Recent FOs

I've just about had it with all of the doll stuff, but I still have some unfinished shoes, and unfinished dress, and lots of felt left. And a doll knitting pattern open on my computer. And a barely started stocking that I just decided to start. Nevermind the socks, lace scarf and Owls sweater I've still been working on. Kind of.

But I've had a few FOs recently, a little drawstring bag to put a perfume oil into (a gift for a cousin, we'll see how it's received). Open:

 and closed:

 The still-unnamed doll's skirt, which is larger than the last one and will need a drawstring:

 Doll stockings:

 That match the Bamboletta cardigan I made last year:

You can see one of her pairs of unfinished shoes in the picture. I've had it with the shoes. I've made half a dozen pairs of shoes and you know what? They don't fit doll feet. Because doll feet are squishy and have no heels. It seems so pointless. Maybe I should just focus on clothes. From what I remember, shoes never stayed on my Cabbage Patch or Barbie dolls either, they were always in danger of getting lost.

This doll pullover is next in my queue, but I haven't decided which yarn I want to use. I have a lone skein of Cascade Paints in a red/berry mix, but I haven't decided whether it would be better used as a pullover or this cape. And would the doll (or my daughter) even wear the cape? Or would it be a welcome addition of variety to the doll's wardrobe?

Eureka! (The Hair Diaries, revived)

When we last left off with my hair saga, I'd given up and went back to traditional shampoo and conditioner. I started trying new (more expensive) shampoos and conditioners, but I found them lacking. One shampoo that had no SLS left my hair still feeling dirty, and one high-end conditioner I tried gave me lots of build-up. I wasn't sure what to do. Quitting shampoo and conditioner cold turkey hadn't worked, and the baking soda and vinegar rinses I'd tried lacked success as well.

Then, I came across this post and for whatever reason, I tried it (Recipe #2, that is). And I think I've got it down. I'm not sure how much of it is the proportion of baking soda to water, or vinegar to water, or if it's that I've changed my method, but it works now and my hair has never felt cleaner or softer.

For me, the trick is to put the baking soda mixture into dry hair, massaging it in thoroughly. The other thing I do differently is to not just put the vinegar mixture into the ends of my hair, but directly on the scalp, letting it run down to the rest of the hair.  Like I said, my hair has never felt cleaner or softer.

But there was a problem: the smell. More to the point, my husband kept complaining that I smelled of pickles! I'd been adding lavender essential oil, but it apparently wasn't enough to counteract the sourness of the vinegar. And I knew it was really bothering him, because he mentioned it maybe five times in one night. I ended up shoving a cinnamon stick into the bottle and Hubby is much happier. He says he doesn't smell the vinegar at all anymore, and I'm contemplating running out and buying vanilla essential oil as well, but for now the lavender and cinnamon seem to work.

Success! I haven't broken down the cost compared to store-brand shampoo and conditioner, but I'm so ridiculously happy with with how my hair feels that even if this option were more expensive, I'd say it's worth it. Because I've tried a lot of different brands of shampoos and conditioners through the years, and my hair has never felt better.

No sewing skills? Doesn't matter!

 I've been on a Waldorf doll accessories-making binge this past week. Aside from making so many doll shoes that I feel like a one-woman sweat shop, I've also found a coat pattern for 16" (40cm) Waldorf dolls. Now, I can't read French, but I was able to figure out most of it. What would have been really handy though, would have been to know ahead of time that the pattern didn't include allowances. But, I didn't know that ahead of time, so the coat is a little tighter than I'd like. As in, I can't button up the coat. Also, my local stores don't offer felt sheets large enough for the hood to be made in one piece, so I cut out two pieces (with an allowance, since it was nearly the last thing I did and I knew at that point) and stitched them together, one at a time to the collar and then up the middle.

But now, back to shoes. Bub is trying his hand at making doll shoes too, the light blue pair is his:

 What I've been doing is facing them inside out, then sewing around the edge, folding down and sewing the tabs as well:

 Of course, this is only after I've pinned the two pieces in place and I have no huge gaps.

