warm the cockles of my heart

tra la tra la! the best christmas present ever, i got to teach my ddil how to knit! and purl! she is a natural ;-)









tom, dd and i drove up to jacksonville friday morning, i swear dd should go into engineering, she managed to fit the proverbial 10 lbs. of shit (er, presents) into a 5 lb. bag (car trunk). when i saw the mountain of luggage and presents ready to go into the car, i thought "there is no way on god's green earth." poor dd had only a smidgeling of room in the back seat.

we got to go on base with ds, bart, then had drinks in the world famous t-bar, bart's friend, tony and ddil joined us. poor dd was so exhausted from staying up til 2 the night before, and working 2 nights in the middle of the night for her dad before that, she didn't even make it out to dinner. snoozeville.

christmas eve ddil and i went to the lys, knitwitz. lovely shop, great selection in a small space. and super friendly owner. we bought some tweedy green cascade 220 and size 8 bamboo straights for ddil, and some lorna's laces sport in camoulflage and lantern moon dpns for me. my son is getting his first pair of hand knit socks.
then we picked up dd and had lunch at the brick in avondale, a beautiful old district in jax, and dessert at biscotti's, yum!


chirstmas morning we opened a mountain of presents,


ddil loves bronte and the mittens. i love her because she is as goofy as i am ;-p



she also got the lopi thora sweater that i knit last year (it only needed the buttons and to be steam blocked). thora looks great on her, i could never wear it, too itchy!!!!!

after presents, the knitting lessons began. she picked it up right away. i'm having her knit a stockinette scarf with garter borders. i would never have expected her to be a tight knitter....

their house is adorable, and they've done tons of work to it, ds tiled most of the floors, they've replaced a bathroom, and put in a flagstone patio. i love how ddil has decorated, esp. the dining room, she put up the tall wainscotting and plate rail. the white wood and blue walls and ceiling are very swedish. i'm so proud of all they've accomplished at such a young age :-)



i think i could get used to having someone else do all the cooking and cleaning up!

back to lauderdale yesterday, the traffic was horrendous, thank god for the new laptop and the new gilmore girls dvds.

hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!