Rhinebeck 2013!!

Tara and I went to NEW YORK!! Just outside Poughkeepsie, which is one of the best spelled towns ever.

It was the Annual Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY. Tara's in-laws live in Hyde Park, NY, and have a lake house in a town near Rhinebeck that she and I stayed in. We got in on Friday afternoon, got a great dinner of bread, cheese, salami and wine. Saturday, it was breakfast at a great coffee shop in town, meeting up with a friend of Tara's, then off to the festival!

We saw goats, sheep, alpacas, llamas (who have banana shaped ears, while alpacas do not), an alpaca parade, YARN, fleece, roving, books, hand-knit stuff, needles, oh my goodness, everything.

We came up with a scavenger hunt to try and find certain things (because knitting people can be WEIRD):
- a person wearing 3 or more homemade knits at one time
- a person walking while knitting (WWK)
- a person knitting the actual garment they were wearing
- a person spinning yarn on their portable spinner while walking

We definitely saw the first two, many times over, but did not see the last two. I'm sure they were out there, though...we will have to look harder next time!

Sunday we spent most the day at FDR's home in Hyde Park. The home was rather modest, considering he was President. The museum was just redone and amazing - so well done. It reminded me of the Newseum. Really worth the time to go, and I was really happy that Tara was up for doing it again!

We had a great dinner in Rhinebeck after FDRs house, and found a yarn shop. As if we hadn't been looking at yarn all weekend long.

It was a great weather weekend, great company, great places to go and see, and we just had the best time.

Lake house view - peak fall!

Gorgeous farm near the lake house

Cool clouds on the way home

Dog Sledding

We went Dog Sledding! It was with Tate's Brownie troop. We had money from our cookie sales last year, and this is what the girls decided to do. It was a six month wait, but was it ever worth it!

We met at 5:30am in a park in town, then caravanned two hours away to almost York, Pennsylvania. It is a husband/wife team that has 8 dogs, 6 of whom pull the sled. The girls got to meet the dogs, pet, get kisses from, and then get pulled by these great dogs. Bonus for us was the first day of sun and gorgeousness after a full week of hard rain at home. 

Each girl got to ride for half a mile - so we had three stations, one at the start, one half mile in and one at the one mile mark. Six of us walked all the way to the mile mark to be the third station. We were so happy we did so - there was a beautiful horse farm with chickens, ducks, roosters, mini rescue ponies, and a dog. It was another bonus on top of the dog bonus!

Kisses

Hugs

Tate and Juliet

This guy was loud!

The dog sled - parents didn't get to go on, but we stood on it while he turned the dogs around. 

The whole team

Tate's favorite, Acadia. What a sweet girl.

Weekending

Lots of home time this weekend, which was very nice. I had a lot of parsley from the garden, so I chopped it all up in the food processor and made 3 dozen parsley ice cubes for food in the fall/winter/spring. I made meatballs. I made split pea soup and apple cake because it's October, even if it is 90 degrees. NINETY DEGREES. We cleaned, we trampolined. We had s'mores with my wonderful niece who was home for 18 hours. I knit.

Praying Mantis

Smith did 5 hours of homework. Actually, it was probably 2.5 hours of homework, but he couldn't focus that well the whole time - as I found out afterwards. He got it done, though, and it's a good exercise for him.

Tate worked on a fort that she wants to leave up until next Saturday so she can sleep in it. Oh, and she has become Captain Violence, with a pink cape no less. She punched David in the belly and then said "I am Captain Violence," in rather a reasonable tone.

"Keep out"

"Speek to the hand" with the fort held up with a paint brush

We were going to go apple picking, but did I mention that it is 90 degrees outside? Mm, no.

Government Shutdown

I am trying to not be a Democrat or Republican on this...I honestly don't watch or read enough of the news to sound intelligent on many political subjects. So instead I talked with my in-house political correspondent, David, last night, who leans opposite of the way I lean, although he is anti-democrat OR republican now with all the garbage they both put us through.

I am definitely a Democrat. Mostly moderate. My perspective is that the Republicans don't like the Affordable Care Act, which, by the way, is a LAW (voted and passed in 2009, then upheld by the Supreme Court), so they are stalling the actual implementation of the law by doing a partial government shutdown (weird to say partial, but it's all non-essential employees). However, the implementation started yesterday anyway.

Now the Republicans are saying none of the Democrats will negotiate with them. But why do they need to negotiate? Isn't this already a law? So is it that the Republicans are wanting to negotiate but they do not have any leg to stand on? If this is all true, isn't the shutdown the fault of the Republicans?

I'm having a very hard time seeing that the Republicans are in the right (haha, pun not intended!).

Here is a clip from John Stewart regarding all this.

Would love to hear other opinions...

Turkeys

Technically, still just singular Turkey.

I made a hat. It's a turkey. Last year, at the Freeze your Gizzard run, there was a group of people wearing turkey hats, and I thought - YES! We must do this. Smith and Tate were immediately on board, David not so much.

I made the first one, and I made it for me, but it fits Smith best. So this one is his, and next I'll make a smaller one for Tate, and then a larger one for me. Still not one for David. And we aren't even going to wear them to the Freeze your Gizzard run this year because we have either one or two soccer tournaments that weekend, so it will likely conflict. And even if it isn't a time conflict, Smith probably shouldn't run a 5k in the morning of a tournament weekend!

He said he'll wear the hat anyway, maybe at soccer, maybe to school. I know I can get Tate to wear it. If nothing else, we can wear it when we head up to see Grammy for Thanksgiving. And who says turkey hats are only for Thanksgiving time?