Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas.

I can't believe Christmas is over. All the planning, shopping, knitting, wrapping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, excitement, anticipation and festivities are finished for another year. This Christmas was fabulous, as usual. My Mother-in-Law came to visit from BC and helped us to enjoy our family traditions.

The morning of Christmas Eve, I ran around town finishing up my shopping and we spent the afternoon quietly at home where we baked and decorated cookies for Santa.





We had a lovely roast for dinner.






After watching "The Polar Express," the kids did their Christmas Eve prep. We spread reindeer food on the front walk and Eli placed the cookies in front of the tree.






And then they were off to bed.... excited, but knowing that Santa wouldn't come if they didn't go right to sleep...... so they did (with strict instructions not to head to the Christmas tree until called in the morning). At 7am the next day, we woke up to a glorious sight! Santa had come!!


Chey's first view of the tree, Christmas morning......


Waiting, ever so impatiently, for Daddy and NanaB to come downstairs so that the presents could be demolished


Let the mayhem begin!






Santa found Chey a Lego Anubis (she's been obsessed with Anubis, and all things Egypt, since our trip)


Dale loved his handspun/knit hat and handknit socks


The kids gave me a beautiful charm bracelet and a charm each to start it off


Chey's new Monster Puppet


Eli got lego and more lego.... he has almost finished building it all already..... 


After opening our gifts and playing for a bit, we dressed up and went skating at the lake for an hour or so. The weather was fantastic!




And finally, our delicious (albeit simple) Christmas dinner....... It was a wonderful day.... I love Christmas.....




So until next year.... I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and will have a fantastic New Year!! 


And to end this post, a collage of my Christmas  knitting/spinning for this year..... not including the spinning I completed for myself on the 23rd..... 


Thursday, December 9, 2010

On the slippery slope to Christmas

I'm in full Christmas Preparation mode here at Chez "Our House." The inside decorations are mostly finished, the outside decorations are as done as they're going to get this year, my Christmas gift knitting is complete (except for an add-on or two), I've sent most of my Christmas cards and we've gone to see Santa. I should be relaxed, right??? Well, I'm not..... I like to be DONE by this time at Christmas. I really enjoy the last couple of weeks leading up to Christmas when the last minute shoppers (or reasonable people, as some would say) are rushing around in a panic, looking for their perfect gifts, while I sit around with a self satisfied air.... I know, I know,  it's not an attractive trait of mine, but it IS my reward for being so.... uhhh... organized (I won't use the word you are all thinking... but I know you're thinking it.... ). This year, I'm behind. I've barely started my Christmas shopping and although I plan to remedy that tomorrow, I am still slightly stressed......

Back on the decoration front. I wanted to share a couple of cute ideas for Xmas decorations that I've come up with this year. Every year (well, every year since Eli was born) I send a Christmas photo-type card and I've saved a copy of most of them. This year, I thought it would be great to display them all together. I waited for a frame sale at Michael's and purchased a scrap-booking frame. Into this, the cards went..... and onto the wall (I try to replace my everyday wall art and photos with Christmas art)..... Neat eh?



Another thing I started last year was to frame all of the kids' Santa pictures together from every year (each frame holds three photos). This year, I had to start a new frame with only one picture, so I had the kids each draw a Christmas Picture to put in the frame on either side of the 2010 Santa photo. I love the progression of the photos... they make me smile.



















My other idea for a Christmas decoration/wall hanging type item, is our Christmas puzzle. I tried to start a tradition of doing a new one every year, but we didn't finish last years (we'll finish it this year! I'm determined). But our first puzzle was glued and framed.....







And here are some pictures of my other decorations (quilted stockings and wall hangings are all made by me in years past)... I have yet to put up the tree (we do a real one, it's going up this weekend), but I think my house is looking great! The only thing my home is missing are a few handknit decorations.... which I shall rectify this year, starting with a Christmas Gnome (which I started last night and is over 50% complete)..... I also plan to do a garland of small knit mittens and socks, a knitted poinsettia decoration of some-kind and something else, that I thought of last year and would like to start working on......


A wallhanging to Welcome my guests
if I ever had guests....... 
From my front door.
Where the tree will sit
This wall hanging is one of my
favourite decorations.

I love the "Faux" wildlife on the mantle
I collect Dept. 56 "North Pole" Series Houses







And last, but not least.... my last knitted Christmas gift of 2010 (I only knit a few items this year).... A hoodie for my nephew (per his request this summer)... the duplicate stitch Alien face is in Glow-in-the-dark yarn.... which I cannot capture with my current technology, so you'll have to imagine how cool it is......




Saturday, November 20, 2010

Back to the grind.

I'm completely unmotivated to write this post, but sort of feel like I need to keep up my momentum.

I finished, washed and blocked the sweater that I knit while in Egypt. It started out as a chunky tee for Chey, but finished off as a chunky tunic-tee for a Christmas present (it's too big for Chey, I did not measure on the trip, I just kept on knitting). It was almost entirely knit on the two big drives we did while in Egypt, to Alexandria and Whale Valley.

