Mollys

Here's one last entry that you should skip if you're not fond of pictures of kids on vacation...

Molly has been in love with Molly McIntire for about a year, since she discovered the books at the library. We finally found time to go to American Girl Place in Chicago and get her one last month.

The entire store experience is enchanting. 

 We found Molly!





Did you get the picture yet?



She didn't really get excited until Molly came out of her box. 

I wish I could bottle that. 

Then Molly had to go around and talk with all the other dolls.

After we got Molly (and a whole lot of other stuff), we went to have dinner at the cafe.









Molly didn't like it when they sang happy birthday, but *loved* the gluten and casein free cupcake.














Later we all took a carriage ride around Chicago.













On which Molly was not tired.


















Next morning Molly and Molly got ready for breakfast. Finally time to break out the sweaters.
(By the way, the sweaters were finished in the nick of time. The doll version was still damp from blocking when we left and had to be laid out in the van to dry).

She really, really, REALLY did NOT want to go back to the American Girl Store for breakfast. We couldn't figure it out. She'd liked dinner.

Finally we realized she thought she would have to give Molly back.




 

Once she realized she got to keep her, it was good.















I think she had more fun at breakfast than dinner. Both were great, though.

















After breakfast we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Molly told me several times that morning that she didn't want to go to the zoo, but I was sure she'd like it when we got there, so we went anyway.

She was right, she didn't want to go.

She had a little fun watching the otters, but mostly she didn't like the zoo at all.





Proof that Caitie is a monkey.






















Molly wasn't *really* happy until we got to the beach.











 





But THAT?


















That is sheer joy.




Randomness

The week in between trips mostly centered around me finishing this in time for it to be worn in in Chicago.



And a little bit of working on this blue thing, which is so so so soft and yummy. (More about that later).

And also finishing up this custom order.
There was so much excess dye in these pants that it turned my hands blue every time I went to knit. You can see the exact way I hold my yarn.
So I had to rinse them out before I could do the embellishments, to make sure the blue didn't end up all over the other stuff.
This is how much dye came out the first time I dunked them. It was so blue that I saved the water.

Meanwhile I had to experiment with getting the right shade of green for a custom order dip dye.
Which I finally got.
I had so much dye left over from rinsing the pants and dipping the sack that I made this while I was waiting for the pants to dry.






Here's what I ended up with.
The seahorse is doing a nice job of filling in the weird spot where the yarn pooled on that leg.

And the back.
I'm rather proud of how these came out.

Next up... Chicago.


Finale

The end of the vacation blog posting is near. And there's a little bit of knitting in it since this is a knitting blog after all.

(on and by the way, Laurie commented on yesterday's post that Caitie (10) is catching up to Molly (8). That would be because Caitie finally talked me into buying her shoes with heels. Take a look, you can see them. She's still quite a bit shorter :)

There was lots of camp stuff.
Rob and Caitie decided they had to make a bridge/dam across this stream. It was a big production.

Look how small it is here.




And now much wider it is here.
Ontario Place was a hit.
This is the blue slide, the top of which is supposed to provide a view of the nude beach on the Island. Caitie and I couldn't really see anything.



Caitie got to be in charge of her first campfire. It was a good one.
One of my favorite things about where we were was Teepee Steve.
He's a native who lives for the summer at this site right next to where we were at Glen Rouge, and does outreach education for kids. Several groups of kids came and went while we were there and when we were around they let our kids join in.
Steve took down one of his teepees and let our kids put it back up.
There were also groups of natives camping nearby who entertained us at night with really cool drumming and singing.



The fat ballsy racoons came back several times, but they didn't get anything else after the bacon.
In addition to the skirt I worked on around the campfire, I also knit the second of this pair of socks (Plymouth Sockotta, cotton blend, LOVE these)
and the first one of these (Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, Blackwatch).
I also did a bit of work on a silk/bamboo blend tank that I am in love with but pretty much did not take out of the car because I did not want to hurt the pretty yarn.
So on the last day we drove from Toronto to Niagara Falls. And dude, Niagara Falls is cool.
I've been there before, but not in many years. It does not get old.
Ignore the hair. It's impossible to be near that much mist and not have huge insane hair. There are several pictures of me and this is the only one where my hair isn't sticking straight out to the sides like Pippi Longstocking.

This picture is from the Cave of the Winds, a tunnel where you can stand underneath the falls, which is a little... disturbing. And cool, at the same time.
There's also a tunnel that comes out next to the falls. It's a lot cooler than this. I was insanely paranoid about getting my camera wet. You just can't believe how much mist there is.

Here's the American falls from the Canadian side. Caitie thought that it would be a lot more dangerous to go over that side because of all the rocks.
Yeah. That would be why.
Do you see all the little yellow dots off to the right by the little skinny branch (called Bridal Veil) of the falls ? That is the Cave of the Winds, which I thought was the coolest thing there when I was there 25 years ago (oh man was it really 25?).
I still think it's the coolest thing.
We crossed over back to the states in the evening because we wanted to see the falls at night.
(Incidentally, it's really *really* hard to take pictures of moving water with lights on it in the dark. Being worried about your very expensive camera getting wet does not help.)
If you go up to the top level ("Hurricane Deck") you get ridiculously wet and blown around. I do not have any pictures of anyone doing that because, it's ridiculously wet.
This is the rocks Caitie was talking about, where I dropped my camera lens while trying desperately not to get the camera wet by keeping it in a plastic bag.
Totally worth it though.
We left Niagara falls for home around 10, planning on driving an hour or 2 to a hotel outside of tourist central and saving ourselves a little cash.
Unfortunately the only hotel we saw for several hours was $100, which we were sure we could beat, so we went on. When we got to Pennsylvania (just a little corner of it), we stopped again, but there were no rooms. We stopped at a second and third place, still no rooms. Someone told us there was something called the Roar on the Shore in Erie.
So ok, we drove on to Ohio. STILL no rooms. What the heck? We never did find out what was going on, but there were NO rooms anywhere. We had a AAA book and called dozens of hotels, all of them were full. We finally gave up at about 3 am and decided to drive straight through. Cause the kids were asleep the whole time and they were going to be up at 7am whether we stopped or not.
We stopped and slept for an hour or something or other at a truck stop before moving on. Who the heck knows when you're that tired. It sucked so bad. And I didn't get *any* knitting done in the car on the way home. Not one stitch.

