Summer Vacation

Today was Odin's last day of school for the year. His class celebrated by walking to a city park about 3 blocks from school.

(he is 100% self styled... I don't think I could ever come up with such a great summer outfit.)

I used my last regularly scheduled time off doing a little shopping, and then in a total 180 - making cupcakes. Jenny called to see if we were interested in a meet-up at a local ice cream shop... That wold have been much easier. However I was able to find a recipe and mix, bake and frost cupcakes within one hour and ten minutes. Pretty amazing.

And they taste better than any other yellow cake I've made.

Nine years

This is how we celebrated yesterday.


This is how we celebrated yesterday nine years ago.


One of my favorite pictures of our wedding. I think because it was the best holga (camera) ever. Now you don't even need a $20 plastic camera, just a $1000+ computer to make images look like that.

Field Trip

Odin's class had a field trip last week to a local farm. They kiddos all brought a parent, grandparent or someone special which I thought was really neat. He got to ride a school bus,

hold a hen,

pet a piglet, play in a straw pile and walk through a TON of mud and puddles.

It was really neat and I am glad that I got to go too!

Shakedown Cruise

We took the first canoe trip of the year over the weekend. An easy overnight 30ish mile run. We do not have the best history with first trips and forgetting gear. One year (pre-Odin - actually pre canoe too) we forgot sleeping bags, in early May in Colorado. It froze that night needless to say so did we.
This year fared much much better. We forgot our chairs but we do not always bring them either.
It was lovely on the water, sunny, warm , not at all like the rain and cold we are used to in May.
Odin and Sampson as usual had a blast running through the woods.
My new sleeping bag worked great. I was warm!






Odin's "workshop"




Cool playground on the way home.

Our weekend

Super bonus day Saturday.
We went to a canoe demo day. Discovered that we liked our canoe better then the two others that we tried.
BUT we found a gigantic fantastic outdoor playground. The type that in our area is usually indoors. Very tall with mesh sides, tall slides and a ton of feral children running around. A kind of supercharged fast food playland without the horrid food and extra greasy slides.

While we were leaving the park we spotted a fox hunting! It was in a grass area that had been freshly burned, and was having great success.

Sunday was a lovely day too. A family bike ride and picnic around an area lake.

We are thinking about a canoe trip this weekend, but water levels will have the final say. The rain all night should help our cause.

Ponytail

Odin really wants his hair long enough for a ponytail. Friends and neighbors speculate that when it gets warm he'll change his mind. I don't know what to think other than I want to blame John for this, I really do. There was some trail and error one day with hair bands. John was only joking. Odin thought it was hilarious.
He does have really nice hair. He gets complements all the time. People often ask me if I highlight it. It would seem a shame it cut it high and tight.

The very hungry caterpillar

Wow, it's been a while since I have written anything here. Maybe because I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON SOMETHING AMAZING! What have I been doing you may ask.. Oh not much, just making a sleeping bag. Yes you read correctly I made it. In cooking terms from scratch.

A little backstory. When I was in college in Montana, my dad gave me a sleeping bag that was out of a seat ejection kit from Air Force planes that flew Arctic routes during the cold war. I used it many times winter camping and always stayed toasty warm. The down is exceptional especially for being tightly compressed for over 40 years. But it was not without it's disadvantages. Namely it was exactly my height - so floppy toes whilst sleeping was not an option. Also it was a worst case scenario sleeping bag, so it was nil on creature comforts, like a zipper. It just had a extra large opening and a drawstring. However I used it due to it's uncanny ability to keep me warm, which is no easy feat as I am a very cold sleeper.

About a year ago I started wondering about the possibility of reusing the down and putting it into a new bag. I asked and called around nobody was very interested in doing it for me. I wondered if I could do it myself. Turns out I can. Using my summer bag (never kept me warm below 60 degrees) as a guide I made a prototype out of old sheets. I also leaned heavily on the internet for other peoples successes.
The sewing for the most part was easy. It was just a ton of straight lines. The zipper was nerve wracking because I was so close to being done. Moving the down was interesting. Not nearly as messy as I thought, but way more time consuming.( If you are interested this is how I moved the down.) I think the hardest part was making the first cut in the "host" bag.
After seeing it flat for so long as I started filling it with down I was struck by how much it looked like a caterpillar.

can you read the date? 19 May 1958 (!)

Host bag, down


Down cluster and a quarter


My own very hungry caterpillar -


it's not really that shiny


The end result? Exactly what I wanted. Semi-rectangular, detachable hood, full length -2 way zipper, highly compressible, barely over 2 pounds. Even after filling my bag with about 15 ounces of down I still have 13oz of extra. . . .