Swaps & Birthdays

Earlier this month I organized a New Zealand Fiber Swap on ravelry, an online knit/crochet/spin community for those of you not so into the fiber crafts. I've been taking part in a few other swaps this spring, but having to ship overseas is so expensive! By keeping it within the islands of New Zealand we were able to save some coin (that will then be spent on more knitting/spinning items!).

Lucky me got my swap package earlier this week from Stella. It actually came on Blue's birthday (tee hee hee). I felt a bit like a small child getting a hush present as to not get jealous of the birthday boy. As it turns out, it was more like having my own birthday! I had lots more presents to open up in this package than blue had all day (shhhhh, if he thought about it, it might make him feel bad). The above photo is of all the unwrapped gifts matching beautifully blue's birthday flowers. Now he is claiming that I bought these for myself! On his birthday! Not me, I wouldn't do that. Nope boys need flowers on their birthdays too!

So here is what I got: soft white wool pencil roving, 4 ply cream coloured cotton, a beautiful handknit washcloth, purse sized emery boards, a nice big button, dark chocolate (mmmmm), "blank" vintage purls sock yarn (for me to dye), self striping sock yarn, AND the yummiest looking and smelling handmade soap I have ever seen! Check it out:

Thank you Stella! What a great birthday er I mean swapday present!

And as far as blue's birthday went. He got a nice new grill for us to enjoy all summer long, a delicious dinner (that well frankly he had to cook) of groper steaks (aka grouper steaks - yum.), and a yummy yummy cheesecake made by yours truly! This year I went with an oreo cookie crust as he wasn't a huge fan of the wine biscuits last year. Oh graham crackers where art thou?

Catching my breath

We took a 5 day vacation almost 2 weeks ago now! Work has obviously been keeping me too busy to blog! We had a great trip up in the Abel Tasman, 4 days of kayaking and 3 nights of tenting on (or close to) the beach. For blue and me this was our first overnight paddling trip together (and my first overnight paddling trip ever) so it was a bit exciting and unnerving.

Our first day out we had perfect weather and the sea was wonderful and calm. The next morning it was perfectly calm, but by the time we got packed up and ready to head out to our next destination the waters had become rough and we struggled a bit to get our grips. But we made it safely (and sorely) and spent 2 nights at our next campsite. There were naughty possums and a beautiful estuary. On the 3rd day we got up early (in an attempt to avoid rough waters) and paddled to an island seal colony and past some sandstone arches. It was really really beautiful. We ended up not paddling all the way back to Marahau (our starting point) but instead we took a water taxi due to rough waters/inexperience. We were even more pleased with this decision when we got out in the open water on the taxi into 2 meter high swell! Yikes! Oh and we saw two little blue penguins swimming! What a treat! The bottom photo is of our first campsite bay. So nice and round. The top photo is of one of the tractors used to put the boats in/pull them out. I love that they use old tractors and they keep them so nice and pretty! The clouds are pretty amazing in it too!

YES!!!

I think this is what most of us americans are feeling right now.

Big Smiles!

I'm so excited I came home to not one, but two packages today. I was expecting one this week (from a swap) with surprise spinning items in it, but I was not expecting the other (with surprise spinning items in it!). I'm such a lucky girl.
Sweatergirl rocked my stash with some roving she didn't quite get around to spinning up. I think the blue and white are both bfl and the brown might be romney.

The package also came with some paintings by an aspiring artist ;-) and lots of photos of munchkins that I miss! Oh and cheetos mmmmm cheetos, spicy cheetos (which are unobtainable here).
AND THEN I got this from a fiber swap I'm taking part in! More hand-dyed bfl and lots of extra goodies including handspun singles and a super bad-as* button! What to do with that button? On a bag? On a hat? Top of a cardigan? I'm sure I'll find the perfect use fore it, but it may take a bit of searching/serendipity.