I have plans to make boots too, in brown and perhaps yellow (like rain boots, even though they're felt and not rubber or vinyl), but I have to come up with a boot pattern first.

FO-doll clothes

This weekend I took a break from "regular" knitting and knit up a little doll skirt and top. The skirt is Mini Me's Three Tiered Doll skirt pattern, and the top is modified from Mini Me's Striped Doll Dress. And by modified, I mean it was supposed to be a dress knit in fingering weight, and I knit a top in worsted weight.

The skirt was knit in KnitPicks Shamrock (the blue), Shine worsted (the orchid color) and Cascade Eco Wool, bound off with the Shine worsted. Originally, I thought that by adding the Eco Wool, it would match the grey Little Leaves doll sweater I'd knit the doll, but I don't know. All it did for sure was to ensure I had enough yarn to finish the top (I have about one yard of Shine leftover). Basically, all the skirt did was let me use up some odds and ends, but I don't think it's very good looking.

Of course, the doll isn't going to complain. Maybe I'll knit it another skirt someday.

So the Little Leaves sweater still has nothing to match it. I have this one orphan skein of Cascade 220 Paints in a red mix, I'm thinking of knitting the doll a dress with that now. And now I totally know where all of my little leftover balls of yarn will go, when they're bright colored at least. No idea what to do with all of the grey leftovers.

My next doll endeavor is stockings. I don't find this particularly fun though, so they may end up being the doll's only pair of stockings. I finally found patterns for doll shoes too, but now I can't find the felt I'd bought. This is so much fun I almost want to make myself a Waldorf doll, but then my family members would laugh at me.

Itty Bitty hasn't seen any of the clothes yet. I'm thinking of saving them for Christmas and handing them all over to her, en masse. But I'm not sure about how to package it. What kind of presentation would shock and awe?

Butterflies!

Princess had an early birthday party last month, and one of her gifts was a butterfly kit from InsectLore.  I think Bub (who's school-aged) actually appreciated it more, but I can't say for sure. Here are some pictures of the caterpillars as they turned into chrysalides:

 And after a couple hatched, we tried to feed them, but apparently orange was too sour for them (although it made a good picture):

 What the empty cocoons look like:

 Painted lady butterflies sipping sugar water on wadded up tissues:

I might order the butterflies again someday, when I think the kids are able to pay more attention. Overall it was a positive experience for the kids.

FO-Gigantic socks

Pssst, can you keep a secret? I knit my brother a pair of socks for Christmas!

He's a size 11, EEE width, which is why I have ribbing across the widest part of the foot. The socks have a standard toe, with Cat Bordhi's Coriolis architecture and reinforced heel. I didn't make the socks very high, but I barely have any yarn left so it's just as well I didn't try to make the legs taller. My brother has never had a pair of hand-knit socks, so I'm curious as to what his reaction will be. He appreciates wool socks though, so he should appreciate that at least. The yarn is Regia Stretch. I used the same yarn for my Baudelaires, which I thought were quite soft, so I thought he'd like that. And the stretchiness could be useful too, what with his super-wide feet.

I started these puppies in July, so it took me about four months to complete. Normally if I've got a fire under me I can finish one sock within a month, but I'm only a size six.

It's so nice to have finally finished a project. A few weeks ago I finished my Gaptastic Cowl, and I'm still working on my second Owls sweater, which I've knit a bit too big, but with the assumption that it will start to shrink and then be perfect. The yoke was knit 11" long, which is a reasonable length for a women's sweater, but the armpits feel a bit low and I'm hoping it doesn't stay feeling funny like that.

But back to the socks. The next step is a cute way to package them. But I have all of this time before Christmas, which means I'll probably forget about it until right before when it's too late. We'll see.

