Reason to Celebrate!

But, seriously, who needs a reason? The Germans have annual fests in nearly every little village and, in this case, on a mountain-top. You can find one on any given weekend between May and October. Last weekend, we hiked up the mountain in back of the kids' week-day home, the Walberla (the link is in German, but there are more pictures and even a photo of the church on top), for the annual Walberla Fest. It was a beautiful but much more strenuous hike than I had expected.

Cian was thrilled to bits ;)

And an ice cream stand half-way up made the walk a bit easier.

Nearly there: here's a view of the fest as you round the last corner. It really helps with the last leg of the journey when you can smelled the roasted, candied almonds and the bratwursts. I admit, the sight of the beer tents may have been more motivating for some of us ;)

And the view from the top makes it all worth while. Note: I think this is a great picture since my attention was focused on not spilling my Radler (a beer and Sprite mixture that is quite refreshing after a long hike).

And I haven't forgotten how to knit. Here's a shot of my finished Regia Bamboo socks. The pooling was completely different on both socks, so I took a photo of the most interesting one. This was a great yarn to knit with and I'm having trouble with the idea of giving this pair away. Maybe I need more Regia Bamboo......

Nuremberg's Spring Volksfest!

I know, I know.....major slacker points here, lately. I have a great excuse - I've been totally run off my feet lately. My two classes at the university immediately doubled, but it's still only part time, so I'm not quitting my day job any time soon. Which makes for a very busy knitter. Happy, but busy :)

So to keep you all updated on what's been happening around here lately (that you actually WANT to hear me go on and on about), I've posted some pictures from this year's Volksfest. Please note compact knitting was stuffed into my tiny bag so as not to miss a single stitch.

















Masskrugs (liters!) of beer, greasy food stuffed in a bread roll and slathered with mustard and goofy German pop music aren't the only highlights of this event. This year, we concentrated our efforts on finding the quintessential Franconian male. This usually includes hair that is short on top and long in back, as many things as possible hanging off of his belt area, a mustache is a must and they are usually found in t-shirts or jackets with the Nuremberg Soccer club logo (FCN).

And Mom, before you start wagging your finger, it's not making fun of anyone, it's embracing the culture we live in.

Shields even took some time to appreciate the female of the species.

















And the table next to us started their own Olympic sport of stacking Krugs. It was great fun to watch, but I'm glad I wasn't in the way when they came tumbling down. One guy got a nasty smack on his hand, the glass was fine, but he was full of blood.























I'd rather jump up and down on the benches to goofy cover band and poke fun at the table of soldiers next to us who can't dance.























It was a great night in the end, we didn't drink too too much and we were completely exhausted from dancing on the benches and singing along at the tops of our lungs.

Sugar Rush

Just finished Erika's jacket for her first communion. At the beginning, I wasn't sure if I had enough white for the trim, so I perused the other colours in my stash. This lead to the great idea of using a contrasting colour for the trim. I just didn't realize it would look so much like icing on a cake. I spent last Sunday at my friend Claudia's house so that she could try and twist my fingers into something capable of crochet. It didn't catch on instantly and I obviously need to work on making my stitches even, but I'm still glad I pushed myself. I can't imagine this thing without the crochet edge. Maybe I could practice with a few granny squares this weekend.
Now.....just need to search out some buttons and pop this little darling in the mail to Florida.

I also received a lovely addition to my Knit Accessories Stash. Claudia found these clips to help with marking, clipping sides together for sewing up and just general project decoration. I never thought I'd be into something as cutsie as ladybugs, but they look soooo cool on the clips, don't they.

That's all the news there is my neck of the woods. Other than I got hired, quite suddenly, last week to teach Business English at a nearby University. The classes take place in a computer lab (very cool!) and my class-load went from 2 to 4 in about 3 seconds. I'm half jazzed, excited, thrilled and half terrified. I just hope I'm not standing at the front of the class, looking like a deer in headlights, ha ha.

Rodents Beware!

There's a dead frog under my sofa. I'm sure of it. He was hopping around last night - well hopping as much as a one-legged frog can hop - dragging what was left of his other leg-guts behind him on my newly mopped floor.
The cat didn't know what to do - he loved that the toy moved on its own and was perfectly happy to swat at it every time it attempted escape, but couldn't figure out why he kept feeling hungry - so he'd run over to his bowl and crunch on his kibbles until Kermit stirred again. Last time I saw the pair of them together was in front of the sofa in the living room. That was about the time I decided there'd been enough TV for one night and it was time for bed.
It started with the dead mouse we found last Friday in the kids room. Jackson wouldn't let us clean it up, but rather took it in his teeth and ran out the front door to the neighbor's patch of garden - where he jump and played and rolled around with the dead thing. I had this picture of the original attack where Jackson pounced furiously on this poor mouse and thrashed it around until it finally perished in his Jaws of Terror. After last night, I figure the mouse finally got tired of playing Jerry to Jackson's Tom, ran upstairs to the kids room to hide and died of boredom......

One Eventful Weekend

Turns out that the Drops Jacket can be knit in one piece - yippeee! I'm planning on finishing the right front tonight and kicking some left front ass before Sunday. My work colleague, Claudia promised to teach me how to crochet the edging. Not making any promises, but my niece might be wearing her new jacket sometime this year (a new personal best!!).

Even more exciting is how I spent my Easter Monday. Kimberly and I finally managed to meet up. She's come to visit her in-laws (who live about 75 minutes away from me) a couple of times now, but are schedules are usually all wonky. Thanks to the 4-day Easter weekend, we finally managed a day to meet up. For some reason, my camera refused to take any normal pictures - so here's an action sequence from our photo shoot attempt:

and a shot of the handsome chauffeur:

The rest of the weekend was spent cooking an Easter ham and turkey, eating said meats with veggies and sweet potatoes (not all dinner guests were impressed with that one, but me and the Venezuelan chowed down) with lots of chocolates and desserts. There was room painting, spring cleaning (please don't tell the kids how many old toys, crappy little Micky-D toys and parts of toys I threw away), picture re-arranging in the living room and general mayhem control. It's finally starting to look more like a home around here :)