Virginia Living Museum part 2

More pictures from our outing at the museum. In the entry they have this large turtle shell for the kids to play on. They all took turns being the turtle and riding the turtle. Joey, Joy, and Jessi, riding Dean the turtle. I think Dean wishes we had something like this at home. He frequently has all the kids on him, but without benefit of this nice turtle shell as a buffer.
Jessi doing an interactive virtual frog disection. It was pretty neat. It was on a touchscreen computer, so you had to touch the tools in your kit, then touch the frog to cut it up.

In honor of the big Jamestown 400 celebrations that are going on all over our area, the museum has a really neat exhibit called "Survivor Jamestown." You pick up a "life board" at the entrance and it tells you who you are (based on actual Jamestown settlers) and how much of various necessities and commodities you start with (food, shelter, clothes, items for trade). As you go through the maze, you make decisions and face situations that either add or subtract life beads. The challenge is to make it the whole way through without running out. Jeff died when his corn got eaten by deer, but Dean made it with only one bead left. The kids just ran through and played at all the stations.

Dean and Joey playing with skunk skins at one of the learning stations. These were real skunk skins that were partially sewn back up to make puppets. Yuck.

Joy gave out somewhere along the nature trail.
In one of the aquarium rooms Jessi was excited to see these puffer fish. She wanted to see them puff up though. I told her that they only puff up when they are scared or excited... so she kept turning her head away, then quickly turning back and saying "Boo!" The fish never did cooperate and realize that this was supposed to be frightening, but it sure was cute.

Virginia Living Museum

For Christmas, my in-laws gave us a family year-pass to the Virginia Living Museum. We thoroughly enjoyed our pass to the Virginia Aquarium last year, even though it was a bit of a drive. The Living Museum is literally just a mile or so from our house. It has been completely redone in the past few years and is really a top quality facility. Yesterday we enjoyed the gardens and nature trails as well as many of the indoor exibits. I got a picture of this heron in the aviary.
The summer gardens were in full bloom and I got some great pictures. What is really cool is that while you are outside, you see the bees feeding on the blooms, and when you go inside, you can see those same bees coming and coming from their hive. The hive is inside and the bees come and go through a small plexi-glass "tunnel" to the outside.

These Lionfish are beautiful... and deadly!

More random shots. I'll post pictures of the "other" wildlife (the kids) later today.

I'm proud to be an American

...and have dug myself out of my un-American, baseball hating ditch that I had previously found myself in (in my husband's eyes at least).

Last night we had a Tee-ball party (one of two, the official one is tomorrow but the head coach is on Reserve duty and can't be there) and the kids got their trophies and Jeff got his appreciation plaque for being an assistant coach. I put together some layouts of the team picture and individual ones for each kid, as well as a bunch of random candids from the season and made a disk for each family. I think I have redeemed myself.

I'm so Dizzy.... my head is spinning

No, not that kind of spinning (you know, the one where you sit on a stationary bike and watch videos of the world going by...), real spinning. Like Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty and all our foremothers. Ok, maybe not quite in the league of Rapunzel yet, but hey, she had a wheel. I'm doing this on a drop spindle and a roughly homemade one at that. In it's simplest form, a drop spindle is a dowel with a weighted disk, or whirl, on it, and a hook of some sort to guide the fibers through. I won't try to do a thorough article on the art and science of spinning, if you are interested at all, google "handspinning" or "drop spindle" and you will get lots of information.

I've blogged before about knitting and sewing, so you should already know that I'm "into" fiber arts. When I began working with wools to craft diaper covers for cloth diapering, I soon realized that my former opinions of itchy rough wools were way off base and that nice wool, good wool, is a true pleasure to touch and work with. This new appreciation for wool combined with my natural love to make messes and I started messing with hand dyeing my wool yarns. This in turn led to a curiosity about hand-spinning my own yarns. Some hand dyed yarns are truly beautiful, but when I saw examples of the exquisite depths that could be accomplished by dying the rovings (thats the un-spun wool, just big hanks of wool) and then spinning and plying those fibers, I knew I had to try this.

For my first attempts, I started with what is called "pencil rovings" that is, the wool is carded and combed and drawn out into thin ropes or strings. It is not spun yet so it is quite fragile, the fibers are merely laying beside each other, not intertwined. I dyed some white roving from Chester Farms Cestari wool and built a spindle (very basic, pretty much equal parts wood dowel, bent paperclip, rubber bands, and scratched CD/DVDs). Some instructional videos from YouTube and I was off and spinning.

Spinning is a multi-step process, you spin one strand and it's called a "single", you then ply (spin together) two or more strands to create a finished yarn. The single is spun clockwise and then the plying is done counter clockwise so theoretically, the two spins balance each other out and the result is a yarn that will lay flat and not twist up on itself. I'm still working on that.

Next, I was curious to try spinning with "real" roving where I would have to draft it myself. This is still not raw fleece, it has been carded and combed. This wool comes in big hanks and I prepare to spin by tearing off strips of the fibers and dividing them down, then "Drafting" or drawing them out. Then I spin them in much the same way as the pencil rovings. The first roving wool I did is some mystery wool I picked up at my local yarn shop, it's a tweedy gray-brown, natural (undyed) and pretty kinky/curly. I also did some "Karaoke" roving which is a wonderfully silky blend of soy fiber and fine wool, I really enjoy spinning that, it is so strong and light that you can practically spin sewing thread. Finally, I ordered a fiber sampler from Amber at Mai Mai BB and have been playing with all sorts of wonderful wool like Corridale, Merino, Columbia, and Blue Faced Leicester. Her yarns and dyeworks are absolutely stunning.

