Woohoo!! The fun times are here!

Well here we finally go. Bryan is officially done with his 3 month probation, and now he gets every other weekend off and a trip home to Napa Valley, CA once a month! We leave for Napa in two days and I CANNOT WAIT!! I've never been to northern California at all, and I've always wanted to go. This is going to be so much fun! I will have my camera and video camera and will be posting a bunch of stuff as soon as we get back I'm sure. Today is all about doing laundry and other things to get ready to go.

So when we fly into Oakland, the first thing we're going to do is pick up our rental car and cruise the long way home via the Golden Gate Bridge because I've always wanted to see it. Bryan said we can walk around on it. That would be awesome. :) Then we're going to his Grandma's house, which is where we'll be staying for a few days. That's in Napa. We'll be exploring the town he grew up in, and doing a little bit of wine tasting probably. We're also going to do a lot of walking/driving around exploring the beautiful countryside. Then we're going to head down Highway 101 along the coast either north to stay by Humboldt and the redwoods at the Avenue of the Giants and everything, or we'll head south to stay by Big Sur and the Monterey Bay Aquarium and stuff. Oh, decisions.... :) My cameras are ready and waiting!!

In other good news, I believe I've chosen a studio! It's called the Rogers Foundation of Music, and I'll have a good-sized studio there as well as gaining access to free private lessons in jazz/improv and recording. I'll also have free unlimited access to a recording studio for me and my students, and might even have an opportunity to do some paid-to-sing type gigs recording on various recording projects they do there. I'm excited! It's going to be very nice.

We've been exploring the city a little more lately, and we went to the World War 1 Museum last weekend. That was pretty neat. I have some favorite restaurants and hangouts now, and I can even go to the Kansas City Conservatory to play the uprights and grands in their practice rooms. So that's nice too. One place I know I want to revisit is the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, which is free all day every day. There's some rooms I haven't seen yet. And I want to go to The Yarn Barn in Lawrence, Kansas about an hour away from here!! It's an incredible warehouse-sized mecca of yarn and spinning and all things fiber. :-P Mmmmm..... yarn, needles, drop spindles....

Speaking of knitting, I've been taking a break lately but not by choice!! I just realized that the yarn I bought for this amazing shawl was completely wrong for the project. Not even close to thick enough! :( And we're short on cash at the moment but all that will change in a month. However, I did a yarn swap recently through Ravelry, and my partner sent me the coolest yarns. :) I've decided to use a really cool sock pattern I've been wanting to try in this fingering-weight hand-painted sock yarn that she got me. It's these gorgeous colors of maroon and emerald with a touch of cream. It's going to be really pretty! I hope I can modify the gauge enough to be small enough for my feet! The trouble is that the yarn is heavier than the pattern calls for, and the pattern itself is already too big for my feet. lol But I went down a needle size, and I think I'm going to change the pattern a bit too. It's an easy one to modify, so that's why I picked it. Right now I'm fighting with the tangly mess I made of the skein trying to wind it into a ball, but as soon as that fiasco is over I'll be making pretty things with string again before you can say, "Bob's your uncle." lol :)

Well I'd better go. Mountains of laundry await.....

~Trudy~