Trick or Treat!

This Saturday was the Autumn Adventure at the Reston Town Center. They have face painters, and kid's activities, hay ride, balloons, entertainment, and a hay maze all for the bargain price of $5. I didn't realize that it was so far ahead of Halloween... so Thursday night I was up until 2am and Friday night I finished the mermaid costume at 5:30am. After a 4 1/2 hour nap, I got A~ up and crossed my fingers that the costume would actually fit. Come to find that the measurements printed on the pattern for length use the length of the middle skirt piece... and don't really seem to take into account the fins on each side. So in a flurry of last minute sewing I created a pair of straps to hold the fins and snap around each wrist... so A~ wouldn't have to hold them the entire event. Not bad... but we'll have to come up with something else for the Candy Hunt next weekend! :)

Much love,

erin

Final Note!

OK... so maybe it's a three for one day! I decided to put up my latest scrapbooking layout. I had a little boo-boo with the title stamping... so I went crazy with buttons to cover it up and make it look somewhat "planned"! Hee, hee! I love the papers as they make me think of vintage fabric.

You may recognize this locale... Monticello! I think this pics are from 1999... but I'm not completely sure since they were on top of the photos in the photo box due to the panaramic shots of Jefferson's grave (doesn't it look cool though?). What a nice visit with Donna and Matthew that summer! I know we saw some other sites... like downtown Roanoke and Natural Bridge... but I can't find any photos of them. I'll keep looking and see if I can put together some more pages of things other than A~. (Ironically, she asked where she was in the pictures and why wasn't Papi there?!)

Until next post,

erin

Light the Night

Hey again... yes, it's a two for one day... two posts in one day! Lucky, lucky to find a little time and a happy dial-up! :)

Saturday A~ and I walked in the Light the Night walk to help raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma. Everyone gets to carry an illuminated balloon on a course about 2 miles. It starts just before dusk and is really beautiful. Unfortunately my hands were full of balloons, bottled water, snacks, and stroller... so I didn't get a picture until the end. Mom, you've been saying that I'm not in enough pics... so here's a little A~ and Erin self-portrait just for you. (Thanks for the donation too!)

I think that this is my new, favorite photo:

Much love,

erin

The making of a mermaid

Hi all! It's been a bit busy here lately. The Halloween costume-making season is in full swing and we are surrounded by sparkly satin, organza, and sequins! This year A~ decided that she was going to be a mermaid. And that mermaid HAD to be purple and green. I tried to lure her with the lovely turquoise fabrics.. but... "NO Mommy! Mermaids are purple and green." Then I tried some lovely pinks (girls LOVE pink...right?). Once again I was rebuffed... "NO, NO! Purple and greeeeeennnn!" I tried to explain that the green was fine for a mermaid's tail, but the clothes could be any color at all. Well, as you can see... we have purple and green. :)

I'm sure she'll be lovely. I just hope I don't regret buying extra organza and green, sequiny fabric so that I could double the fins, and ruffles to make it extra special!

Much love,

erin

At the Copa... Copacabana....

Finally a good enough connection to post again... this time featuring the sleepy, little town of Copacabana, Bolivia, right on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Well...it's almost always a sleepy town... except of course for the festival week right before we got there. And you could tell! Two days later, it was totally different: neat, clean, and a bit quiet... very nice and still quite a few tourists. It was hard to find actually Bolivian foods on the menu... but it was easy to find full English breakfast, espresso, lasagna, and pizza. The only local food I tried (outside of the popcorn-like snacks in the market) was the trucha... I think that it's trout... and it was very tasty! :)

Our hotel was up the hill a bit and we had a wonderful view of the lake and all it's little paddleboats. A~ so wanted to sail one, but the water was a bit choppy and it was quite chilly. Although it was chilly, it's also quite sunny... and all of us had to get hats to protect ourselves from the sun. Just wish I got mine before the major sunburn on my face!

The lake is absolutely beautiful... and when you are looking at it you can't see the other side at all... looks just like an ocean, with a sandy shore to boot. We climbed up the hill behind the hotel to Calvario, where they have the stations of the cross on your way up to the top of the cliff... a little scary and very exhausting. We made it up right at sunset... and it was quite beautiful! Ironically there are vendors at the top selling trinkets... and I thought my commute was bad?!

Many of the city streets are on the hilly side to say the least... Some are paved with cobblestones or pavers, but many are dirt roads. Here's a photo of the steps at the bottom of the road coming from the hotel. Lots of pedestrians with these roads!

The cathedral was gorgeous, but no pics allowed inside. It's massive and the sidewalk outside has beautiful patterns in it using different shades and sizes of stones. The cathedral is famous for the Virgin of Copacabana which was created by one of the last living indigenous persons. She is the Virgin morena or the dark virgin. For the festival they had a replica outside so that people could stop and take pictures and such with it. I took the cathedral's museum tour where they have many medieval works of art, gifts given to the cathedral, and dresses for the Virgin morena... they have enough handmade, embroiderd gowns to last until the 2040's already.

Little things

Saturday after lots of errands, finally getting A~ to commit to a Halloween costume, finding fabric for said Halloween costume (a mermaid, if you wanted to know)... I got all excited about this cute, child-sized travel cup we saw at Starbucks.

The little birds and books are too adorable (they had stuffed animals just like them for sale - but I resisted!), the the retro colors make the artwork look like something that could have been out when I was little.

Luckily, A~ was excited about it too... so we bought it! She's used it everyday... worth every penny so far! :)

Much love,

erin

Finally the Farm!

I've had all the farm photos from Papa Abel and Mama Florencia's ready to go for over a week. Alas, the dial-up has not been kind to me and it just wouldn't let me upload anything. Finally today, the connection is good... so here goes! Here's A~ her great-grandparents:

We went out to Carcaje a couple of times. They have quite a bit of land there, although only part of it is cultivated with peach trees. They have a wonderful orange tree right in the front and we picked oranges the first time we were there to take back to the city for orange juice. Not the sweetest oranges, but A~ loved the juice! Here's Tio Martin taking a break from all that work.

They also have a couple of lime trees there... gotta be careful with those... they have thorns! A~ would point out which lime to get and we'd have to carefully pluck it for her! :) They also had a locoto bush there... lovely little purple flowers and small, green, spicy peppers. We didn't pick any peppers, but A~ got a few of the flowers.

Every farm has animals, and this is no exception. They have a little cow... Mama Florencia likes her quite a bit as she's a little petite and doesn't eat a lot, but gives them lots of milk. I even got to try some "ambrosia".... fresh milk (still warm even) with a little bit of liqueur added. Yummy, but different! A~ liked checking out the baby calf, but neither she or it were brave enough to make actual contact. They have a few chickens running around, a pair of dogs (both named Rocky), and guinea pigs.

Sergio, his brother, A~ and I went hiking through some of the undeveloped farmland across the road... it was SO beautiful with the clear, blue sky and cacti. I took a lot of pics. Here are the Bolivian fig trees... love their knobby branches.

I'll try to get the next post up sooner... the next installment is Copacabana and Lake Titicaca.

Much love,

erin