The brown-gray-tweedy wool.

Spun up, two ply. It has a very rustic home-spun look although it is actually pretty consistent in guage, not too much thick-n-thin.

Here is a comparison of the original pencil roving next to a four ply yarn made of it. The roving is very light, you can see through it. This is one strand green and one strand white spun together, then plied with a single made of two strands white.

The finished green and white yarn.I really love this one, I wish it would photgraph as well as it really looks. It is three ply of the Cestari, each dyed as roving and spun, then plied together. There is pink, blue, and violet and each of those are varigated from white through it's darkest shade. This leaves the yarn with no inch the same as any other inch. This one is a novelty yarn, it is Cestari pencil roving spun with bits of dyed Peace Fleece felting fiber. The felting fiber isn't really inteded for spinning so it's very nubby. This skein is still hanging to set the twist, I'm really not sure if it is going to stay together or not, it's only one ply, I may have to ply with another strand to hold it all together.

I have some BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) and some Karaoke on the spindles, I'll post pictures of those when they are finished.

Uh Oh

Well, I know I already posted today... but this kind of thing can't be passed by.
Jessi got her first eyebrow shaping tonight. Instead of hot wax, we went with blue bubble gum.

She got it good and worked in before she came for help.



We did a little pre-soak and scrub with peanut butter.

And then I ended up having to comb it out with an eyebrow comb. She was very upset and finally asked if eyebrows came back and once we assured her that they do, she was slightly calmed.

I think i did end up yanking one good clump out, but her eyebrows are so light that hopefully it won't show.

Jeff asked her how she did it and she said she was trying to put it over her eye and trick Joey. I think this time though, she was the one who ended up getting tricked.

hot fun in the summer time

It has been hot. Really hot. So hot that we have to wait until late afternoon to even go out and play in the water. These pictures are from the last few days.

Disclaimer: Our mower and trimmer are both very ill. The mower is in the hospital with a two week stay just for diagnosis, who knows how long until it is actually running. We are trying to borrow a mower, but in the meantime, please overlook the knee-high weeds.Joy knows that a little mud is good for the complexion.
This one really cracked me up. She pulled the little seat over so she was under the arch of the sprinkler. She was in a nice cool spot, but without the direct water fall. Clever girl.

Not that she has any problem with direct water spray when she wants it.
Joy mimics Jessi's every move. I am trying to impress upon Jessi the importance of being a good example so that Joy will learn nice things. As I've posted before, Jessi is an interesting combination of prima ballerina and tom-boy but usually not at the same time. Joy just knows that the Tutu is Jessi's .... and so are the cleats.

Joy is sporting some super-cool shades the kids got at a birthday party last weekend.
This is our super duper mega bubble maker. It's a little kit that comes with the special wand and a book. It's by Klutz books http://www.klutz.com/catalog/product/1110 and can probably be found in the gift shops of museums. We have been experimenting with the special bubble recipe and with the techniques and are starting to get some pretty impressive bubbles. The real problem is actually getting the bubbles off of the tool before the kids come attack them. I do understand... it's fun to chase and pop normal bubbles, but bubbles that are bigger than you are? Why they simply BEG to be attacked!

Jessi had her dentist appointment today. She did great, although we couldn't quite get her to understand how to bite the exray films so we didn't get any exrays. She sat perfectly for the cleaning and exam though and was well rewarded with a trip to the treasure box.

I have a list of things I intend to write about... eventually. Until then, I hope your summer days are as full of laughter and fun as ours are.

Tom Train recall/ Dental visits

Just in case some of you with young children haven't seen this already, there is a recall on some models of wooden Thomas the Tank Engine toys. Full details can be found here. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07212.html

Several of our toys fall under this recall... I'm not sure how we are going to survive without James for the several weeks/months that it takes to get a replacement... this is a sad day for the Luck children.

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Today was the first of our week long series of dental office visits. The office has a policy of not filling up one day with the same family (if you cancel they have a whole day of empty office to pay for, I totally understand) so we started out with Joey today, Dean goes Monday, Jessi Tuesday, Jeff Wednesday, and I was scheduled for next Thursday but they canceled me and I now go in July. Joey did very well as usual. Almost too well. It's a combination of the fact they they play movies right there in the chair (Toy Story) and the fact that Joey went through so many really unpleasant medical treatments as a little guy that he seriously just checks out when he goes to a doctor. I know that he's fine and will come back from his happy place as soon as they are finished, but I can understand that they get just a little concerned when he lays there unresponsive. I really wish I could master that technique and use it for giving birth... too bad he'll never have the opportunity to put it to such good use! He is growing teeth way ahead of schedule, he lost his two bottom front teeth just a few weeks after his 5th birthday, the molars he recently got are actually permanant molars! I guess what we commonly term as "12 year molars." His crossbite is still there (he bites like a little bulldog, bottom teeth out in front) and the dentist said we'll keep a close eye on it when he loses his front top teeth, that is the time to try and redirect the jaw. It may correct on its own, or he may have to wear retainers.
Dean goes on Monday... he thinks he needs braces and Jeff agrees... I'm hoping that the dentist agrees with me, that he doesn't! Even with insurance, braces are expensive enough to make me want to cry.