade, but my memories of him stand out. He had a strong jaw, sparkly eyes and a wry grin. He was quick to tease. He cracked jokes almost constantly. He bought me screwdrivers at my great-aunt's wedding (more orange juice than vodka, now that I remember it), and he showed me how to find the North Star one night at a family reunion by following the two stars of the Big Dipper. I still look for it whenever I spot the dipper.

Part of me is screaming, GO TO THE FUNERAL! Although I am no longer religious, he was my godfather, and that counts as something to me still. He was my favourite great-uncle, and by far one of the funniest. In a family like mine, it's hard to stand out with so many people. I have 18 first cousins, and my mom has well over 50 firsts on just one side. But stand out Danny did.

If anything good can be said of this, he was taken while still young, before being sapped of strength and wit and humour. He was taken after he'd raised his children, and when he'd seen his grandkids, and when they have formed lasting memories of him.

I just feel so awful for my aunt, and so sad that I cannot go to say goodbye due to my surgery. For one long moment, I considered cancelling it, but I can't. I just can't keep waiting for it, and goodness knows how long it would take for me to get an appointment. Probably three months. So I will think of Danny, and send positive thoughts to my aunt. I will look for the North Star every time I see the Big Dipper, and I will remember him.

Nervously Awake

The time is 12:11. I cannot sleep. The reason, I believe, is two-fold. One, it is fricking hot in my house. The dogs both pant like mad under the bed, and unless I'm exhausted, it's just an exercise in annoyance. Two, and perhaps the more truthful reason I've laid in bed for the last hour, stared at the ceiling, tossed and turned, counted sheep (what else?) and let rather loud, long sighs escape from my mouth is that I'm nervous. You see, Monday, I go into surgery.

Now, I'm a very healthy person. I mean, I haven't always eaten healthy, and I don't always exercise the way I'm supposed to, but I'm rarely ill. I only get one or two bad colds a year, which is pretty darn good, considering my child comes home from day care every day covered in goodness knows what kind of germs, and my husband seems to be a walking case of tonsillitis. I have never broken a bone. I've never had to stay overnight in a hospital for a reason other than having completed the cycle of growing a small, screaming human and pushing said screaming human out of somewhere the sun don't shine. Hell, I haven't even had stitches since I was two and fell off a table. But in four days, I will be willingly going into a hospital, going under general anesthetic, getting an IV (!!!), getting cut open, and having a piece of ME removed. True, it's not a good piece. It's a really crappy piece, a hanger-on, something that MUST go, but it's still a piece of ME.

And here's the other kicker. I won't know exactly what kind of surgery I'm getting until I wake up from it. See, in case I haven't mentioned, my cyst is a whopping ten centimetres in diametre. Or it was at its largest. It's since shrunk by about a centimetre and is 9.1 in diametre now, but come on! That's a SWATCH!!! Only it's a 3-D swatch, so it's like a 10-cm diametre swatch knitted in the round! And they don't know exactly what it is. We know almost definitively that it is not a tumor. Tumors don't shrink, for one thing, and they're usually not filled with fluid, for another. But they still may need to take the thing whole, and when they get in there with a laproscopy (medical talk for a periscope-esque tube that is inserted into the affected area through which non-invasive surgery can be done), if the cyst does need to come out whole, they'll cut me open, remove said cyst, and then staple and stitch me up.

I'm a planner, and this idea that I won't find out if it's a day surgery versus a three-night stay surgery is rather...terrifying. And generally speaking, I'm a little bossy, and not having control of what's going to happen is also terrifying. So I'm awake, consoling myself with some cherries, debating putting a movie on and knitting, and generally not happy.

I just have to keep reminding myself, this is for our family's future. This is so we can have another baby. This is to achieve that goal. A quick surgery is surely better than another two years of trying, right? RIGHT?! Beuler?

Weigh-In Friday (Monday) and Update...

I went to my weigh-in on Friday, and I was pleased to find I hadn't gained anything while on vacation. Considering all the eating I did (and not mentioning the drinking...), that makes me very happy. I had an ultrasound last week, and I'm pleased to announce that my diet change is working. Not only have I shed some major pounds and dropped at least one dress size in just under three months, but I've also started healing.

My endometrial lining, which was excessively thickened just three months ago, is now normal. My cysts are smaller. Not significantly so, but one centimetre on each of them. I'm still going in for surgery next week, but I'm going in much less terrified. Tumors don't shrink, you see.

So overall, I'm feeling great, looking good, and you know, when we start trying again, we might stand a fighting chance.

ONWARD!

Revelstoke Socks

I just released my third pattern! YAY! I'm well on track for meeting my design goal this year of five.

Allow me to introduce Revelstoke Socks.



I am so, SO happy with how they turned out. Do check out the Rav page.

This pattern is available for purchase for $3.00 CDN.

Home Sweet Home

Our vacation ended on Saturday, which was sad, but okay. We did the whole drive from Vancouver to Calgary in one day, which is crazy - especially when your husband is POSITIVE that the Coquihalla Highway is NOT the fastest or even correct route to Calgary, despite both his wife AND the GPS telling him it is, and therefore lengthens the trip from twelve hours to fourteen by taking the Trans Canada. This was only slightly improved by my ability to spout snarky one-liners the entire way home. "Good thing I bought two pounds of cherries or we surely would have starved." "Good thing I brought an extra ball of yarn." And my personal favorite, "Hey, look! Jackass Mountain!"

Anyway, we trucked in at 11:00 at night and all fell into bed. And can I just say, to those makers of in-car DVD players, may the yarn gods swathe you in fluffy goodness for the rest of your days. I feel like they should be on those Visa commercials. You know, carrot sticks, $1, Dora the Explorer water bottle, $5, in-car DVD player, $100. Sanity? Effing priceless, my friends.

Now then, a brief photo montage of our trip. :)

Hitting the road


Pit stop one


Tea in the Enchanted Forest!!!


Playing in the lake near Revelstoke


Our accommodations for the night (which rocked).


Day two of travel - thank you, video gods!


Jellies in the Vancouver Aquarium.


Watching the dolphins


Big tree in Lynn Canyon


Ate gelatto on Granville Island


Played in Deep Cove (home of my awesome aunt and uncle and their family, who were nice enough to host us for a week)


Knit while waiting for the ferry to go to Vancouver Island


Entertained the guy behind me (he thought I was nuts, I'm sure)


Visited friends and their cute arse children


Saw sheep! Who have LONG tails.


Got a family picture to treasure


Saw lots of slugs


Ate the best sushi ever in Tofino


Caught crabs (the good kind)


Rinsed a very nekkid, very sandy little girl off in a very cold ocean. Not pleasant, but cute.


Hunted for seashells on Long Beach near Tofino (it's as cold as it looks).


Watched Elodie discover the joy of the side ponytail


Checked out Cathedral Grove and the 800 year old tree


Figured out the shawls are also good for cooling off statues so little bums can sit on them


Poked some (already dead) jelly fish with sticks


Saw the HUGEST spider I've ever seen in Canada.


Played on the Spanish Banks


So there you have it! Our travels. It was terrific, and we really enjoyed it. The weather was spectacular, with only one day of rain the whole time.

Oh, and those socks up there? Revelstoke socks. Pattern coming soon!