Best surprise in 2008 (so far).

For far too many years than I want to count, our dear son has looked like this. He is a great looking man (mother's pride) EXCEPT for his hair style (my opinion, but shared by some others aslo). One thing I have learned about kids is that if you keep harping about wanting them to change something, it doesn't usually happen. He is our "strong willed" child (and now he has a daughter that is even stronger willed than he!!), so I was VERY surpised when he sent me this picture. Much better now... Being the "concerned" mother that I am, I set out and made him a hat to keep his head warm. He hasn't
received it yet, so I don't know his reaction!

Monthly dishcloth KAL challenge

I am in the Monthly Dishcloth group on Yahoo. They have KALs twice a month. I have been a member of this group for almost 2 years and this is the FIRST KAL I finished. The first KAL of the month is a mystery cloth--I love the football (GO GIANTS!!) but just grabbed whatever solid color I could get to easily. That is why my cloth is a turquoise blue, but I still like it. You will have to click in on the cloth to see the "picture" better.
The group is having a challenge for 2008 to make all 24 of the cloths. I signed up for it. Cloth #2 starts tomorrow (15th). I will post about my progress. By Dec. I should have a great supply of cloths for gifts.....

Starting off 2008

I started off the new year with small, take-along projects DISHCLOTHS!! I love to knit these because they are fast, practical and fun to make, plus I have lots of cotton in my stash that I need to use up! They make great gifts and are usually well appreciated. I plan to make lots more this year.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008! We did some traveling between Christmas and New Year's Day. We went to PA to see Mom and my brother. I also got to see some friends, my aunt and cousins. This is me with my 2 cousins. We grew up together until I got married and moved away.

After 4 days there we went to Baltimore to see "old" friends, Allen and Francine. I've known Francine since 4th grade. She was my maid of honor! We went to college together. Allen knew Keith from high school and "fixed us up" on a blind date. The rest is history (41 years of marriage). They got married 6 weeks after we did--she even wore my veil!! But with us living in different states we didn't see each other much at all. In fact, we hadn't seen them in over 30 years!! We had so much fun together, and it is amazing how much we still have in common.

From Baltimore we went on to Washington D.C. for 3 days where we played tourists! Parking is a real problem there, so we left the car at our hotel and walked everywhere. We did pick a hotel that was near what we wanted to see, so it wasn't bad at all. I loved seeing all of the Christmas trees from every state (near the White House). My favorite site was the WW II Memorial. It wasn't there the last time I was in D.C. (1995). Here are some pictures of just a few of the things we enjoyed. The weather was cold, dreary and some rain. So on Sunday we went to several of the Smithsonian museums so we could be inside. They are always so fascinating. All of these wonderful treasures for us to enjoy, and they were all FREE to see and appreciate! If there was a charge for admission, it was very reasonable. It was so great to see so many families there.

I was surprised to see Jerry Seinfeld's "puffy shirt" on display! We also saw the Lone Ranger's mask, Archie Bunker's chair, the MASH sign (pointing to different cities), R2D2, and lots more.

Nina would have liked seeing Dorothy's ruby slippers and the Scarecrow!

We went to Arlington Cemetery just before leaving D.C. (we drove, and did get lost trying to get to Baltimore--should have brought Keith's new GPS!!) The changing of the guard was different than what I had remembered, but I hadn't been there in over 30 years. It was as impressive as ever.

We visited the Kennedy family grave site with the eternal flame still burining. The last time I saw that it was still new. I remember walking on wooden planks to the grave site. It was 1965!

We did walk over to see the Iwo Jima memorial to the Marines. Having watched the PBS special about WW II made this even more impressive (and sad).

We spent New Year's Eve near the BWI airport and didn't manage to stay awake until midnight. Our flight home was delayed an hour and a half because of "weather" in Michigan. This is what greeted us when we got home

We had over 12 inches of the beautiful white stuff waiting for us (and more falling). It took awhile to get the driveway cleared enough to get into the garage. These pictures were taken on Jan. 2. We got home at night and it was too dark to take good pictures.

Happy 2008!!