AFK

My kids have been sick. At first, it was allergies from really high winds. Then, it turned into prolonged sniffles, more coughing, congestion and not sleeping through the night, nevermind the general grumpiness and back bitting. This week it peaked in temperatures and a sinus infection for Itty Bitty. She's stopped waking up through the night since she's gotten antibiotics, but sadly, I'm still being woken up at five in the morning. Yesterday, Bub woke me up at that unreasonable hour (for myself, at least that's an unreasonable hour) just to tell me he was not sick and could go to school. After impressing the kids with my sentiment about being woken up at that hour and not wanting to hear from them until seven, I was still woken up this morning at five thirty. . . by my mother-in-law, who accidentally pocket dialed me. Now in her defense, it was eight thirty on the East Coast, but now I'm wondering what's going to happen tonight.

FO- Gap-tastic Cowl

The cowl would have been finished much sooner, if I hadn't stopped working on it three days in. That said, it's done now.

For scale, this is me, wearing the cowl:

 And this is me, wearing the cowl looped twice around:

 It seemed too large, but perhaps it's a scale thing? For reference, I'm about 5'5", and I cast on 111 stitches and knit until it was 13" wide (rather than the 15" the pattern called for). Laid flat it was about 77" long, but I think it stretched out when hung around my neck.

 Wrapped around three times looked just ridiculous, possibly "high fashion"-y but ridiculous enough I elected not to take a picture.

In the picture above you can see the bound-off edge (top), compared with the cast-on edge (bottom). The cast-on was twisted German cast-on, which was sadly not stretchy enough. The bind-off was Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off, which was perfect.

Overall, I found the project disappointing, and I don't think it's the pattern's fault. I think it's the yarn (Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky). I just can't get behind anything with that much acrylic in it. Oh well. I suspect a child of mine will be eyeing this FO, trying to figure out how to acquire it.

WIP- Owls II (Five Shades of Grey)

Since coming to terms that my original Owls sweater shrank, I've been working on a new one. It's been a bit of a process, what with ripping most of the body once I ascertained that after blocking, the short row bulge at the back bounced back. (A picture would have been more descriptive, but I was so focused on the sweater at that point I forgot to snap one.)

Which brings me to now. All five skeins of yarn are slightly different shades of grey. Originally, I started the neck ribbing with one skein, and then started a second skein to alternate. Again, I should have taken photographic evidence, but take my word for it, it was obvious so I ripped the whole thing and started over.

Then I decided I couldn't live with the short-row bulge so I did two miniature sets of short rows, one above and one below the owls:

Now I'm on the sleeve. I'm still alternating skeins. And I hate it, because it makes the knitting more fiddly and less relaxing. But look at the variation in color:

If I just knit one skein at a time without alternating, I'd have color blocks of different shades of grey. The first (left) sleeve seems to be taking one weekend, I'm hopefully I keep it up and finish before cold weather sets in.

DIY furniture

Last night my husband showed me this site. And I am so bleeping excited I could jump for joy. This mom has all of these free plans up on her blog for FURNITURE. Did you ever find yourself oohing or ahhing over all of that overpriced Pottery Barn Kids furniture? She's got a ton of look-alikes, as well as other riffs on say, those really cute $1400 bunk beds.

Hubby is excited too, because apparently, according to him, he likes to make stuff (this is rather big news to me, as we've been married nearly a dozen years and I've never seen him do more than recaulk a bathroom tub or paint a room). But, he plans to someday have a workshop, and he will supposedly be making a lot of our furniture. Until then, I suppose we're sleeping on the floor.

Monkey see, monkey do.

Being that we are looking for a house, I have also started looking into home furnishings and decorations. In the inaugural issue of ca home+design, I saw some paintings in a featured house I liked and my mother suggested I paint my own. A normal person might scoff at such a suggestion. But as a person who knits her own socks and sweaters, and forged her own wedding band, this was a great idea!

