Furry Adventures in Tahoe

I am back from my scrapbook retreat. We've always called it a scrapbook retreat, although it's really more like a mini vacation with friends. This year two friends and I spent five days at Lake Tahoe. It was a friend of a friend's house they let us stay in. We were close enough to the lake that we could hear the boats, and close enough that we could walk to if we wanted to, but we stayed at the house almost the whole time. This time away is just that for us. We get away from our every day schedules. We set our scrapbook stations up in the living room and leave it there until it's time to leave. We watch movies when we want to without having to worry about whether it's ok for the kids to watch. We wake up in the morning knowing that we can sleep in a little if we want to. We go to bed at night and read with the lamp on. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. We have so much fun and look forward to it every year.

This year we did have some excitement while we were there. One evening I heard what sounded like a plastic cup drop on the driveway. I looked out and the door to my SUV was wide open. I yelled and out comes what looked to me like a big blur (it was dark and I was looking through the screen door). I screamed to my friends that someone is breaking into my vehicle. Well, there we are, the three of us all wondering what to do. We should call the cops, should we go down to look at it? Hurry, lock the door! We eventually go outside on the deck and yell across to the neighbors who are outside and ask if they've seen anything. It was a bear, they tell us. I'm thinking they've had a little too much to drink, but we go along with it. When we finally venture downstairs to the driveway we look inside my Suburban. Inside we find that the console has been opened and two sets of headphones have been pulled out of it. There were two cups from Starbucks left inside and one of them is laying on the driveway, the lid is smashed on the floor of my Suburban. Later I find a bottle of Tums in the back and it's been partly chewed. There is also a sandwich bag on the ground. I remember that my kids must have left it there, conveniently eating the sandwich, but leaving the crust of it in the bag. Must've been that the bear smelled! Luckily there were only a couple of light scratches on the outside of my Suburban that I can have buffed out. Once we found out that it was a bear, we actually had a good laugh. What a night!

I did bring my socks to knit, too. I finished one sock and am close to the heel on the second. My daughter is getting them, as they fit her perfectly. I wanted to finished the 6th Harry Potter book so I can start on the 7th, but I am still reading a Patricia McKillip book that I want to finish before I start another. And, of course, I got lots of scrapbooking done. Got almost caught up with my oldest's book, and almost finished my youngest's DW album. Plus I organized my paper.

It was nice to get home to see my family. I think they even missed me a little. Now it's back to the real world. My daughter gets her wisdom teeth pulled out this Friday, so I won't be working at the scrapbook store this Saturday. Just a nice relaxing Saturday (which equals running around playing catch up on the housework in our house). I plan to get the other jigsaw sock finished this week. Next will be knitting "Spiderman" socks for my son. He picked out the color of yarn (red, dark blue, yellow, thus Spiderman), now I need to figure out how to change my sock pattern for adults, or find one. I'm fairly new to knitting socks, so it takes me a while to figure it out. I'm looking forward to knitting those.

Just a reminder, only 141 days until Christmas! That works out to about 20 weeks. It's never to early to think about that, especially if you want to make something for gifts. This year my daughter has already started a list of who she wants to make socks for. Takes after her mother, I say!

G'Night!