Obsession is Normal

Really. The Yarn Harlot herself, told me so. Well she wrote it when she signed my book. That's right, Thursday night I went to see a lady talk about knitting. I'm not going to try and explain it to the non-knitters out there, except to say that I had a fantastic time and here is the photo to prove it.You'll have to excuse the bad hair, I got rained on before the big event. So I don't feel bad that most of my weekend (since Brad is away) has been related to knitting and yarn. It started on Friday when I began my watermelon hat for Charlotte (which now about two-thirds completed) and followed up yesterday when I met the Knitters Not Quitters group at Napoli and continued this morning when I dyed yarn for the first time. It is hanging up to dry at the moment so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. I promise to post pictures if it turns out half reasonable. I also hired out some chick flicks for the weekend - "Failure to Launch" and "Rent". I watched Failure to Launch last night and it wasn't too bad. Pretty predictable, but that was ok since that was what I was in the mood for. I think I'll watch Rent tonight. I'm really interested to see it since we saw it on Broadway when we were in New York.

Anyway, that's about it for today. You guessed it, I'm going to go and do some more knitting. Ha, ha! I'll finish off with a picture of.....knitting!These are the Broadripple Socks from Knitty, that I knit for Agnes for her birthday last month. They were a great pattern to knit and I used Koigu with size 3 needles.

Travelling: Part Two

The week after our trip to Colorado, we packed our bags again and headed to Seattle and Vancouver. Seeing as though the 4th of July holiday fell on the Tuesday, we decided to take the Monday off work and have and extended weekend. We arrived in Seattle on the Friday night and were greeted by this view.

The Space Needle was located only a few blocks from our hotel and provided a pretty spectacular view. As you can see, the weather was gorgeous and remained like this for the next four days - very rare for this area!

On the Saturday, we headed down to Pike Place Market and checked out the original Starbucks, the Seattle aquarium and Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. If you're ever in Seattle and get the chance, I'd highly recommend this tour. It gives you an insight into the history of Seattle that very few people know! Here are a few happy snaps of our day in Seattle...

The last shot was taken from the top of the Space Needle. In the background is Mount Rainier which stands at 14,410 feet (almost twice the size of Mount Kosciusko - Australia's tallest mountain)!

The following morning we were up bright and early to catch the train up to Vancouver. The trip takes about four hours and follows the coast line almost all the way providing some spectacular scenery. Vancouver itself was also a beautiful city and a great one for walking - so walk we did. We headed down to the historic gas town district, along the harbour and ended up a Stanley Park. We caught the trolley through Stanely Park and strolled back along the beach.

The following day we took a harbour cruise and checked out the shops in Robson Street. I couldn't resist getting my photos with one of these guys either. We caught the bus back to Seattle later that afternoon and spent the next morning checking out downtown Seattle before heading back to Albuquerque. We really loved Vancouver and would love to spend some more time there if we get the chance. Two days was just not enough time to see everything!

Travelling Part One

I've had a complaint that I've been slack at updating my blog recently, so this is for Jo (I hope you enjoy reading it on Monday)!. Since my last post we've been extremely busy and have been to Colorado, Seattle, Vancouver and have been visited by Brad's brother Gary. So sit back and enjoy - The Adventures of Bec & Brad - Part One.

Our first trip was to Colorado. As I may have mentioned, Brad is playing cricket again and because cricket is not a particularly popular sport here in America it means that their closest competition is in the next state (only a 7 1/2 hour drive)! So we headed up to Colorado on a Friday afternoon and arrived in Fort Collins at about 8pm. The following day, I drove Brad to cricket and went to explore. I went to the Fort Collins Farmers Market, checked out Downtown and then went and did a bit of shopping (hey, what's a girl to do on her own). I arrived back at the cricket (with a few small purchases) only to find that they'd lost their first match :(

With some lightning flashing in the distance, we drove over to Boulder (about 1/2 hour) and made it just before the arrival of one of the worst storms I've ever seen. This was the view from our hotel window!When we drove down to Pearl Street Mall later that evening, the hail was piled up on the side of the road so high that it looked as though it had been snowing! This is a photo of the mall the following day with plenty of debris lining the streets...
Even with the mess from the previous nights storm, I found Boulder to be a really cute city. Not to mention, they also have a great view of the mountains.
After my day in Boulder, I returned to the cricket to find the result was a lot more promising. The guys ended up winning their second game and we headed home to Albuquerque. On the way home, we ended up stuck in traffic for about 1/2 hour just outside of Colorado Springs. I managed to snap this shot from the car as we were stopped and as you can see, the landscape is a lot different than New Mexico
Anyway, that was our trip to Colorado and part one of our travelling update. Stay tuned for our next episode of The Adventures of Bec and Brad!