In this case I wanted instant gratification, so I went to my local Michael's and picked up some supplies:

The kids wanted to join me in my painting endeavors, so I let them get some acrylics and brushes as well:

This was Bub's portrait of me:

And this was Princess' uh. . . yeah. Her painting actually looked very cool in an abstract, modern-art type of way before she blended it all together:

This was my finished painting:

No, I didn't actually paint this while the kids were painting, I was too busy managing them and their paint. Also, I found myself wondering why I didn't just get them tubes of watercolors that would have been so much easier to clean up, but Bub tried very hard to stay clean and the mess wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. They want to paint again.

One other thing I wanted to add was that with the exception of the tube of white, I didn't actually use any of those paints or brushes in the picture. I ended up buying some big tubes of primary colors from another store and using those. Not that you can tell from the picture or anything.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right

So I was getting to the waist in the body of my Owls sweater, but something just wasn't right. It was the short rows that raised the back. They poufed out, making it look like I was either a hunchback, or that I had vestigial wings I was trying to hide. I tried wet-blocking it (but is there dry-blocking I don't know about?) which seemed to make it flat, but a few hours after trying it on, it popped back out. So we went riiiiiiiip.

All the way back to the ribbing of the collar. I decided to try something different. Little clusters of short rows. I did two sets before I started the cables for the owls, and then another two sets afterwards. This is the result:

 So hopefully that's enough. I haven't been knitting much on this recently, since I've been working on Christmas knitting and it's been too hot to work on a sweater, but I still hope to get this done soon.

Why are we so. . .?

Did anyone else see this yesterday? A blogger made a map with Google's autofill suggestions for every state. It kind of reminds me of this old article about what people like by race and gender (at least according to profiles at OkCupid). There seems to be an uneasy line between truth and stereotypes (I totally fall into the dating site's racial stereotype #3, for instance) and for the map, at least, it's interesting to see how other people see your state.

Project of the weekend

Almost every weekend, we seem to have a little home improvement project. A few weeks ago, it was replacing a bedroom window screen. (That actually took two weekends, since after Hubby made the first screen frame, cutting his finger in the process, he accidentally bent it trying to put it in.) A few months ago, it was clearing off a desk. Today, we were a bit more ambitious. We dismantled the crib in the kids' bedroom. It's been sitting there for more than a year now, taking up space in front of the closet.  It was handy, because if Bub's clothes were wet, he'd hang them up on the rail for them to dry. (Of course, he'd never actually remember to put them away, but I digress.) The bottom of the crib had this gigantic pull-out drawer that I kept Princess' future clothes in. All of those clothes that are currently too big, they all went in there. Until today.

There's also a full-sized bed with drawers under it, and a dresser. The dresser has been full of my pre-baby things (computer things, music things, music with computer things, pre-baby clothing) until now, I'm getting rid of it all. More or less. So now, it's all Bub's clothes, Princess' clothes, and the clothes they're going to grow into. Which let us dismantle the crib. Sadly, it is now sitting in the garage and not out of the house, but baby steps. Listing and selling everything on Craigslist will have to be a separate, future endeavor.

But now, in addition to dismantling the crib, we're dismantling the full-sized bed set and taking that down as well (I definitely do NOT need to go to the gym tonight, working at home has been more than sufficient) and then setting up. . . bunk beds! Of course, for some reason we can only find one of the twin-sized beds, but Hubby wants to set up the whole thing and then get a mattress.

Since I was clearing out the dresser and all of the drawers in three different pieces of furniture, I also had the kids try things on and do some culling of their wardrobes, getting rid of things that have become too short or tight.

The only part of this that I've found upsetting has been when Hubby took the drawers out of the full-sized bed. Bub's been complaining for months that he doesn't have enough socks, his socks don't match, etc. Shoved behind that drawer were maybe six pairs of missing socks, as well as pants, shirts, underwear, and other things so dusty that we threw them directly into the washer. I thought he had enough socks!

Beware, your children and those electronic gadgets.

I don't know whether I mentioned it here, but a few months back, we let Bub use Memrise for his multiplication tables and some Mandarin characters. It seemed great, until Hubby got a notice that Bub had signed up for a Twitter account. And apparently, Bub had started talking to another member, commenting on her "long, luxurious hair." Since Hubby hasn't had a time to reconfigure the router, and I cannot literally sit at Bub's side for every moment while he is on a computer, Bub hasn't had any online access, period.

