Party On

Roan went to her first wild party over the weekend. Our friends Jay & Clover in Breckenridge hosted a luge party at their luxury mountain cabin. They made their own incredible luge in the front yard - it must've been 2 and a half stories tall with six foot walls. (A luge, for those of you who don't live in Antarctica like us, is a big ol' ice slide you go down in sleds.)

Next to the luge they set up a fully stocked ice bar they made with packed snow and topped with a shot block. And next to that was a fire barrel, so partygoers could alternately cruise the luge, and then warm themselves up by the fire or with a shot. And let me tell you, it was cooooold out there - about 5 degrees with blowing snow and wind.

Even for someone like me - not drinking and not luging - it was a blast. People were flying down that thing, I tell ya. Even with six foot walls lots of people flew right out lots of times. And Arwen was one of the craziest of all of them. I'm pretty sure he went airborne more times than anyone. At one point I was standing near the end of the luge when he came cruising down, hit a bump, flew up over my head and landed - thump - in a snowbank 10 feet away. He was having a blast.

Anyway, I won't bore you with a play by play, but suffice it to say there was lots of drinking, foul language, a craps table, naked luging, some harmless violence, and vomiting. A successful party indeed.

After all that revelry we needed a full day to recuperate. Arwen and I got up early the next morning, fixed breakfast for all the stragglers who slept over, then proceeded to lay around the house like slugs for the whole rest of the day. I spent the *entire* day watching movies and knitting. It was beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, I knitted up a bonnet for Roan that may possibly be my best creation yet. I started with some hand-dyed yarn. It was my first try at dying yarn myself, and to be honest I'm still a little ambivalent about the color. I was hoping for a pale peach but instead it came out more like a light salmon. But because of the gentle dye process I used the color has these slight variations to it that give the finished piece almost a luminous quality. And the traditional lace design that makes the bonnet is wonderfully delicate. I plan to make some booties to match, naturally. I'll post a picture when the whole set is done.











I also finished that blanket from last week, as well as the Bambi pillow. If I keep up this pace I might actually finish all the baby projects on my list before Roan gets here. As my sister Jen pointed out to me recently, yes I am a freak. I don't pretend that there is any logical, rational reason for making all this stuff. Maybe it's genetic or maybe it's some defect in my lizard brain. I don't question it. It's just what I do, and I love doing it!