We got home around 9 am as tired as I think I have ever been. It was worth it cause the trip rocked, but if I could have skipped the overnight driving, it woulda been better.



Yes, again.

Did I mention that I took over 1000 pictures on this trip? That's what happens when you go on vacation with a new camera that takes really fast pictures. But there's actual knitting related stuff in this entry, at least.

We made a quick stop at the Purple Purl, which is a lovely little shop. I almost fell down and spent $60 on some pretty silk/linen, but I resisted, and got out spending a little less on some pretty lilac yarn that Caitie and I want to share.


Then we took the ferry to Center Island, which the kids loved.
Terrorist Fist Jab
The ferry, in addition to being really fun if you're a 5 year old boy, gives you a great view of Toronto.
We visited Franklin's Garden, which was concluded to be "lame".
I was sworn to never show this picture to any of Caitie's friends. Since I'm pretty sure none of her friends read my blog, I think I'm safe.
There was more beach (still cold).

It was a beautiful day.
Looking back through the pictures now I can see what happened.

Rob was taking this flattering picture of my back side, when Molly wandered off. She got really very lost, and what followed was a ridiculous chase with me and a guy who worked there who had a walkie talking running around from place to place and getting bits if information. Is she wearing pink shoes? Saw her running by the petting zoo. Someone saw a girl in a pink skirt running over the bridge. Apparently several people tried to ask her if she was lost, but she just looked at them blankly and ran away. Everywhere we ran to where they just saw her, but she wasn't there anymore. And I am not a good runner. Running = difficulty breathing. Not good.

I could totally envision her getting on the ferry by herself and was fairly well freaking out by the time someone else who worked there finally caught her and held on to her until we got there.

Dinner and a beer later, I was almost back to normal. The guy who chased her down with me ended up being our waiter, and he ended up dumping a tray of drinks all over himself, which was hilarious and totally made my day. He got a very big tip.
After dinner I went back to Lettuce Knit for knit night (Rob took the kids back to High Park).

It turned out to be Megan's baby shower, so there were a TON of people there. It was a little weird to crash her shower. Apparently it's a pretty regular occurence for someone from out of town to come on knit night. Stephanie sprayed me with some kind of miracle air conditioner stuff that she said was the best thing American's ever invented. I don't know if I would go *THAT* far. I mean there was that whole lightbulb thing. But it was pretty cool.

I sat in the back off to the left and boggled that a baby would be so loved as to recieve so many gorgeous hand knits. I thought about Kinnearing Stephanie, but decided it's not possible to pull off with my big new camera, a down side I had not foreseen. I had some nice conversations with several Toronto knitters whose names I completely couldn't remember when I got back and wanted to look them up in ravelry. If anyone knows who the maker of the Elizabeth Zimmermann longies and sweater were, let me know.

Rob came back around dusk with everyone and Caitie jumped out exclaiming "I want to meet the Yarn Harlot!" Stephanie was a very good sport about it (you get the feeling that probably happens to her a lot), and we had a nice chat about fun things to do in or around Toronto. Caitie was a little star struck. (So was I, really.) We mentioned we were going to Ontario Place the next day and Stephanie gave Caitie the tip that you can see the nude beach on the Island from the top of the blue slide.

Rob blinded us all with the strobe light on my camera before we had to take off. (See very pregnant Megan behind me?)
Caitie declared after we drove away "The Yarn Harlot is weird - but in a good way." That's really high praise from a 10 year old.
And this was about 3 minutes after we got on the road back to our camp site.

Toronto Again

So, if pictures of kids on vacation bore or offend you, move along. Nothing to see here.

If not:

After Caitie and I left Lettuce Knit, we met up with everyone else at High Park. If you have kids, and you visit Toronto, you should totally visit High Park because it was very fun, and free. There is an adventure playground, designed and built by kids, that was really very cool and I don't know how I ended up with no pictures of it. When I asked Sean what his favorite part of the trip was, he said High Park.

There is also a small zoo, where we saw this peacock being cocky.



And this capybara, which was very exciting when we saw the sign. Last year Caitie did a school project on the rainforest and she learned a lot about capybaras, which are the largest rodents in the world.

All I could think of was that it was a real R.O.U.S.
There was also this animal. You might think it's a mountain goat, but it's actually a Barbary sheep. Basically it's a sheep without wool. What's the point of that?

High Park also has a big hill which is apparently really fun to run down.




And really hard not to wipe out when you do.
There were several races down and back up.
Molly learned the hard way and decided to take the long way down.

And here's the best thing about running up and down a huge hill all day.
There was even knitting.



Next day we went to the beach of Lake Ontario.

(which is cold, by the way)

But the sand was fun.