Downtown: part one

During the summer, I try to take the kids out on a field trip of sorts once a week. It can be a museum, building,  park or hike but it has to be something out of our usual routine. For the most part, the kids are game for whatever and this time I thought we would invite Laura and her son Glenn too.

Downtown LA has changed quite a bit over the years so I am not that familiar with all that there is to see. Laura said she spent time downtown when she was younger so that helped with navigation. Our first hurdle was getting there. Yes, we could have driven but we didn't want to deal with the high parking prices so we opted for the Metro. The kids were all for that and off we went.

Our first stop was the Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall. It is about a short 2 block walk from the Metro stop and there are free audio tours which take about an hour. Surprisingly, the kids were responsive to this type of tour and actually listened to all the audio. I think I would do this again without the kids so I could fully listen to the audio, etc. I think we were there for over an hour.



Here is the set of pictures from the Disney Hall. Much more later.



My favorite one of the set.

Hump day + Socks

Getting thru the week and I finished my Zarathustra socks!!



My very first time using Wollmeise which is a super popular yarn known for its vibrant, saturated colors. Notices go out that Wollmeise is up for sale and its a mad dash to grab some online. I nabbed the first bright one that caught my eye which was the orange/yellow/red yarn and it has been sitting in its bag waiting to be used. About a year later, I managed to get some black Wollmeise with the intentions of colorwork.



Then I stumbled upon Zarathustra which uses slipped stitches and looks extremely complicated but it really isn't. My iPad came in handy with the PDF chart and instructions and voila!



I love these socks although there are just a tad baggy around my ankles but their purdiness more than makes up for some looseness. :)



I think I would make these again maybe using a slightly thinner fingering weight yarn and see how it goes. The combinations are endless....

Another Monday

Here we are again at another beginning of a new week.

I am making some good progress on my Zarathustra socks which are vibrant to say the least. So far I'm really enjoying the pattern and the slipped stitches are fun. I messed up on the sole but no one will know but me and you! The photo below doesn't show the sole so I guess I should retake an updated picture...I guess I really cranked up the knitting over the weekend.



Hermosa Beach was especially beautiful this morning.



I saw a SUPer surfing. She made it look easy.



I saw a boogieboarder too. I didn't notice until later that he was old(er) and wearing a Speedo.



I saw crowds of people gathering at the Pier Plaza...


I hung around a bit and pretty soon, the Stanley Cup arrives along with Jarrett Stoll.



Wow, what a coinkydink!!!


Heh,  NOT !!!  But it was really cool to hang with other Kings fans and see the Cup arrive on a firetruck with Strollsie. :)

It was a very good  Monday and Joshua took/passed his yellow belt test today too. :)

What is going on?

My oldest son Tyler is growing in leaps and bounds. A year ago, he was about 5 ft tall and chunky. Zoom to present day and he is now 5'7" (taller than me by an inch or so) and stretching out. His voice is changing along with his body. He never seemed to be interested in girls but that is slowly changing too. He'll be 13 in September. I need to brace myself.

He was in advanced math (pre-algebra) so he was in mostly a class of 7th graders. This is where it starts...girls began talking to him. This increased over the school year and  now there is one girl that wants to hang with him this summer. I don't personally know her but soon will if her parents agree to let her come to the movie Brave with us tomorrow.  It will interesting to say the least.

I just realized that her initals are the same as Tyler's. TT. So that's how we will refer to her from now on. I keep reminding myself, it's just hanging out and talking about their Nintendo 3DSs. But I'm watching.....closely.

Summer begins

Yes, the kids are out of school but I'm looking forward to our time together. We have some activities planned and will share them as we do them. It helps that hockey season is done so I can fully concentrate on other fun things but it sure is distracting that the NHL channel was replaying all the Kings winning games each round per day. It was cool because I know the Kings win but seriously some of these games were over a month ago so some of the highlights I remember pop up and it's so fun to relive.

Okay, enough of that although I still have to process more of the rally photos that you can check out on my Flickr. I'm knitting on my Zathustra socks specifically the heel portion/picking up for the gusset. I love the contrast of the bright orange/yellow with the black but honestly I have to finish that part with natural daylight by a window otherwise I cannot see the stitches. I previously knit of black socks for Buddy a while back and swore never again but here I am knitting with black yarn.

Since I couldn't knit on those socks without proper lighting, I started another pair of socks (not black) in a pretty shade of blue-green. I'm just beginning to understand how my iPad can help me with knitting. It holds my PDFs and I can annotate the row I am on so I can start up again without several minutes of backtracking/reading. It's pretty awesome. :-)

Meanwhile, our hot tub time machine (have to think of a proper name) was hooked up yesterday so tonight we should be able to soak in it which should be sooooo nice. It's June gloomy here and at night the clouds roll in so it's pretty chilly. Hmmm, we have some champagne that I should chill too.

Yay for summer!

We are the Champions!

Exciting time to be a LA Kings fan...great series, game and the Stanley Cup!

I'm exhausted and I have a throat thing going on too. Time to rest up for the parade on Thursday.

Moments

On Sunday, we went to see Lita which  was the first time for me and the kids to see her new digs. She was sitting in the common room with her legs/feet up with about 4 other ladies.  The kids had a little bag of popcorn and enjoyed looking at all the animals. There were parakeets, some bunnies, cats and a dog.


She recognized me today which was nice. When Hector asked if she remembered me, she said, "Of course I do! She is your wife!"

Mother and son

Hector is an awesome son!



Time is fleeting and our moments with Lita will always be cherished.

Game 4

Well, it was fun going to game 4 even though we didn't win. :( I got to ride the green/blue line Metro to downtown LA which turned out pretty well. Hector drove to LA after work and he met me at the station. He wore his usual bright yellow sweatshirt in the 80* weather so he's super easy to spot in the sea of black. Good thing I took public transportation too since some of the parking lots were charging up to $100...crazy, right?

LA Live was packed with people, hockey fans etc and what I mean by etc is the funky people that attend E3. So amongst hockey jerseys, I spotted the lone Link from the Legend of Zelda. She was by far the best Link we've seen and I guess from that statement you can tell we've see several before. She even had a well made shield and sword. Silly me didn't even ask her if she would pose for me. Oh well. 

I won't bore you with the game details but it was exciting and fun. Would have been better if the Kings won...Pictures later.

The one above is sponsered by Toyota and against a green screen that I chose and set up this morning. Too bad the kids wern't with us or we could have our Christmas card!! :)

Road to the Cup

The Kings road to the Cup. An epic video that captures the excitement that is sweeping thru Los Angeles.

Game 3

Okay, we are nearing the end of the very long hockey season. It seemed so long ago since we were last at Staples center which was about 2 weeks or more with round 3 tickets sold to offset the playoff series. The excitement was building up this last week along with my anxiety level. :)

Inside Staples center, it was crowded and super loud. Only a few Devils fans scattered around so it was great to see so much support for the Kings. We got rally towels which for whatever reason didn't have any mention of the Stanley Cup and some battery operated glow sticks that flashed.

I had to have a margarita to settle myself down and relax. Awesome game from every single player on the Kings team and the fans were going wild. :) So much fun especially with a 4-0 shutout over the Devils.

Now the real craziness starts now until game 4 on Wednesday. We're really wishing for a home win/sweep to see the Cup on home ice will probably have me crying hysterically.

Go Kings Go!!