New Orleans: Day 2

Buckle up, it's going to be a long, bumpy ride.

This is a typical shot of my family in action while in NOLA. 3 people with cameras all taking pictures of the same thing and my brother standing around.
Sunday was a visit to the zoo. The first thing we saw was an elephant exhibit. I was about 20 feet away from the paddock so I had a great view. They did demonstrations of how elephants are trained and used in India and other parts of Asia. And yes, that is a guy on the back of the elephant in the picture below.
The zookeeper doing the presentation at the elephant exhibit sounded and looked like a totally stereotypical California surfer and by the end of the talk had wandered off into talking about tortoises. Classic.

We saw some camels which my aunt and I decided were pretty much the perfect pet.
They can store 40 gallons of water in their body, go up to a week without having to drink again, withstand extreme and sudden changes in temperature, lose up to 25% of their body weight in sweat without dying, are excellent transportation devices, and, most importantly, you can spin their fur into yarn. I think I may get a couple.

My brother did his best impression of being a statuary.
Boy with Turtle next to Boy with Water Bottle.

Brandi climbed on stuff she wasn't supposed to...again.
I saw a bear swimming (and some dumb a$$ redneck try and spit on him. I would have loved to have seen the bear scale that wall and maul the guy to death...but I'm evil and vengeful like that.)
Got up close and personal with some baby crocs, and I don't mean the shoes.
This guy was just hanging out in the gift shop.

Saw a loose interpretation of the fabled "Swamp Monster."
He kind of looks like the Chupacabra (ugh, I hope I don't have nightmares from looking at those pictures...).

Got to see the famous white alligators.
These are not albino alligators. They are leucistic which means they lack the pigment in their skin that produces the traditional camouflage coloring. They don't have red eyes like albinos do but blue. There are only 2 examples of white alligators being found in the wild and they both occurred in Louisiana. The first time was in 1986 (or '87 depending on your source) and there were 18 hatchlings found in a nest with other, normal colored, alligators. Scientists speculate that the reason why they are so rare is that, because of their color, they are easy targets as infants to be eaten by prey.

Hmmm...this trip is turning very educational.

Brandi climbed on some more stuff...
We almost got sprayed by some bobcats (there is a reason those fences are 4 feet away from the cages).
My mom communicated with some gazelles (it's a loooooong story...).
Brandi and my brother climbed on things they weren't supposed to.
Brandi is definitely about to be eaten.

Saw some warthog love which was actually pretty cute. The male had wandered off from the female (a total of maybe 30 feet) and she came running over. They embraced in this kind of head butting/rubbing. They seemed totally elated to be reunited even though they'd been apart for less than a minute.
True examples of love can be found in the strangest of places.

Brandi laid on stuff she wasn't supposed to.
And then that night we rode the trolley to Canal Street and back just to say that we'd done it.
Thus ended my 1st trip of the summer to Louisiana. I'll be back there in a few weeks with Brandi again to visit my brother. Brother working in a different state=instant vacation destination.

Knitting wise I've been working on the following, some of which saw a little face time on the way to and from NOLA (I was too busy while I was there to do much knitting).

Test knit sweater
I've actually finished the 3 inches of garter edging and I'm about 1.5 inches into the body.

Britt's baby blanket
Half way through with this. Which is good because my aunt's already having contractions. He better stay in there until the 17th.

Pair of BIG socks for Warm Woolies
The pattern is the Perfect Fit Hiking Socks. I didn't do the stripes or the ribbing all the way up the leg (just at the top). Yarn was Cascade 220 tweed for the main color and Cascade 220 for the toes, heel flap, and ribbing at the top. My friend Carolyn graciously modeled one of the socks a few weeks ago at knit night.
Not for the normal sized foot.
But perfect for a 16 year old boy.

Big 10 socks which were a test knit for a friend on Ravelry.
These are the ones where I got to try out an afterthought heel. Turned out well. Blocking didn't totally fix the pointy toes but I think it did help. Both these pairs of socks are now dry and ready to send off.

In other knitting news I'm working on some job opportunities with my shop and getting ready to dye some more. I'll keep you posted on how all that is going :)

New Orleans: Day 1

I tried to condense the weekend into one blog post but New Orleans refused to be reduced into just a few pictures and paragraphs. So, here by popular demand, is New Orleans: Day 1. Or, Saturday.

