See the USA in your Chevrolet, roundup

I have had a whirlwind of activity these past few days, nothing too exciting, just working and parties, and the kids bikes being stolen, so I have had to put off the last part of the vacation posts.
We had the best time in WY.
The weather was wonderful, if you don't count waking up in an ice-covered tent, even that was o.k. because it gave us the opportunity to see the sunrise over Lake Yellowstone.
We got into the car to get warm, since there was no way that we were going to struggle to get a fire going at 32 degrees.
What can I say, we're wimps.
I got to see some great signage, I have a weakness for small town signs.J. C. Penney was founded in Wyoming, I just found that out on the internets.


We got to see some wildlife, a handful of bison, lots of elk, and one energetic moose who decided to jog out of the woods as we were leaving Yellowstone.
We also, due to some poor planning on my part, ran out of camera battery right after I took that one of the bison, and so the last 3 days of our trip were largely undocumented.
But we have wonderful memories, and a fire to go again.
If you get the chance, go to Yellowstone or the Big Horn mountains.
Both are just stunning. Totally worth the drive.
I did the calculations, and we were in the car for approximately 39 hours for our 5-day trip, and in that time I did about 40% of the driving, so I had a good opportunity to get going on a sweater.
I started the February Lady the day before we left and I was able to make some real headway.
Unfortunately I left the instructions for the lace at home, so I had to pull one out of my head to keep knitting.
It's going well, I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Thanks for letting me share my boring vacation photos,
Talk to you soon,
Jess

See the USA in your Chevrolet, part 2

See the USA in your Chevrolet

That's just what my lovely husband and I did this weekend.
Well, we didn't see the whole thing, just a couple thousand miles of it.
I think I have to do this in installments, so here are my favorite shots of my friend's beautiful wedding reception.
She was married in New Zealand and lives in India, but she had a stateside reception in Buffalo, WY.
She and her husband repeated their vows with this as a backdrop
then there was lots of food, friends, dancing and swirling of silk saris.Part 2 to come.

Picture Match

Resident 4-year-old, and all-around super guy, the Younger Hug-a-Bug just invented a game!
It's called Picture Match.
A few weeks ago I went through the old photos I had in the basement and took out the bad pictures.
You know the ones, the photos of things you don't remember anymore, the duplicates from the double printings, the blurry ones. All those photos we'd just delete today.
I put these photos into the kids' art box and today the Younger punched out holes in the photos and now we can play Picture Match.What can I say, he's a creative genius.

A Little Help Needed

Hi Friends,
I am about to leave for my first camping trip since I was 12, and I don't know the first thing, beyond pancakes and li'l smokies, about what one cooks while at a campfire.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I plan to take along our cast iron skillet.
Thanks in advance,
Jess

Hi

It's been a while.
I have been quite busy.
Since school ended I have decided to take on the project of organizing the basement.
I have almost finished one quarter of the overhaul.
The southeast corner is my new crafting space, and it's coming along.
Longtime readers may remember the bunk bed experiment we tried about 18 months ago.
This weekend I built a sewing/laundry table from the remains of said bunk bed.
You can still see the decorations in crayon on the leg there that the Elder Hug-a-Bug drew when it was still her bed.
I also got a new shelf, and sorted through my fabric stash.
Those 4 bins on the right there are full of scraps, color-coded scraps, and the shelf cubbies on the left have fabric that can actually be used for clothing. I also weeded out 2 grocery bags full of fabric to donate to the Goodwill. All of this stuff was already in the basement in bins and bags and more bins, along with this terrifying pile of knitting WIPs.
I think there are 15 sweaters for myself or the children here.

The remainder of my crafty stuff is still in my bedroom, and I hope to have it all consolidated soon.

In the spirit of reorganizing I went through my kitchen cabinet yesterday, pulled everything out, cleaned the shelves, and got rid of all the duplicate spices.this is also a little terrifying.
Does a person really need 3 jars of cinnamon? or 2 jars of paprika? or 2 jars of powdered ginger?
No.
The up side is that my garbage smelled amazing, and so did my dish-doing.

Also I got these keen spice jars at a local cooking store, and now my spices are looking fine.

The weather here has been pretty wretched lately. It's been easily a week since we had a dry day, if you don't count today, (thus the cleaning frenzy) but it's positively summer-like out there today, and we made the most of it.I think we need to try this next time
I'll be out of town this coming week, so it'll be a long time again until I post, thank you all for your patience.
Talk to you then,
Jess

quiet moments

This week was pretty busy, but there were also wonderful quiet moments -
a visit to the nature center with the Kindergarten class, playing boardgames,sitting in the garden,and a completed commission