Laowai

Over the weekend we went up to the Milwaukee Art Museum. I wanted to go see their exhibit on the Ashcan School but I was pleasantly surprised at the wonderful architecture of the museum itself. It was designed by Santiago Calatrava – we used to travel through a Zurich train station that was designed by him and we saw lots of his beautiful buildings in Valencia, Spain. Why had I never realized that there was a beautiful example of his work so close to home? 

We went to a brewery after the museum (when in Rome). A delightful outing for a snowy January day.

And on the way home Bea got to practice driving in a snowstorm. 

She did great.

I'm working on two knitting projects right now.

A sweater that I'm really enjoying – feels like a confidence builder. I bought some pretty light blue buttons for it and I'm ready to start the sleeves.

I'm learning to make socks! I've finished the easy part now I'm waiting to do the heel with my teacher.

Other than those two projects, I did a little fair Isle practice with some scrappy yarn. I feel better about knitting with a color in each hand and I need to find a real project now.

I'm also surrounding myself with as much color as I can. Bright colors make me happy when the sun hardly ever comes out at this time of year. This is the checkered garden quilt that I made a few years back – it's doing the trick.

I got to go for another crafty weekend trip with a bunch of fun ladies. This group has been getting together to do scrapbooking for years and years and I feel grateful for being inviting to join them. 

Here's our setup

It's so nice to have a house set up with a space for each of us to work. And to have a long weekend just devoted to doing a creative project while being surrounded by a group of super fun ladies. It's the best.

And another bonus – it' right next to Lake Michigan – so it's easy to get some fresh air when you need a little break from being crafty.

I made a picture of a meadow out of cut papers. Why is the image showing up blurry???

And it made a good background for my friend's paper capital building project.

We're finally getting a bit of snow. And I made myself a head scarf to keep cozy. The pattern is from Spaghetti Western Sewing. Here's their tag line: At home sewing patterns for 1940's spaghetti western prairie disco goatheard-ess nonno-core alpine ski lodge kinda people. Sounds about right.  

I am, of course, trying to emulate the admirable style of Auntie Katushka from The Poppy Seed Cakes. Love her!

And now I will shovel the driveway.

We're having such a warm winter so far but we were still able to go skating at the ribbon in Maggie Daley Park. A fun afternoon.

2023 is off to a quiet start.

Brian spent all week in Switzerland for work. He sent pictures of the pretzel he got at the train station and of the chocolate aisle at the grocery store. Gosh, I miss those things!

I took a walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden twice this week.

One day was cloudy and the other was sunny. Both days were unusually warm for January.

In similarly shaped news… I made a cushion for the back of Claire's bed. 

She wanted something more comfy to lean back on – I guess it's like a headboard – except she has a daybed.

If I can get myself motivated I'm going to spend next week on all the annoying little spots around the whole house that need a paint touch up. And then soon I will paint my dining room. I said it, now I have to do it.

Happy New Year!

I have a few more photos from the second part of our trip to Costa Rica. We went to the Pacific coast side to a town called Jaco. 

Our hotel was right along the beach and unlike Monteverde – it was hot.

We climbed up a hill on the edge of town to a ruined structure of some sort. It was interesting and sort of disappointing too. 

The view from this area was great and on the way down we were delighted to see a bunch of monkeys.

My wildlife photos are terrible but there was an iguana that hung out at the pool for a long time. Claire and I were very entertained watching him confidently strut around.

Brian rented a bike and went for some sweaty rides up into the pretty hills.

One big thing that we have zero pictures of is Bea and Brian's adventure learning to scuba dive. Bea really wanted to do this – so they signed up for a two day course/dive trip. The first day they spent a couple hours learning in a pool and that night they both felt nervous and intimidated about the diving trip. On the day of the trip Brian sort of bowed out – not feeling confident enough, but Bea conquered her fears and had a great time. She was happy with the guides that helped her and she listed off a ton of creatures that she saw. She even learned all the hand signs for the creatures which is fun. I really wish we had a photo of her all geared up. Her high school has a scuba diving course that she can take in her junior or senior year so maybe I will get some photos then. 

While Bea and Brian were scuba diving Claire and I rode horses. This was a first for Claire and we had fun. The horses in this area are small and they don't use a bit – just some ropes around their noses. They were nice horses – although Claire's had a mind of his own and he went at his own pace. We laughed.

So we ended our trip with some more pool time. It's nice to get away to a warm place but I have mixed feelings. I'm fascinated by the forests but I'm not really comfortable in them. And that feeling sort of translates to the whole country. I guess I'm just in love with all things north. 

Goodbye sweet ornaments and trees and houses and shiny glass balls.

Good-bye dear deers.

And good-bye to this twee little angel that I found in Costa Rica. 

We just returned from a vacation to Costa Rica. 

We flew into San Juan and then drove to the mountains – to Monteverde and its cloud forest. 

On the first day we hiked all around the the Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. The rainforest was fascinating and a little intimidating. It's so dense and wet and different from the forests that I know. And I'm also always thinking that I'm walking through a forest of houseplants – I mean I recognize so many plants that we keep in pots. 

We had some sunshine but during our walks it seems like it was mostly cloudy and we could not see far.

Later we walked into the town of Santa Elana. The road signs made Claire and I a little leary.

Brian was happy to find a little local brewery (above). Claire got to practice her Spanish speaking a little. Here she is in our hotel – more like a hostel. It rained every night – it was loud on the roof but it sounded nice. I went down to the restaurant's outdoor balcony early in the morning. I sat outside and there were hummingbirds flying around.

On our last day in the cloud forest we went for a more difficult hike to an area with many waterfalls. 

It was very wet and I was worried when we set out that we would all be miserable and soaked. But it turned out ok – we were wet but the rain stopped and it was never cold. 

This hike was sort of the opposite of a mountain hike – we hiked down a steep trail for a long time to reach the waterfalls and then we hiked up steeply to finish the hike. There were several bridges at the bottom that made the hike fun. 

You could choose to ride horses for the last uphill part of the hike. 

It felt a bit like our Swiss hikes when we saw some sweet cows.

We finished the hike and had a nice lunch at the area's restaurant. 

These last few photos Brian took when he went for a run and then one final shot as we drove out of the mountains.

I'm so bad at taking photos at Christmas. But here are a few to prove we had a nice time in Michigan.

Games were played. Sparkly things sparkled. Laughs were laughed. Cookies were eaten. Dogs were scratched behind the ears. More cookies were eaten. Moments were had.