Elves, Barbarians and other strange things!

Some pictures from David's recent trip to the Elf Fanatasy Fair in the Netherlands!

Yes that is David getting to battle as a Carthaginian......they beat the Romans in this one!

David got to keep the armor and now Sage is complete as a wee barbarian!

D also brought back some very safe bow and arrows for the kids (note big rubber ball on end of arrow)! Now the first thing Sage does in the morning is go out for archery practice.....and tries not to hit any of our apartment dwellers as they leave for work!

Cat training and Mum's wee bit of news

Well it's not exactly training but we did get a leash for our cat Dolphin so he could safely go outside. He has actually taken to it without much of an issue. We just have to be ready when he leaps after a fly! Of course now he meows at the door waiting to be taken outside!

And now to my wee bit of news.....David is soon to be joined in the publishing world by his wife!! Yes ..me....I have had a knitting pattern accepted by an online knitting website called knitty.com

Obviously it's small potatoes compared to the hubby but it's major for me ( I do get paid a wee amount for this). It will be out in the summer issue and will have photos of Maya wearing the design (which is a skirt but I can't publish any pictures until the design comes out online).

So now I'm officially a knitwear designer! I'm already planning submissions to other places!

I have also just set up my very own knitting blog which will be called Shetland Trader (well there is nothing on the blog yet but I'll link to it once I put some stuff on there). I'm using Maggie's picture above as my wee trademark signature and hope it will become some kind of business for me in the future. The website that is publishing the pattern will allow me to provide a link to blog/website hence my being prompted to finally get around to doing what I had been meaning to for a while.

Yipee...I'm so excited!

Alligators in the desert!?!

Yes it's true they really have alligators in the deserts of Colorado! We stopped by on our recent trip with D's students to the college's retreat-like campus in the mountains.
So I have to tell you that Maya and Sage did actually hold a wee 3 foot alligator...where are the photos?...well it was one of those 'you have to buy our photos for $20 deals'...so you'll just have to take my word for it...(stingy parents)

So the real deal with these guys is that they were originally brought in to clean the tanks of the Tilapia fish that are farmed here (and which is still the main business at the reptile park) and now they breed them there also.

No this isn't our new luggage!

The kids had fun watching all the tumbleweeds blowing around and were wondering how the owner of this house was going to get out!

Yes we own our very own tumbleweed now!

Desert light. I don't have photos but we also visited some natural hot springs with the students and got to bob around in the hot water while the sun cast it's golden light on the mountains.....sooo relaxing...even the kids chilled out!