Signs of Fall

The weather is cooler, the leaves are changing colors, the farmer's market is busting at the seams, and there's a pot of chili on the stove.

Last weekend I found everything I needed to make my favorite chili at the Salt Lake Farmer's Market. They had tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and garlic among many, many other things. And I found some little pumpkins to get me in the Halloweenie spirit. Though, I think that my dirty windows are the really scary part.

And I even started a costume...

Ok, it's not really going to costume much, but it's my back up in case I can't find a wig to be Yoko Ono, which is really who I want to be this Halloween. Plus I finally have an excuse to make it, I've been eyeing We Call Them Pirates for a while. I love all of Hello Yarn's patterns and they are free! How cool is that! Thank you!

A Good Birthday Present

So yesterday was my birthday and this is what I came home to:

1. Roses.

2. Much needed cookbook shelves.

3. A clean house.

I have the best husband ever!

Back to Real Life

Despite my disappointment at coming home from the Caribbean, real life has it's exciting bits too. This weekend, I went to the County Fair, the Fiber Fair, Spam-a-lot, and my birthday party. Not bad, eh?

Friday night, Sara, Brianne and I went out to the Salt Lake County Fair. We saw baby everything, it was so cute!

"We are too cute to be bacon!"

They had piglets and a calf and baby goats. They didn't have lambs or baby bunnies, but the sheep and fu-fu bunnies were cute anyway.

Jazzercise Sheep

Oh and I should have kept track of the name of the ice cream maker we got peaches and cream home made ice cream from. She had her ice cream makers hooked up to a tracker engine and it was SO good. We saw lots of hot tubs and RVs and fireplaces, not sure why these are always at the fair?
And they did have a good amount of knitwear there this year and every single piece had a ribbon on it, so either the judges really like knits or they didn't have enough competition :)

Speaking of knitting, I have a lot to do! With a fiber fair and a birthday, I gotta lotta yarn this month. Saturday, I did some shopping with Tan, Laurel, and Piper at the GBFAF, and then I came back on Sunday for my Redneck Shibori class. That was a lot of fun and I'm totally impressed with what Rit dye and some silk scarves can transform into.

Redneck Garden Scarf

Sunday, I also got my knitted things back from the GBFAF contest and I actually placed. Woo Hoo! My Mom's Lace Christmas Wrap won 3rd place and my gloves won 4th. They said they were impressed by anybody that can knit gloves. And it's not really that it's hard, it's just annoying going round and round in teeny circles for the fingers. I don't really enjoy knitting them, but I love having them.

Mama's Shawl

Saturday night we all went to Spam-a-lot, which is hilarious! You've gotta go if you can. It follows Monty Python's search for the Holy Grail, they take all the good bits of the movie and wrote a whole bunch of new stuff. There were too many laugh out loud moments to describe, but just go see it, ya?

Sunday was a lot of yummy Indian food and awesome birthday trifle. I made 30 minute Matter Paneer and some Cappuccino Crinkles, minus the coffee (they really taste about the same to me). And I got lots of really good birthday presents. Woo pee! Thanks everyone!

Beatles!

As a long time fanatic, I had to post a link to Adventures in Leisure.  I just hope to have children that are this obsessed with the Beatles.  And yes, I do want to make one of these dolls!

Kokomo

Oh wow, am I behind. I have been so busy since we got back! Oh yeah, I was out of the country just 2 weeks ago, but it feels like forever ago. Our cruise was so awesome!

The Caribbean Princess

Jamaica and Mexico were definitely my favorite places. We also stopped in the Bahamas and Georgetown, Grand Cayman. Those were our beach days, which were very relaxing and beautiful.

On the beach at Princess Cays, Bahamas

But I' just love seeing and doing everything I possibly can,
so I had so much more fun on the days that we went on tours.

Laundry Mat in Ocho Rios, Jamaica

At Jamaica, the boat stopped in Ocho Rios and we jumped on a bus and headed for the Green Grotto Caves. It was a great ride, except for the scary left hand driving and constant honking, our guide said that in Jamaica you honk for two reasons, one to say hello, and another one to say get outta my way... yeah mon. But we got to see a lot of the countryside. There were a bunch of fishermen villages along the side of the road, with brightly colored shacks like this one:

These people have such a great sense of humor and all of the places we saw had so much character, it was really exciting. We drove through St. Ann's, where Bob Marley was born, and where Christopher Columbus landed in 1494.

The Green Grotto Caves were really, really cool. The sea level caves have been used for so many different things; they were a hiding place for runaway slaves, they have been rum storage, and they were even used as a nightclub in the 1990's. There were tons of fruit bats flying around and when we went into the below-sea level caves, it was so pitch black, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.



Then we took off for Dunn River Falls, which is a 900 feet of waterfalls that lead into the sea.

And we climbed them! The groups form long chains of people holding each others hands, and you work your way up. It was so beautiful and kind of weird to see these gorgeous falls treated like a water park. Lucky Jamaicans.

In Mexico, the boat stopped in Cozumel, an island off the mainland of Mexico. We took a ferry to Playa del Carmen on the mainland, I loved the city and wish we had more time to look around.

But we got on a bus and road to the Mayan ruins, Tulum. Our guide was a Mayan descendant and told us that we were not in Mexico, we were in Mayan lands now. He told us that he didn't even speak Spanish until he learned in it school because they all speak Mayan in their homes.

Tulum is amazing. It's right on the beach and a lot of the structures are still in fairly good shape. Most of the stone carvings on the buildings have been worn away, but there was one building, the Temple of the Frescoes, that had one face that was almost complete.

Temple of the Frescoes

It's amazing that all of these buildings once had hand carved decoration all over them. Our guide said that only about 450 rich and noble Mayans lived in this group of structures and about 10,000 lived outside their walls. So I'm guessing that those were the people responsible for all of the stone work.

Tulum, Mexico

So the rest of the time we were on the Caribbean Princess, our hotel on the sea. I really liked sailing with Princess, the food is great and the boat has tons of stuff to do. We saw comedians, watched movies under the stars, and ate and ate and ate. And when we just could not take anymore entertainment or food, we watched the sunset.

We really should have just stayed there, getting home was a bit of a pain in the butt, we were delayed in Dallas and then our plane was cancelled, but Tan and Paul helped us get home and fix our broken car that was waiting for us when we got there. I was telling my mom about what a pain it was to come home and back to real life and she told me, "Well, what did you expect?Vacations just put it on hold, it doesn't make it go away." Aptly put, thank god for vacations!