A Rose By Any Other Name . . .

 I'm calling these dresses 'family treasures'
 
but most would say they are 'hand-me-downs'. 
Both were Addy's, until she outgrew them. 
I made the purple one for her last year - 
and the camo/tulle dress was one of her absolute favorites from the day her daddy brought it home for her.
Bunny Foo-Foo sat outside my mother-in-law's kitchen window for years. Leanne and Leia both love him and talk to him all the time. I think she'd get a kick out of that.

Now, Leia and Leanne love these dresses.

  

And I love watching them enjoy life,

  

and a rousing game of 'follow the leader',

 

while wearing them.
  
More great memories in the making. 

High Tech and Craftsy Discount!

Hubby's a tad hard of hearing, so when the Roku3 came out with the ability to plug headphones into the remote control (genius!!), I was first in line to get one.
  
He loves it . . . . or at least he did until the headphone jack stopped working on the second night. ~sigh~ I did so love that short-lived peace and quiet.

While he was enjoying his teevee, I was making a birthday quilt and using my baby iPad to watch Craftsy
 
where my friend and weaving mentor, Deborah Jarchow, is teaching her 'Beyond the Basics' rigid heddle weaving class. (Doesn't she look great?)
 
Love, love, love this class. I love the Craftsy model anyway - take classes on your own time, in your own home, at your own pace, with the ability to ask questions of the teacher and get responses within 24 hours (or thereabouts) - but Deborah's class is really outstanding. 

My favorite part is that her lessons aren't 'sanitized'; when she makes a mistake (we call them "design elements" in my crochet classes) she laughs and shows how to fix it. Watching the repair job really fixes in my mind what went wrong and how things should be done.

And because she's such a great person and friend, Deborah is offering 50% off her class to my friends. Just use this link - www.craftsy.com/rhdj. Be sure to tell her Elisa said "hi!"

New Sweater

I have a list of projects as long as my arm that must.be.done.NOW. But is that stopping me from starting a new, just for me project? Heck, no!
 
This is Wild Flower Jacket from Drops (pattern here; Ravelry page here). It's been in my Ravelry queue forever. A woman in my Thursday night knit-crochet group wanted to make it, so we're doing it together as a mini-crochet-along. Love the yarn; love the pattern; crossing my fingers they'll play nice together.

Home Decor

What's in your wallet living room?

 Bet it's not kitchen cabinets . . . .

Flowers With Attitude

Went out to take pictures of the one, lonely iris that's blooming - 
according to the chart, this one is Goldfinger (hmmm, I wonder why?) -
 
but this is my favorite pic of the day. 
  
Such attitude! Gotta love it when even the flowers give you the finger.

The rest of the garden was a bit more polite 
 
and gave me a chance to experiment with my new super-macro lenses.
 
The difference in magnification between the old lens 

 

and the 4x is amazing,

 
but when you go up to 10x?
 
The detail is astounding (see 2nd Goldfinger pic above).
 
Looking forward to going to Descanso Gardens or Pleasants Valley Iris Farm to practice some more.
 
Happy almost Spring, everyone!

Day Trip

Since the pantry took a bit longer to complete than expected, our planned overnight jaunt to Colorado Springs got scaled back to a Saturday day trip. 
An early morning start got us to our first stop, Cave of The Winds, well before lunch. 
 
The view from the ridge was spectacular, from the steep drop into a canyon with walls studded with caves, to Historic Manitou laid out in the distance.
 
Addy was quick to find entertainment while we waited for our tour to start.

 

Addy loved the caves, especially the bacon and popcorn formations,

  

but the rest of us thought they were just okay. Having a better guide might have improved our opinion; ours was pretty bad  bearly bearable.

 
Our second stop, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, made up for the caves, and then some.
 
I've never seen so many giraffes in one place
 
and never so up close and personal.

 
I counted 16 in the outdoor enclosure, plus several more indoors, including this mother and son.
 

Addy's giraffe imitation.

 

We also saw Ellie the friendly porcupine,
 
a strutting peacock
 
with the best display
 
I've ever seen,
 
who was not impressing the pea-ladies at all, poor guy.
 

We rode the OMG-I'm-going-to-freeze-to-death tram, that turned into a white-knuckler for Rachel and me when the wind came up on the return journey,

 
but worth it for the views and the peek down at the pacing tiger who would have been hidden at sidewalk level. 

The new elephant barn and play yard were beautiful, 
 
with a waterfall and plenty of sand for playing

and this sweetie, 
 
who put on an impromptu show that drew applause from the crowd. 
 
Don't you love her smile? 

We got the closest I've ever been to mountain lions; 
 
we were within arm's reach of this guy. 
 
So glad that fence was there!

There was plenty for Addy to do and see,  
 

but it wasn't so kid-centric that adults were bored.

We stayed until they kicked us out at closing time and I'd love to go back again. Soon.