Today, one of my friends told me that her daughter (who's about the same age as Princess, which is about three) bought a three thousand dollar vacation deal through one of those Groupon (or similar website) offers. Through her iPhone. She found said daughter hiding under a desk, with her phone. Luckily, she had three days to cancel, and now she has some sort of a lock on her phone, but wow.

I bring this up because that Patagonia sale started today, and I finally got some of the pieces I've been keeping an eye out for. Bub was sitting next to me though, and just as I was putting him to bed, he asked me "How do you buy things through the computer?" He'd graciously turned his head while I'd inputted my password, during which time I'd hurriedly rushed through the checkout process, so it's understandable that he's curious, since he didn't see me input the credit card information or anything. All the same, I didn't think it would be a good idea to tell him exactly how to do such a thing, I think it's bad enough that he knows it's possible. And I know, a little knowledge is dangerous. But if I gave him a step-by-step guide, I'm also afraid he'd want to try. And perhaps I should have a private conversation with Hubby first.

Homeschooling how-tos

Today I'm meeting a friend to show her how I homeschool. Without the actual sitting the Bub down and assigning him stuff and waiting around for him to finish. We're meeting at the library, where I will be bringing his curriculum and calendar (where I write in everything that we do, which I feel keeps me accountable), and answer any of said friend's questions.

My friend started her son off in the local public school, which is where the son's best friend from preschool was also going. But then she thought that perhaps there was something better, and enrolled him in the private school we had just pulled Bub from. Like us, she also had problems with the administration, so it seems they won't be continuing there next fall and she's looking into what her options are.

I really love home schooling for the most part. It's so much more flexible and low stress. The only points of stress are: 1) how does Bub learn the foreign languages he wants to learn when we aren't speakers of said languages, and 2) is he getting enough "socialization"? He doesn't seem to want much. In fact, he wants less. Princess, on the other hand, wants more, and I'm trying to find a way to accommodate her needs without driving everyone else (me) insane. I'm not that social. And it's hard, having your kids being of the age where you have to make friends with the kids' parents* so that your kids can socialize.

*This is hard mostly when you find you don't have anything in common with the other kids' parents, or when you find that the relationship is one-sided and you are constantly having to ask for play dates and the other parent doesn't seem to care for your presence, but your kid really, really likes his/her kid (and the kid also seems to like your kid), so you suffer through being the supplicant in the relationship. Or, as one of my other friends put it, I'm the guy in the relationship. That did not make me feel better.

Another gripe on socialization--even when you make friends with the parent and the child, some people are flaky. I have a flaky friend. I don't know what to do. Princess loves her little friend, and the little friend's mother is very friendly and always reciprocates invitations. The problem is that she's flaky and seems to cancel on half of the things we plan. It's annoying. We obviously come from different places, but when I make a commitment to something, be it a play date, a class or whatever, we go unless someone is sick or there's an emergency.  Whereas for my flaky friend, if her husband suddenly decides to come home for lunch, or her mother-in-law wants to see her grandchild, or my flaky friend just doesn't feel like going out, whatever class or play date we've arranged becomes yet another cancellation.

So the friend I'm meeting today I like. She's not flaky. And her kids are the relative corresponding ages of my kids AND her kids are easy going (Bub is not) so if this is something they choose to do, I hope our friends become good homeschooling friends so that we have positive social interactions.

July is not sweater weather

A couple weeks ago I finally finished a merino/linen-blend cardigan. For some reason, I thought knitting a wool sweater next (in July!!!) would be a good idea. I think my original line of thought was that if I started now, I'd be able to wear it this fall. Which makes sense, since it takes me so long to finish a project. (Who knows, it might not be done until next fall.) So I'm knitting Owls, again, in the summer. And today seems to be hot--almost 80 degrees (which I realize is not very hot for most of the country)-- and yet I find myself trying on my sweater:

The short rows in the back (I was unable to contort my body so that I could get a picture of that) kind of bulge out, hopefully it uh, fits better when it's longer. The color, I love. I think my Vine Yoke Cardigan is the same color (but this is Madelinetosh and that was Malabrigo) so perhaps I should venture out of my comfort zone. But I love grey.

