Blessed silence

I just wanted to say thank you for all the donations to my New Dryer Fund. Clearly enough of you weren't annoyed by the squeak, so unfortunately it wasn't enough for a new dryer, but I was able to bribe my handy dandy husband into fixing the unbearable noise. I guess I'll keep him around a while longer. Thank you for your support.
We had a lovely vacation in California. After spending an unspeakable amount of money to get my family of seven into Mickeyland, the kids said they had more fun at the beach. Sigh. Oh, well. I did get both Blue Jean Mitts finished on the trip and I covetously handed them over to the adoring recipient.
You know the saying, "It seemed like a good idea at the time..."? Well, on the way home from California, the kids got bored. As they watched me knitting happily away, they all asked for yarn and needles. They all know how to knit/crochet, so after a minor refresher course they all proceeded to knit. My next several hours were spent fixing mistakes and reminding them all how to "do it". It seriously cut into my knitting time. But like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time. At the end of the day, they were entertained for a very long time on our very long drive, and when they finished knitting scarves for their beanie babies, they played Cat's Cradle for hours with the yarn. Yeah, baby. Who needs Game Boy???

Corona del Mar, California

Very funny situation at our house tonight. Cousins are over, kids are jumping on the tramp, everything was happy and loud. Dark fell and the chilly fall weather sent the kids indoors. Unhappily (for us) and silently, swarms of little bugs came in with the kids. I was upstairs bathing Miranda when I heard the uproar. Let's just say that Ed was none too impressed with the kids or the bugs. Uncle Jeremy began squishing them on the wall - my freshly painted white Swiss Coffee wall. Ed (brilliant dryer mechanic that he is) got out his sticky tape lint remover and tried to pick them up with that off the wall. Didn't work. So I brought out the vacuum and proceeded to suck the little suckers into oblivion. As things calmed down and got under control, Bentley yelled out, "That was fun, let's do it again!" I guess you had to be there, but it really was quite comical.