Here it is. I picture it with skinny jeans and a belt..... on a 10 year old girl... cute eh?



I've also finished my winter All-in-One prototype. I was going to do a pattern for the snake mitten scarf I made up for Chey last Christmas, but by the time I finished my test knit for the pattern, I lost interest. So I revamped the idea and came up with the All-in-One. It's a hat, scarf and mittens in one item..... hopefully with a lower chance of being left at school....... I need to tweak it a bit, but I hope to have a pattern finished before winter ends.....


Saturday, November 13, 2010

Final Days....

I'm rather sad about this post... It just seems wrong to be writing about our final days in Egypt from my computer in Calgary. The entire trip feels like a surreal dream.  We are all sad to have left our family in Egypt, there were quite a few tears shed in our last couple of days....... but, I digress.... Here is a description of our last four days in the City of a Thousand Minarets...

The day after our trip to Alexandria, Mohamed took us to The Citadel where we explored the Muhammad Ali Mosque, the military museum and El-Nasir Mosque. We had finally learned (we're slow learners, apparently) to avoid school groups as much as possible to avoid being mobbed by adolescent Egyptians looking for pictures with us (when we weren't being approached for pictures, we were Kinneared, it was bizarre) I really didn't mind most of the time, but inevitably, once we allowed one or two girls to start taking pictures, we would, in no time, be overrun.... One funny thing did happen on this day though.... As we were walking down the hill away from the Citadel to where Mohamed was waiting, a large gathering of several school groups started screaming and waving excitedly.... I turned to look behind us, thinking that maybe someone famous was there, but nope..... it was our family they were screaming at......







After the Citadel, Mohamed took us to the Ibn Tulun Mosque, the only mosque in Cairo with an exterior staircase on its minaret (which we were able to climb).











Our final stop for the day's tour was in City of the Dead (a large Cemetery where over 500,000 people live and work) to visit a glass blowing shop where all of the glass is made from recycled material.





On our way back to Christina's to prepare for our evening felucca ride, we stopped to look over the city. It was pretty smoggy/smokey, but the view was still beautiful


We then went on a Felucca ride to enjoy the evening on the Nile....









We couldn't get all the kids smiling nicely at the same time.... sigh..... 

The next day was our trip to Whale Valley (Wadi Al-Hitan), where hundreds of fossil skeletons have been found showing the evolution of whales from land mammals to ocean dwellers. It was a hot, sweaty, three kilometre hike..... 



Our police escort to the desert allowed Dale to hold an AK47.... for a fee.





We had a lot of fun deciding what the formations looked like.... Long Neck (aka, apatosaurus), anyone??








see Christina, I told you I wouldn't write about you staying behind in the hut to knit... oops.....



After a morning ride with Eli (look at him go!)....... we began our final day of touring which was centred around Islamic Cairo. We visited the oldest street in Cairo containing the Blue Mosque (under extensive renos, we were only allowed to take pictures through a window) and the Mosque of Khayrbek (neither of which are open to tourists). We then walked down the street to a palace that has a tunnel to the Citadel. Our final stops were another mosque containing columns from three different time periods (I'm sorry Mohamed, I can't remember the name of the Mosque) and the Tentmakers street of the Khan el-Kalili.


See how smoggy/smokey it is??? We were able to see the pyramids from this vantage point earlier in our trip.... The smog descended on the day after our sunset ride..... 


Khayr Bek Mosque




Blue Mosque, named for the tiles



 Beautiful stained glass in one of the wives' rooms of the palace and Eli checking out the view from the mashrabeya windows (used by Islamic women to view the street without being seen)

Street of the Tentmakers.


We then visited the family tomb of Muhammad Ali Pasha. Another of our non-tourist stops.... it was amazing...






This mosque is no longer used as the road fell away. We tried to take a picture of it almost every time we passed, but either forgot when we got there, or weren't quick enough with the camera..... We finally snapped a picture on our way back to Christina's...

I started our last day in Egypt on a quiet, morning horseback ride with Christina (I rode a total of five times while in Egypt) and then did a little shopping before packing and getting ready to head to the airport at 2am (Egyptian time)...... 27 hours later, we walked in our door..... and none of us can believe its over.......

I want to thank Opa and Cary for getting us to Egypt, we would never have been able to go without you. Thank you also to Christina and David for allowing us to stay in your beautiful home and share your life for a few short days. Finally, Thank you to Mohamed for being such a wonderful guide and helpful interpreter and amazing person. And, of course, Amelia, for all of her extra work around the house. 

I've set up a slide show of some of my favourite pictures if you're interested, you can also access the album by clicking on the slideshow and then clicking "view all"

Slideshow Here

I'll get a post going about the knitting accomplished on my trip after my jetlag is over.....