We started at my brother's apartment
before heading down to Canal Street.
From there we went to the IMAX and saw Dinosaurs Alive! narrated by *the* Michael Douglas.
They look so real!

We climbed high and low looking for fish, birds, and sea creatures of all types.
Some enjoyed it more than others.

I'll spare you all the hundreds of pictures of random fish I took but here are 2 pretty cool ones. Some giant ells
and a shark that swam around with his mouth open all the time. I think he had lock jaw.
Next we took a little trip to the Riverwalk which a mall area on the waterfront.
We ate some beignets which my aunt declared delicious.
The aftermath was brutal. There are lots of rules for eating beignets: Don't breathe in. Don't breathe out. And under no circumstances should you shake the excessive sugar off the top.
Brandi climbed on things she wasn't supposed to (this was a reoccurring theme)
and then we visited the insectarium which is giant museum of bugs. Here's my brother getting friendly with some cockroaches.
Brandi and I chose to hang out with the butterflies instead.
Later that evening we went to Superior Grill which had the best burrito I've eaten in a long time and we took turns mimicking my parents' dog who has big droopy eyes and gets things toys stuck on his teeth from time to time.

I got my to-go cup of (rather strong) margarita and hit the town.
I fit right in. Then it was back to my brother's apartment where my dad got some first class lodging.
Tomorrow: the zoo and knitting.

P.S. Check out my future SIL, Brandi's, blog. It's a little glimpse into what it's like to join my family in our kooky adventures.

Return

I'm back from a whirlwind weekend visit to see my brother in New Orleans. Just before I left I purchased The Sims 3, a computer game, so I spent a lot of time playing that this weekend. I also did a good deal of knitting on the 8 hour car ride (when I wasn't sleeping). I do have somethings to show for it, I just haven't photographed them yet. In addition to the half a blanket I finished there's also part of a sock. I feel like I should have done more but we were really enjoying ourselves in the Big Easy. The whole fam visited the aquarium, the zoo, and the insectarium as well as chowed down on some super amazing food. I have pictures of all that too but I'll have to go through my camera to find the best ones and I don't think that's going to happen tonight. I have to be up super early tomorrow to go help at a Vacation Bible School Program that's in Athens, an hour away. My whole little "summer schedule" has been thrown out of whack. I'll get everything under control during this next week and hopefully I'll pictures posted tomorrow (when I'm not driving back and forth, getting the cat groomed, or picking up boxes of t-shirts). Check back soon!

No Excuse

A week ago I was getting over the flu. Which I guess is a good excuse for not blogging. This past week however, I have no excuse. So I guess I'll just rewind back to the middle of last week and play a little catch up.

In my family we really like to celebrate birthdays. In fact the more birthdays we can squeeze into one party the better. My birthday isn't until the end of the month but my cousin's birthday was in May and my aunt's birthday is at the beginning of June. We already took care of my brother (on the same day as my aunt's) before he left for his summer internship. My cousin cooks at a local bar and only gets 2 nights off a week. He had such a day last week so we jumped at the chance and meet up for some Japanese.
There will be more celebrations as the month goes on.

Afterwards I went over to my parents house and took some pictures of their menagerie.
Luke, their Springer Spaniel.

Dad, don't show Mom these pictures.
The kittens, all grown up. Now they all have new homes so this was the last time I got to play with them.
Melissa
T.J.
Brandi
Melissa playing with a toy.
Suede, the momma cat.
Melissa checking things out. They were so cute.

The rest of the week I actually did some work-like stuff. Meetings, re-skeining, etc. On Saturday, Mom and I went to the Georgia Renaissance Festival. It's so much fun, lots of fun sights and hair braiding.

And I have been knitting. Yesterday I was up until 3 in the morning just piddling around. At 4 minutes after midnight I cast on a sock for June Junkies Charity Knitting, a subgroup of the Malabrigo Junkies group on Ravelry.
This is where I'm at after knitting on it all day (in between cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry).

I've also been working (slowly but surely) on my Rivulets socks.
And last Thursday I went to a knit night in Woodstock with a couple of Twitter friends and got a lot done on my Prairie Blanket.
Right now I'm watching crappy television (I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here...I'm Bored, Find Me a Better T.V. Program) and still working on the sock. Maybe I'll get done with it tonight and then I'll work on the blanket and then I have a sweater I need to test knit before the end of June and then...