Cuteness

I have been meaning to make a bear for a long time. I got this yarn from a friend doing a stash purge and I thought it would be the perfect color for a teddy bear. I finally found a pattern cute enough. 

It was a quick project to make, it only took a few days of working on it. He turned out kind of floppy so I made him have a cute pouty face. I think he needs a scarf or a sweater, or maybe a hat. So maybe one of those will be coming next. 

I didn't quite have enough stuffing to make him. So I had to go get more, and Steven needed new shoes. This led to a day of shopping at Pacific Commons. I wanted to look at ski jackets, since I didn't 100% love mine and wanted to return it for a different one. At the ski store we ended up looking at skis. They had some reasonably priced ones that were on sale because they were last season's models. We spent a lot time there looking at skis and talking with their ski expert, but we ended up with skis that will be perfect for our ski trip next weekend. So apparently cute bears equal skis.  

Weekend Ski Trip

Since it was a 3 day weekend, we decided to take a trip. I wanted to go skiing, and in an effort to avoid the large crowds and traffic we went to Dodge Ridge. We rented a cabin nearby with some friends. 

Our first day of skiing was Saturday. Dodge Ridge has a pricing system that makes it ridiculous to not take a lesson unless you are a good skier. It is cheaper to rent skis there and get a half mountain pass with a lesson, than to get a full mountain pass with skis and no lesson. I had no intention of skiing the harder stuff anyway, so it worked out.

I was debating between signing up for a level 2 or level 3 lesson. I have the ability to do the harder things, but I'm worried about falling so it doesn't work as well as it should. For the first day we went for the level 3. I wanted to ski a bit before the lesson to warm up. It wasn't as easy as I remember it; I was considering going down to level 2. I stuck with 3 so Steven wouldn't be bored. Our class ended up being higher than a level 3. Most of the people in it could have been in a level 4 or higher. So really not the best class for me to be in. I was tired after the class and went to knit in the lounge area, while Steven kept skiing. Once he was done we took a picture remember that we were there. I wasn't convinced we'd be back the next day.

This trip was also an excellent time to wear my hats. This is one of my favorite ones. I made it extra large and felted it to fit my head. Then I lined it with fleece around the ears. So it is almost impossible to get cold in this hat. Also since I live in California, most of the time it is impossible to wear this hat. 

On the way back to the cabin we stopped to take pictures of the beautiful view. We took quite a few pictures. Most including this tree. It wasn't until we got back to the cabin that we noticed this tree was full of shoes. We totally missed it while in front of the tree. 

We did end up making it back for the second day of skiing. The 10 am lesson was full, so we signed up for the afternoon one. This turned out to be great since while in the lesson you don't need to stand in the long ski lines. The second day's lesson was a lot better. This time most the people in the class were actually level 3, except one guy who was probably level 2. It was so much nicer having a class full of things I could actually do. 

This is a google auto awesome gif of Steven skiing.

This is a picture of me looking like I know what I am doing. I was much more comfortable on skis after this lesson. I hope that sticks around until our avoiding the super bowl ski trip. 

The next morning we took some time to walk around by the cabin. There was a sledding hill a short walk from it. I built a snowman with a top hat. He is only two balls high because I was too tired from all that skiing to move. 

This is another auto awesome of Steven. Google made a lovely panorama, but forgot to make sense. Still a neat picture.

Book Review - Asian Dumplings

Another book review. You'd think I like cooking giving the amount of cookbooks I seem to get. I got this book because I thought it would be fun to learn how to make those white dumplings you can get at an asian market. 

I like this book because it has very clear instructions. It seems easy enough, although very time consuming. 

The instructions on how to use a chinese bamboo steamer don't seem as thorough as I would have hoped them to be. Perhaps better instructions come when you actually purchase one of them. 

The other thing this book is lacking is enough pictures. I prefer cookbooks to have pictures of every recipe. This book has some very nice pictures, but not nearly enough of them. 

I think I will keep this book, but I doubt I would have purchased it if I had just seen it in a store. 

Holiday Road Trip Day 6 & 7

The next stop on our trip was a cute little town called Solvang. It looks like a little town in Denmark. We arrived around 3 and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around town. Not to much to tell, but we took some fun pictures.

Steven in the soldier booth outside our hotel.

Windmill selfie

Funny sign in a store

The cutest little yarn shop. (Later I found out how rude they are.) 

In the morning we had our hotel's continental breakfast at the bakery across the street. It was considerably better than a regular hotel's breakfast. I wish I had taken a picture of it. We got a cup of coffee, orange juice, a pastry of our choice, and a roll with cheese. I don't normally like pastries, but this one was delicious. 

The bakery also had a giant gingerbread house that makes the huge one we decorated at a friend's party look tiny.

After breakfast we rented bikes from out hotel and went to see the Hans Christensen Andersen Park. It was a cute little park, but not to much space for biking. So we biked around town to check out the little side streets we missed the night before. 

Tiny version of the Copenhagen Mermaid Statue

After visiting a few stores that were closed the night before we headed up the coast. I found another little yarn shop. This one didn't have a clearance section and nothing overly interesting. We took a few ocean pictures and one last selfie before it started getting dark. 

The end of our trip was a bit annoying. Apparently a traffic light went out on Highway 1. This cause a 10 mile back up and and hour and a half delay. We stopped in Carmel for dinner and to rest a bit from all that traffic. Then made it home to get yelled at by the cat.