Summer fun!

Well, I have finally returned to the blogosphere! Really, I have no good excuses for being away for so long. Perhaps it is that I find blogging a fun form of stress-relief when I'm very busy, so that I forget to do it when I'm unbusy. Anyhow, here's a brief list of what the past couple months have looked like for me:

• visited Ontario for 3 weeks, saw lots of my favourite people, as well as Star Trek on IMAX, opening weekend, with a fellow blogger and good friend (by the way, if you're not hungry, you should see her strawberry shortcake and cinnamon roll pictures this week and I guarantee you'll be starving!)
• Moved into my new house in East Vancouver, complete with fluffy kitty, shaggy dog, and gorgeous view
• Got a library card and read lots of books
• Explored some of the local trails and mountains (I'd say that 2:15 is not bad for a first attempt at the Grouse Grind)
  
• Discovered Wednesday Night Cheap Wings and Music Bingo at the pub near my house
• My guild in Guild Wars had their 3rd Anniversary, and good times were had by all
  
• Spent a lot of time job searching and ended up applying for a second Masters degree, this time at UBC
• Got accepted into the Mechanical Engineering program and started research
• Found a really fantastic local church and began the process of membership there

Yes, I realized that knitting didn't make it onto the condensed list of activities. However, neither did DDR, and I've been putting time into that too! Just not a lot of time. Indeed, knitting has been suffering in neglect lately, and my poor yarn stash is crying out from the closet to be used. I started a knitted t-shirt pattern from a book I borrowed at the library, but the gauge is frustrating me and I've already frogged 3 balls of yarn worth of it. I'm a bit apprehensive because I'm knitting it in cotton, and I've heard that cotton stretches a lot over time. We shall see.

Back when I was in Ontario, I did finish my version of Sartje's Booties. The Presto Change-o however is *cringe* still not finished. At the rate the twins are growing, they may be too big for it by the time I get it finished. But, that just means I'll have an excuse to knit other cute baby clothes in bigger sizes. The twins were absolutely adorable, by the way (although a ridiculous amount of work as well). How adorable? Well, here's a picture of them having a nap with their Mama, as she gets in some long-awaited knitting time.

And the booties:
I also finished the Zelda Toboggan, so here it is modelled by my brother before I mailed it off.



In anime news, I highly recommend you check out Guin Saga, which is airing right now. The premise of a guy with a leopard head might seem kinda weird, but honestly, there are a lot weirder anime premises than that. This series is shaping up to be quite epic, and the highlight for me is that the music is composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who composed most of the music for the Final Fantasy games. A few years back I had the opportunity to attend a concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra playing music from Final Fantasy, and it was magnificent.

And now, I shall leave you with some pictures of the cute fluffy creatures at my house.






Plus the 4th of July cupcakes I made with my brother and sister-in-law, and the view from my window :) Till next time, dear readers!