Vacation, Part 2

Summer vacation had it moments of...

swimming,



reading on the beach, (my favorite place to find wonderful summer reading is Persephone Books)



flying kites Grandma had made,



taking a ferry to Washington Island, then to Rock Island,





and sunsets galore.

And What Did You Do On Your Summer Vacation?

The last week in July my family all vacationed together in the southern Door County area of northern WI. All total - 22 people all together in one place for a week.

It was sorta like this.



But with knitting.

Insert Witty French Phrase Here

A few weeks ago, some friends and I took a road trip to Milwaukee. The five of us first went to Bastille Days which, in my opinion, was a bit disappointing. The strolling minstrels and street performers were a bit creepy;

(this was one exception)


the vendors, for the most part, were all offering the same types of goods (tie-dyed clothes, bags, jewelry); and there was very little French cuisine available from food vendors. There was one crepes stand and that was about it for "authentic" cuisine.

When the French eat cheese, I don't think it's in this form -



We took a whirl around the festival, shopped a tiny bit, then on our way back to the car, investigated a place that we noticed on our way to the festival - the Grohmann Museum at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

This place is a hidden gem!! I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it before.

What caught our attention when we were passing by were statues on the top of the building, which turned out to be the rooftop sculpture garden.

Admission was only $5 and we spent nearly 3 hours exploring the collections.



The collections are based on the theme of Man At Work. They even had fiber-related work covered.









Even the mosaic floor of the entrance has fiber-related art.



One area of the museum focuses on the steel works that were once in Milwaukee. In that collection, this stove in particular caught my eye.

Oh, to have a stove that looks like a cathedral.

In Memoriam - Joyce Williams

Joyce was such a dynamo - so much talent in such a little package.

How I would have loved to spend a day in the playground of her mind. "Latvian Dreams" and "Armenian Knitting" were just the tip of the iceberg.

This is a photo from knitting camp - when Joyce was showing the beautiful shawl she had knit - from a doily pattern.



She always had a story to tell and had a 50,000 watt smile.



You are sorely missed.

Rest in peace, Joyce.

The Heat Is On

Obviously, the main topic of everyone's conversation recently has been the weather.

Last week we had severe weather in the early morning hours - rain coming down so hard we couldn't see the houses across the street, straight line winds.

As I drove to work, I passed field after field of corn that was either bent or completely flattened.


(Click to enlarge to see crop damage.)



This week it's all about the heat. (And I'm not just talking about Rupert Murdock's future.)

High humidity. High temperatures. Heat advisories. Heat indexes.

As much as I like to complain about winter, I much prefer to be cold (because I can always put on more layers or bundle under blankets) than sweaty and hot.

The Haus does not have air conditioning. I have not been hurrying home from work at the end of the day as our house is like a sauna. DH, the cats and I all vie for space in front of the fans we have running.

In other news I spent a week at training last month. The views of our capitol at night are beautiful. I wish I could say the same for the activities going on inside that building since January, but alas...



On the knitting front, I've started some projects but the heat has made it very difficult to be motivated to knit in the evenings. The various counted cross stitch projects around the house have been receiving more attention lately. But vacation is next week, the location we'll be at will have air conditioning, so I'm hopeful to make some headway on projects at night after the family has gone to bed.

Since 2007, it has become a new tradition for my side of the family to gather together every two years for a week's vacation together. For those of you who follow these things, we are not returning to the Death House, as my friends have named it.

I hope to be able to photograph my new projects before the weekend - especially if the temperatures start to fall as predicted.

In the meantime, I'll be here, in front of my fan, subsisting on Skinny Cow Ice Cream sandwiches and Edy's Fruit Bars.