...Happy Thanksgiving...

...we're celebrating all we have to be thankful for...and it's a lot...

(photo taken of our church on Thanksgiving Eve)

...wishing you all a lovely Thanksgiving with your families as well...

Super Simple Diagonal Baby Blanket...Free Pattern

SIZE

Receiving Blanket Size

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS

about 30 x 30

MATERIALS

Lion Brand Homespun Yarn

colourway - Windsor

Recommended needle size:

1 set US #10

GAUGE

gauge is not terribly important

DIRECTIONS

cast on 2 stitches

knit in stockinette stitch increasing one stitch at the beginning of each row until you have 110 stitches

knit 2 rows in pattern

continue to knit in stockinette stitch decreasing one stitch at the beginning of each row until you have 2 stitches

bind off

...Great Aunt...Grand Nephew...

...in addition to the snow...we came home to another lovely surprise...

...my nephew and his lovely wife just had their first baby...in Italy where he is stationed serving our country...(not my pics...I snagged them from facebook)...

...so I am a great aunt for the very first time...it doesn't quite seem possible that the little baby boy that I first held back in the 80s now has a little babe of his own...but so is life...

...and babies need blankets don't they...

...this was my first time using this new-to-me Bernat Premium...which they now carry at my LYS...(aka Stuff-Mart)...

...I liked it a lot...it's very soft and fuzzy...perfect for a little boy's blanket...I used my own pattern...but made it more receiving blanket sized instead of the rectangular crib size in the pattern...

...then because you can never have to many baby blankets...I knit another one using Homespun (also from my LYS)...this fuzzy loopy yarn is a little bit harder to work with...but I love it anyway because it's so soft and fuzzy...

...I knit this blanket on the diagonal like I do for the dishcloths...just increasing one stitch at the beginning of each row...I was going to do a crochet border on this one too because I was afraid the edges would curl too much...but I don't know if it's because of the heavy yarn or what...but it actually lays nice and flat...this is the stockinette stitch smooth or knit side...

...but I prefer the bumpy purl side on this blanket...

...and I'm loving this diagonal pattern...that may become my go-to baby blanket pattern...I'm going to see how it works with a thinner yarn too...

...home to snow...

...we came home from our desert trip to snow...Scout was thrilled and has already started building a fort...

Grand Canyon Adventure...Days 4 and 5...

...We started pretty early...hitting the trail about 7:30 AM...with some horsing around...holding up the rocks...

...we met a mule train...so we took to the inside again to let them pass...

...they were coming down into the canyon this time...they must have left really early...to be this far down this early...

...so pretty...it was a hazy morning...but that was a good thing as I think it kept things a little bit warmer overnight...

...it's chilly...and it doesn't take long until we start to see some snow...

...but it's pretty melty and really a muddy mess...not that the boys mind at all...but it's a little bit slippery too...

...as we continue to climb...and I do mean CLIMB...it's just like walking up stairs for miles...

...we see more snow...time to put the crampons back on...

...another thing we walked right past on the way down...these awesome petroglyphs...

...I was really hoping to see some petroglyphs...so I was really happy...we couldn't climb up to them...but you can make out lots of deer...

...the the final turn and we're back at the rim...
...as we were leaving the canyon...we stopped at the Kaibab National Forest...

...actually...we had been driving through this forest most of the way up to the canyon...it's huge...

...it's mostly a pine forest...not a lot of hardwoods...and spaced out quite a bit...so not a lot like the Pisgah National Forest where we grew up...but still nice and peaceful and beautiful...

...when we got back to the hotel...we realized that our boots were a MESS...and we had not brought any other shoes...and we had BIG plans for the afternoon...so we had to clean our boots...and Scout had the great idea of saving the dirt that we scraped off our boots as a souvenir...you're not really supposed to take dirt or rocks out of the canyon...but this dirt would have just worn off on the sidewalks and such if we had left it on our boots...so I put it in a baggie and saved it...

...and then washed the boots semi clean...

...we're kinda airport junkies around our family...we have so many pilots...so we drove out to the airport and had a little look around...

...and the Scoutmaster's son works for the tour company...we saw some of their planes flying over the canyon...

...so he gave the boys a guided tour of the inner workings of an airport garage...they let the boys climb into the planes and sit in the pilots seats...

...it was so interesting watching them park the big planes...

...it was a really tight fit...they had to set the propeller a certain way and guide it into the hanger with one man holding the propeller so that it wouldn't hit the side of the hanger...amazing...

...and they opened them up and told the boys about the motors...and propellers and such...it was great fun...

...we saw the Heliport that launches the helicopters that we saw over the canyon as well...

...and they gave us complimentary tickets to the IMAX theatre!...

...we got to see the Grand Canyon Movie...on the BIG screen...

...you're not supposed to take photos...so I just secretly snapped a shot of the big screen during the previews...the movie was awesome...

