Alaska, Summer 2011, Part 3: Fishing?

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Nik

Part 3 in a series about our trip to Alaska in late June through mid-July, 2011. 

Alaska is known for great fishing. Salmon, halibut, rainbow trout, and … little fishies?

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June Sewing – The Cute

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Laura

I did have time for one fun sewing project in June.  Ellie didn’t have any pants in her current size of clothing because who needs pants in Baltimore in the summer?  So I made her a pair for our trip to Alaska.  I used the Quick Change pants pattern from Handmade Beginnings.

Here they are in action (co-starring cousin Violet)!

They are fully reversible so the other option is green polka dots with a floral cuff.  Both sides have the fun yellow bottom panel.

These pants were the first item of clothing I’ve made for Ellie but they won’t be the last!

Posted in Alaska, Ellie, family, sewing, travel | 2 Comments

June Sewing – The Prosaic

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Laura

Sometimes, I just have to sew to get things done.  My June sewing was almost all like that.

First, I sewed five large rectangles to put on the floor underneath Ellie’s high chair.  The Baby-Led Weaning book recommended using something like that so that you can save your floor as well as being able to hand the food back to the baby easily.  The idea is that you replace these clothes every day or so and so they won’t be that dirty.  This was probably the most boring project I’ve ever done – fold a quarter inch, fold a quarter inch, sew around four long sides.  I did battle my perfectionist side successfully though and just eyed it and rather than measure, iron and sew.

Next I sewed three liner bags to go into the trash can where we keep Ellie’s dirty cloth diapers between washings.  I made three and didn’t really get the dimensions correct until the third one.  I’m OK with imperfection on a bag for dirty diapers!  This is the second one.  The third one comes down the pail a bit farther and stays in place the best.

Finally, I made a car seat bag to put our car seat in so that we could check it on the plane for our trip to Alaska.  I made two false starts on this one before I got the dimensions correct.  I was quasi-following a poorly written tutorial that I’d found online but ended up mostly making up my own design.  In practice, it worked fine although there is a design flaw or two that I will fix if I ever need to make one again.

I do have to send out thanks to my friend Betsy who gave me a huge roll of that butterfly fabric which she had found in the basement of her old house.  I don’t love it nor do I really even like it but having a bunch of free fabric has come in really handy to use on prosaic projects like this.  Thanks Betsy!  I’ve almost used it up.

Posted in AIBLW, sewing | 4 Comments

Alaska, Summer 2011, Part 2: The Nieces and Our First Walk

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Laura

Part 2 in a series about our trip to Alaska in late June through mid-July, 2011.  Both Nik and I will be sharing pictures and stories from this trip.  I know you usually hear my voice on this blog so I think it will be fun to hear Nik’s as well!  Under the title of each blog post, you can see a by-line.  So for these posts, if you can’t guess who is writing, just look there for the author.  I’ll be giving more of a chronological narration of our trip while Nik has all sorts of fun picture-heavy posts for you.

We flew to Alaska determined to make the most of our 18-day trip.  With so much family up there, it’s very easy for us to just end up sitting around, playing with the kids and talking.  While there’s nothing wrong with that, we decided that we wanted to make sure we played tourist a little bit as well.  So we made a list of all that we wanted to do while we were up there.

First on my list was to hold my new nieces and so I did, within an hour of landing in Anchorage.  3-week old Clara (Rachel and Drew’s daughter) and 3.5 month old Violet (Eric and Meggan’s daughter)

I was happy enough at this point to just sit around and talk while holding my nieces!  It’s a good thing we made that list!

One item on the list was to go walking almost every day.  We arrived on a Friday afternoon and we took our first walk Sunday afternoon with Eric, Noah, Selah, Jonas, and Ezra.  We went to Westchester Lagoon and dodged many runners and cyclists on the Coastal Trail while enjoying a gorgeous afternoon.  My favorite part?  It was a toss up between being with my family and the positively awesomely cold 70 degree weather with no humidity.


Posted in Alaska, Ellie, family, travel | 1 Comment

Nothing Like a Deadline

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Laura

There’s nothing like a deadline to get things done.  So here’s my deadline:

I’ve decided that we’re having a yard sale on Saturday September 17th.  That’s three days before Eric and Meggan and their kids arrive for their “experience a real autumn” vacation.

In order for them to have anywhere to sleep, and in order for me to not feel like our house is destined to be on the Hoarders TV show (or at least our spare room), we need to get rid of a ton of stuff.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, and we did start this spring.  But now’s the stime.  Simplify, simplify, simply!

Baltimore friends – come on over on September 17th for some good deals!

Posted in house/neighborhood, reflecting | 3 Comments

Alaska, Summer 2011, Part 1: A Beautiful Descent

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Nik

This is part 1 in a series about our trip to Alaska from which we just returned.

We rose early in the morning to begin our long trip to Alaska. About 14 hours later we started our descent into Anchorage.  After seeing nothing but clouds for the previous few hours, it cleared up and we found ourselves flying over some incredible sights. We looked down at Prince William Sound (famous, sadly, for being the site of the Exxon Valdez oil spill) and the surrounding mountains and just enjoyed the views.


We spotted lots of glaciers, many of them emptying into the sound or mountain lakes.

It was a spectacular way to start our visit to Alaska.

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We’re home!

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Laura

And Ellie is crawling like a mad woman all over our bedroom floor.  We’re still up with our 4-hour time change, although exhausted from a long day of traveling.  Can’t wait to share some of our pictures from our fabulous trip!

Posted in Alaska, Ellie, travel | 1 Comment

Movie Week, Vacation Edition: Not quite crawling yet

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Laura

This is one of the occupational hazards of being a baby.

(taken 6/9/11)

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Movie Week, Vacation Edition: Getting the Neck Clean

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Laura

Eating is messy business and because Ellie’s neck has so many nooks and crannies, it can be hard to get it clean.  This is our method.

(taken 6/4/11)

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Movie Week, Vacation Edition: Ellie does NOT like the Ravens

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Laura

I’m sure this is going to change because all you purple fanatics out there are going to brainwash her but for now, I still have her in the Seahawk camp!  (And she sadly has already stopped doing the crazy head shaking.  It was so cute.)

(taken 5/29/11)

(Click here to watch on YouTube directly.)

Posted in Ellie, movie | 4 Comments