For more pictures....

of our train trip... rather than post them all here... take a look at my Flickr page... a link is on the right hand side of the page. They are all in a set labeled "California Train Trip" (or something like that). I'm still not done uploading them all, still have about 100 pictures to get in there, but there's plenty to see already, hope you enjoy them!

On the knitting front, I've finished one of my Mirrored Nutkins and now feverishly working sock #2. Have yet to start the SWTC cardigan, but perhaps will cast on for that sometime today. The cardigan is knit up in their luscious new yarn called "Therapi". It's a wool/silk blend, with some jadeite in it also. Really is lovely yarn to work with (when is silk not lovely to work with). Does split ever so slightly once in a while, but really not often. It doesn't felt well, but can be spit spliced (someone explain that to me). I'll post some pics later this week if I do cast on so you all can take a look-see.

So the next few weeks will be very busy here in the Kneedler's household: recouping from our trip; school starting for the kids on the 11th; starting up my business; and my in-laws will be moving here from Maryland. My mother-in-law has been suffering from Parkinson's for the past 15-16 years, so she will be moving into assisted living or a nursing home. My father-in-law will be living in our guest house for the time being, although I suspect that won't last more than a year or so due to his recently degrading health as well. Thank G-d for knitting and racewalking to keep me some sanity, I could use all the help I can get!!

Speaking of racewalking, that has been missing a bit in my life this past month. Honestly, I think I've walked once so far this month. With the vacations, there just wasn't much opportunity or time, so that has fallen by the wayside for several weeks. But I knew that would happen, and now that we're home again, I'm ready to get my training up and running again. It's very hot here this week, and workouts will need to be very early in the morning. I'm thinking I should start with some 30-60 minute workouts in the pool instead with the flotation belt on. Pool running is a great alternative here in the desert when 'quality' road workouts are nonexistent once it gets too warm (which is anytime after about 8am). I'm looking forward to going to Dave's advanced camp in October, so I better get my butt in gear for that. Then in late January, I'm hosting a regular racewalking clinic here at my home. If you're interested in learning to racewalk, Dave's weekender clinics are second to none. See his website here to learn more: Dave's World Class Racewalking

Back in May I had mentioned that the kids and I were looking to lose weight over the summer. I'm happy to report that we were successful!! I lost about 10lbs, my older Boy lost something like 15lbs or maybe more, and the younger boy lost about 8lbs. Not a huge amount on the grand scale of things, but definitely steps in the right direction. Surprisingly, I didn't gain any weight on vacation despite eating crap pretty much the whole time (although we did make efforts to control portions and make smart food decisions). I guess all that walking around and lugging around the huge duffle bags and backpacks all the time helped out too. Yay again for train travel!!

Lastly, just wanted to mention again how cool it was to travel by train. Not only did we get to see scenery not available from the concrete highway, but it was actually a very eco-conscious mode of travel. It is 17% more efficient than air travel, and 21% more efficient that traveling by car - on a per passenger per mile basis. Awesome!! In addition, when in our various locations, we used the local mass transit, especially in San Francisco, every chance we could. We rarely sat in a car for the entire 10 days, which is awesome for a family vacation for 4 covering more than 1000 miles.
I found that using an Amtrak pass was the most economical as well, and highly recommend that anyone thinking of traveling via rail consider getting one. One price covers all your rail needs over a set period of days. And it's usually far cheaper than buying each rail ticket on its own. Check it out here: Amtrak passes

Onward.......

San Francisco!

Thought I'd share a few pics from San Fran so far...one more day here then it's back to So Cal.

AT&T Park for a Giants Game

Cool Jellyfish at the Aquarium

Gate to Chinatown

Me knitting on the train to SF

Our tour bus powered by Biodiesel!! Yeah, baby!

Angels and Red Sox

Just a quick pic of the older Boy and the Kneedle's Mama - at the Angels/Red Sox game today. It was a beautiful day, warm but breezy, and best of all, the Angels beat the evil Red Sox machine AGAIN! Yay Angels! We were surrounded by Red Sox fans (gawd, they are everywhere aren't they??), but we screamed back to all their rally cries and now I have a raspy voice....

Clicking of rails and needles

So we've finally made it to So Cal. Our train was 2hours late picking us up at the Maricopa AZ Amtrak station the other night, and arrive almost 4 hours late into LA. It was a long, but enjoyable trip, the kids seemed to like it too! So while we had a sleeper room (actually 2 roomettes as they are called), I couldn't sleep all night. The noise and swaying were a bit hard for me to get used to right off the bat. I did catch a few cat naps along the way thankfully later during the trip. And a really good night's sleep at my mom's has me completely caught up. I kept myself very occupied with knitting during the trip, which made me very happy. Matter of fact, I could've just kept going on the train until I ran out of yarn!

OK, so here's a few pics of our trip so far:

Socks pictures

As promised, I'm posting pics of the socks I was working on in May. My mom's Tidal Wave socks in Plucky Knitter BFL fingering, colorway is Persian Rug. The green ones are my Mini-me Detonators in Tofutsies.

Picture of Mirrored Nutkins didn't come through in the previous post, so here they are:

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation

Just returned from a fantastic knitting retreat weekend in the mountains of Arizona! It was great to get out of the heat and hang out with my fiber obsessed friends.

And now, I'm getting the family ready to head out for our annual vacation. This year we're taking the train! With gas prices so high, and airlines even more expensive and unpredictable, we figured train would be the most enjoyable and give us the most bang for our $buck$. We're taking the train from AZ to California, hanging out with my mom for 2 days, catching an Angels game, and then heading up to San Fran and Yosemite for 4 days (also catching the Stitch n Pitch Giants game while we are there). Then heading back down to So Cal, and to Legoland before heading back to AZ on the 27th. All this travel for less than $1000 for the 4 of us!!! We're using the California Rail pass on the Amtrak, so affordable it can't be beat.

Of course, all this rail travel will provide me with lots of knitting time (big fat grin)! But with limited space in our bags, I'm only taking up 3 projects: a pair of socks already in progress; a cardigan, and yarn for another pair of socks just to have something small to constantly be working on.

In progress are my Mirrored Nutkins in my own handdyed yarn:




When I return from vacation, I'll be working on getting my Etsy shop up and running with my handdyed yarns. At least now I have a name for it: Gecko Yarns! So keep a lookout for updates on that. Right now, I'm in the process of getting all the yarn off the cones and into skeins and dyed up. I'm hoping around August 15th, I'll have 15-20 skeins ready to put up in the shop. Of course, I'll give a sneak peek here first :)

Off to do laundry and get those suitcases packed for our trip!