Through the Eyes of a Child

We are back from our wedding-family reunion-vacation trip! Exhausted, but all in one piece.
As I was toggling through the camera looking for some good snapshots of the momentous event, I realized two things: One, you don't take pictures in your own wedding. Since I was too cheap to hire a photographer, I am stuck waiting for a kind family member to collect pictures from all the guests to make an album. Second, my tech-savvy 4-year old had commandeered mom's camera, and he took to the job of photographing everything with gusto. I have spent most of the afternoon culling over 400 snapshots. Many pictures of the floor, the sky, random people we don't even know (some apparently mugged and posed for the camera), critters and rocks, but some of them are truly amazing. Thus, the trip through the eyes of a child.

It rained a lot. It seems odd to get rained out in Arizona in August, but it is monsoon time, and apparently more so on the mountains. The day of the wedding was gray and misty, which lend the Canyon an eerie light and a decidedly mysterious air. It did not rain, until about the time I stepped out of the caravan in wedding regalia. My guests took it in great spirits, humming the Wedding March while wearing an assortment of plastic ponchos, rain gear and umbrellas. The minister, who showed up on hiking gear and changed later, quoted a Native American poem : " I shall feel no rain, for you are my refuge...". It did get a chuckle out of the guests.
The reception was wonderful, the cake was a looker and just so yummy, and we had a wonderful time. I will not bore you with the stories of the wedding, though I promise to share more pictures soon!

Here is the scary moment of the trip. We rented a private RV, which apparently was not very well maintained, and the battery went flat on us. Thankfully one of my brother in laws is a mechanic, and CPR'd it back to life. But for the first hour of the trip home, we had no headlights, no blinkers, no wipers, and no dashboard lights. And believe me, it was scary to negotiate those tight mountain roads on a monster RV in the middle of a driving rain!

Grand Canyon Lodge dining room windows... lovely stone work!

Another "rocky road"

A lovely mountain flower

Ground squirrels and chipmunks at the Lodge are incredibly bold!

Hi grandpa!

The Ghost of the Dirty Fingernails

After the wedding, we made a short stopover at home to wash a mountain of dirty laundry, and off to Disneyland. Not my favorite place in the world, and the kids did not seem to get it either, but the grandparents had a complete blast!. I have never been one for crowds, and waiting in line for an hour, no matter how great the ride is, just does not seem worth it. DH swore we would not come back until the kids were at least 40 inches tall and could go to all the good rides. Sounds like a plan.

And on with the knits...
I had a pleasant surprise on my return home - My one and only submission to a magazine up to now had been accepted for publication! wee! I do not like much to work with submissions because of all the waiting involved, and now I am stuck waiting for the support yarn and not able really to talk much about it... all I can say is that it is going to be a fun piece!

Meanwhile all my other knitting seems to be at the "black hole" stage, where you knit and knit and it just does not seem to grow. Here is the Sylvar sweater. I was a victim of the Gauge Fairy, and as soon as I started the actual sweater, my gauge dropped by at least a half stitch per inch, and I had to go a size up. Good think it is a bottom-down piece. I am also planning some modifications, such as running the pattern to the lower edge and making some increases after the waist to accommodate my, ahem, pear shape. 
And I have managed to get to the second panel of the red frost-flower shawl (aka Most Boring Knit Evah). I am actually excited about this, and seems like I will have a whole skein of the gorgeous Malabrigo Lace in  Sealing Wax left over - so I am open to trades.
I did mention that my sister was a bit of a fashion freak. She actually gave me the most elegant pair of silicone shoes I have ever seen. We pored over a dozen couture magazines. She loved This Ferragamo cabled sweater  which in close look is actually incredibly difficult to master - they are not cables, but individual "ropes" plaited together. She also fell in love with a certain intarsia design and we spent many hours bent over graphic paper with my huge case of Prismacolor pencils making our version of the design.

I found out that swatching for colorwork is incredibly expensive. I did order a half a dozen KnitPicks Palette to work with, and found out that I really wanted one or two different colors. Palette is very inexpensive and they have around 100 shades, but it is very hard to choose from just a monitor picture. I will definitely post updates as the sample unfold, though I am still not even sure what I am going to use it for.
September approaches!
It is getting more and more difficult to find clues that still challenge your skill levels! September has not been a walk in the park. I was, for once, quite defeated when the swatches did not turn out like I wanted them. Then it was "Back to the Walkers" time, and I had a little aha moment - finally things seem to be clicking together, and I have managed to find something fun, challenging, and hopefully beautiful. I got tired of swatching and started today on my own piece, and so far I am really liking it! I am hoping to get it whipped up in shape and kinks worked out by the very first days of September.
I know that there was some (gentle) grumbling about September being to early for falling leaves. Unfortunately October has a sort of an obligatory theme, being the last of the four beaded clues. I can't believe nobody figured out yet the theme underlying those four clues!!! March, July and August, and now October, have a common thread to them. 
Missing clues?
With all the accumulated and backed up stuff at home, I am afraid i am having trouble sending missing clues timely. If you are missing clues from the first six months, specially if you are missing more than one, you should consider buying the 6-month cumulative pattern. This has been edited and condensed.

For single missing clues after July, I can still step up to send copies, or maybe we can get started a "missing clue angels" section.
 It is great coming back home... except for the part about going back to the day job!