The sweater is coming along well, all of the exciting stuff is done, I think. All that remains is knitting swaths and swaths of stockinette (and ribbing for the very ends). Of my last three skeins, one is noticeable darker, so I have to make sure I try to alternate in such a way that it's kind of even. Other than that, I'm really looking forward to wearing this in the fall, hopefully when the cooler weather warrants a wool sweater.

FO-Summer Sweater, just in time

My sweater is finally complete! According to my mother, who saw the FO yesterday, it is unlike any other sweater she will see. She may be correct, but I would point out to you, if not to her, that there are a number of knitters who have knit similar sweaters with high ribbed collars, set-in sleeves, ribbed cuffs and a ribbed waist. Probably not so many in Louet MerLin though, as it does not seem to be as popular yarn as say, Cascade or Madelinetosh. This sweater is very similar to ankestrick's Romy or even Stefanie Japel's Short-Sleeved Cardigan with Ribbing (but with set-in sleeves instead of raglan, long-sleeves instead of short, and without the purled stripes. Yeah, just like it!).

I am particularly happy about the shoulders, as while I wish the Contiguous method were the one for me, I'm not completely happy with the shape of the shoulder caps with that method. Until someone figures out how to fix the pointiness (which no one else has remarked upon), I guess I will stick to The Tailored Sweater Method. It's fiddlier, but gives me the results I want.

A few notes to remember:
-the sweater was knit on size 5 needles, and the ribbing on size 4.
-the waist bind-off was with Jeny's incredible stretchy bind-off. I'm not sure that was necessary. For the button band ribbing, I did a regular bind-off on size 6 needles. For the sleeves, I did a regular bind-off on size 5 needles. I got lazy, and I haven't noticed any problems.

You can supposedly throw this yarn into the washer and dryer, but I'm not planning to. I'm just hoping it doesn't shrink remarkably and I'll be happy. The MerLin is very nice, but not very wooly (it's merino wool and linen, isn't that an interesting mix?). The upside is that I don't find it to be the slightest bit scratchy, aside from the stiffness of the linen, which I expect to lessen as the sweater gets more use.

Now, onto the future! I have five skeins of Madelinetosh Tosh Chunky and I plan on reknitting Owls with it. After that, I have three skeins of Madelinetosh Pashmina, and five skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy, so I'll have to decide on which project, exactly, I want to do. I'm on a yarn diet this year, and unfortunately it seems that I'm knitting so slow it won't make much of a difference. The rate of decrease in stash is very slow. Well hi there.

Trash, treasure

Awhile ago I knit my mother a pair of socks. They were from the then-new Alpaca Sox yarn, and I knit them double-stranded in the Coriolis pattern. She liked the colors and found them comfy and warm, although more like a pair of shoes because they were so stiff. Anyway, that was years ago. The bottoms started getting worn, and holes finally developed. And she wanted to fix them.

When I first started knitting socks, I had not learned to appreciate nylon and thus, had started with Fly Designs' Monarch yarn (it is 100% merino and very soft and squishy). I am not a fast knitter, nor do I have much time, what with homeschooling two small children. The socks did not last long. I held onto them for years, thinking I would darn them. My mother-in-law even gave me an antique darning mushroom for Christmas one year, which strengthened my resolve to fix those holey socks. And eventually, one day, when the kids were down napping and I didn't have anything else to do and I could concentrate, I sat down to darn.

The finished results were ugly (I have no pictures to corroborate this fact, you'll have to take my word at it). They were bumpy. The socks felt quite uncomfortable there, despite my finest efforts and the fact that I'd saved the leftover sock yarn for just such occasions. Nonetheless, I held onto my old, holey socks for a few years, until last year in fact, thinking I would eventually get around to it. But last year I gave up hope, decided I would never enjoy wearing darned socks, and threw them out.