...after the movie and pizza at a local pizza place...we headed back to our hotel...to sleep in real beds...YAY!...

...bright and early the next morning we were on the road back to Phoenix...

...the scenery was awesome again...

...driving back through the desert...

...and the snowy trees...

...with the desert hills...

...and mountains in the distance...

...We are safely home and we had an uneventful flight with lots of airport food and lots of airport walking...that part of traveling with teenaged boys is fun too!...

...anywhoo...we're happy to be home...and we'd do it all again in a heartbeat!...

Grand Canyon Adventure...Day 3...

...dawn at Phantom Ranch...Boy's tent...my little tent...and the Scoutmaster slept in a bivy sac...

...and here's the promised photo of my little tent in use...I felt snug and secure in there...the night-time temps were 35° F (1.6° C)...

...the mule train heading up the mountain...with some passengers and the mail...one of the campers told us that they charge $2 per pound...Yikes! That means a ride out of the canyon for me would cost over $300...I guess I'll have to make it on my own...

...the sun coming up over the bluffs...again...we're still in shadow...

...some contrails forming a cross...perfect for morning devotions...

...the National Register of Historic Places plaque...

...Theodore Roosevelt visited here...and Mary Colter designed the cute cabins out of all native materials...good thing too...as I'm sure it would have been very difficult to get building materials here...

...Phantom Ranch Welcomes you!...

...Bright Angel Creek...

...it was lovely listening to the babbling creek all night long...that's our campsite to the right...

...we went into the canteen at Phantom...of course...to purchase souvenir tee-shirts...and some post cards...which are stamped 'Mailed by Mule'...HA!

...the little 'mail box' at Phantom Ranch...

...we filled our camelbacks...

...or just our tummies...at Phantom Ranch...during warmer weather there is water at the rest houses...but because of the freezing temperatures that's all turned off after October...we carried plenty of water and even a filter...so this is the first chance we've had to take on water...

...then we headed up the trail for a day hike...

...past the sweet little cabins...

...and the telephone lines...

...the trail is really really steep!...

...I'm hoping that the photos do it a little bit of justice...

...I know it's hard to get the perspective of the steepness and vastness of the terrain...but someone told me to put a person in the photo...to show scale...

...we had our lunch at the top of Phantom Overlook...and we heard a helicopter coming from a long way off...finally it came into view...

...then we hiked a little bit further up the trail in order to have a view of the Colorado...

...looking North...that's the North Kaibab Lodge on the second bluff in...we hiked down from the South Rim..

...I just love it when a picture of moi shows up...they're so unexpected...as obviously I didn't take them...

...we hiked back to our campsite at Phantom Ranch...

...past the signs that were too dark to photograph when we hiked in last night...

...we stopped at the Ranger Station...and LUCKY us...there was a cancellation at Indian Gardens...and we have just enough daylight left to pack up and hike halfway back up the canyon...

...the boys decided to go back by the same route we had come down as the last part was pretty dark and they were afraid they might have missed something...

...so we headed back across Silver Bridge...

...like most hiking bridges that I've crossed - it has a lot of motion...and there's no way two people with packs could pass...so you have to make sure the bridge is clear before starting out...

...it's quite a span...but the views of the river from the middle of the bridge...

...are simply AWESOME!...

...the trail beside the river is not too steep and it's just lovely there with the red water rushing by...

...our first stop was the Rest House at Pebble Beach...we had not used the Rest Houses on the way down...they have one every 1 1/2 miles...but we'll probably use them all on the way back up...

...the boys spotted this Tarantula on the trail...he's moving pretty slowly in the chilly shade here...still so very glad that I brought my little tent...I'd rather not sleep with critters like this one...

...we found a cave to explore...

...alas...it was a really small cave...

...the Ranger said that up times vary considerably with the individual...but probably average about time and 1/2 of your down time...as you make more stops...but probably take fewer pictures...(not me!)...

...one thing that I did find really interesting was how different the exact same things seem when you're going up...I mean...you just walked past them yesterday...

...but we saw things (like the cave) on our way up that we had missed on our way down...

...more deer as we come back into the oasis of Indian Gardens...

...I'm not sure we paid that much attention to this lovely little waterfall on the way down...

...now how'd she get up there...

...we get to Indian Gardens right at dusk...so thankful that we won't be setting up camp in pitch darkness...just dusky darkness...

...this sweet girl and her 2 babes were munching (loudly) on something right beside our campsite...they just slowly wandered off as it got dark...

...we got our tents up...

...and blew up our air mattresses...so very glad to have brought air mattresses!...

...and a hazy moon rises over the canyon...the forecast posted as we came into Indian Gardens is for 23° F (-5° C)...we're hoping that the cloud cover keeps things a little bit warmer than that...

...Night-Night...