Alas, what a tragic mistake. Let's fast forward back to my mother with a pair of holey socks. She wanted to know how to fix them, so I pulled up videos on duplicate stitch and how to weave to fix holes in socks. I gave her the darning mushroom, needle and matching yarn. She patiently sat darning, an entire afternoon, her pair of socks. And now the holes are woven over, filled. She's delighted. And she wants me to send her all of my holey socks, because the way the patches feel do not bother her.

On one point I'm relieved to know that holey socks will have a second life (we have approximately the same shoe size, so this works out wonderfully). But at the same time, I'm a bit horrified that I'm giving her my cast-offs, my trash, to use a harsher word. I've knit her a number of pairs of socks, and she wears them all but on the hottest summer days so I know she gets use out of them (unlike my mother-in-law, for whom I've knit three pairs and I've never seen her wear a single pair). But still.

My mother would look at it from a practical standpoint and see that we both gain--I get rid of holey socks I can't wear, and in her viewpoint, she gets a new pair of socks. She used to only wear sandals (we live in Southern California so this is not terribly unusual) but ever since she's been accumulating handknit socks, she's been wearing clogs so that she can also wear said socks.

Now if I only hadn't thrown out all of those years' worth of holey socks. She would have been set.

The Best Vacation Ever

Last month I had the Best. Vacation. Ever.  Hubby and I took a cruise through the Inside Passage of Alaska. We looked at glaciers calving. We listened to nature guides and national park rangers. We hiked and floated down a river in Skagway, did a really awesome hike in Juneau (and since it was on my birthday, I think it was also the Best Birthday Ever), and took in the sights in Ketchikan (Totem Heritage Center, Salmon Fishery and Married Man's Trail, which coincidentally, was from a residential area to what used to be the red light district). Then we'd get back on the ship, get dressed and have nice dinners. 

So I've decided to share some vacation photos. First we have a picture of a moose nibbling the shrubbery in an Anchorage backyard:

 And this is a picture of the Hubbard Glacier, with a boat in the picture for reference:

 These were some of the gigantic dandelions we saw in Skagway:

 and this was a ptarmigan in the Canadian Rockies:

 More of the Canadian Rockies:

 We passed a sign while hiking in Skagway:

 Here's a close-up of the post. A bear used it as a scratching post, you can see some of its fur stuck in the gouges:

 This is a bald eagle flying overhead. It was amazing how loud its wings were:

 The next day we hiked up to a summit of Mount Roberts. This is when we reached the snow line:

 These are pictures of bear prints on the trail we took.:

 And this is a picture we did not see until we had finished our hike up, go figure. Part of the trail

 There are very pretty stained glass decorations around the pier by the cruise ships:

 and totem poles here and there:

 This one is a replica of another, and in front of the Totem Heritage Center:

 A wall decoration and a boat:

 Look closely at those totems in the picture. The one on the right was commissioned by a woman who'd married a white man (that's a white man with a top hat on the very top of it); the ones on the left I think were to commemorate the tribe meeting white men for the first time. They used a picture of Abraham Lincoln as reference. These cracked me up.

The week after we got back, Hubby got so sick he was bedridden for days and I was extra busy. Things are better now, and thus, I can post.

And last, but not least, I think because these pictures were taken with my cell phone,

A picture of a bear print with my hand as reference,

 The insane number of shoes I ended up packing for said Alaskan cruise (high heels for formal nights, lower heels for "smart casual" dining nights, sneakers for exercising in the fitness center, hiking boots for hiking, Crocs for hot tub/swimming situations, and Birkenstocks for general hanging out on the boat):

 Another picture of a giant dandelion, this time with Hubby's hand as reference. A man's hand. And look at the size of that thing. In Anchorage at 11pm it was still light, so all of that extra sunlight sure seems to prolong the growing up there.