family gathering at our house!

Mom and Dad Schultz and Stuart were in Winnipeg delivering a load on a Sunday, so we had them over for lunch. We enjoyed a delicious bud, spud & steak stew from Supper Central.

Later in the afternoon, John, Angela and Cate joined us. We celebrated Angela's birthday. We enjoyed classic summer food, hamburgers and potato salad.

I made some cake too! Bienenstich and Chocolate Spice Cake.

It was so windy that the candles blew out all by themselves, before it arrived in front of Angela.

fun on the play ground nearby:

Playing with the trains set.

We had a great time and enjoyed being outside all day, the weather was amazing!

ditto this

I read a knitting blog called The Yarn Harlot. She's funny, and occasionally she says things that totally echo my own thoughts. If you have the time, please do click through and read it.

In knitting news in my own life, I finally finished Sofia's dress, which you can see in the previous post.

I've also finally finished a few little cozys that I now need to felt. My ipod nano, the cast iron frying pan cozy and another ipod touch cozy. Which was finished, but I asked Michael to bring me the bag that it was in from the other end of the house. Sadly, the project was on the table, and the ball of yarn it was still attached to was in the bag. He didn't notice this. The project stayed at the far end of the house, and the bag arrived with a trail of yarn behind it. I had cast off and pulled a long loop through, but my scissor was no where to be found, so I just left it. When Michael walked away the loop came loose and the cast off edge unravelled and then several rows of the knitting itself. Sigh. I threatened to make Michael learn to knit just so he could repair the damage, but it didn't work.

I also have to finish a pair of phentex slippers. These have a deadline, let's just say it's a guilt deadline. I traded hand made things with a friend, and I have my hand made thing, she's still waiting for these.

When those are done, I think I will reward myself by starting a pair of socks from my sheeples yarn. I knit a swatch way back, thinking I would try making a striped sock, what do you think?

I'm still working on my ferns & leaves cashmere scarf.

Then there's some repairs that I'm supposed to do to Cate's summer dress (the blue on from last year). It kinda seems too late now, she's grown so much.

cookies!

Our friends that moved away in July, were here for a visit and they stayed with us since our basement was available. It was great to see them again and to hang out with their daughters. I finally finished knitting Sofia's dress, which was supposed to be finished for her second birthday, which has come and gone. I don't want to even admit how many months ago. I also baked cookies with Sofia, which was a lot of fun. Especially when she discovered that the cookies dough tasted good, so she would touch the cookies on purpose just so she'd have to lick her fingers!
Here's a little video to sum it up!

taming the tomatos

Another garden update. Our tomatoes once again, are growing strong, so we had to get them back under control. The potato plant was a similar situation. This spot in our backyard is perfect for growing veggies, that's for sure! I just wish we didn't have to work so hard to keep things from getting so wild! We also tried strawberries this year, but so far that's been rather disappointing.

Enjoying the first fresh carrot from the garden!

A big juicy caterpillar!

saturday afternoon sewing

I finally took some time out again to sew. I was feeling the pressure of having to give up my temporary 'sewing room' I guess. So, I set out to make a Tissue Box Cover.

I tried cutting out the pieces several times, and had some difficulties with being able to have my cutting wheel actually follow the edge of the ruler I was using, and on top of that, also having the ruler slip. My math skills also seem to have been left somewhere in my past or perhaps it was my ruler reading skills. I cut the pieces out the equivalent of twice before I had all the ones I needed. Sigh.

This heap is all the pieces that I screwed up. It's also the shell of the first one that I sewed together, which ended up not fitting over the box. I'm really not sure where that went wrong, but let's say it had something to do with giving myself skinny 1/4" seam allowances and then sewing fat 1/4" seam allowances. I only reached this conclusion after I had Michael check my measurements, since I was thinking for how badly it fit, I must have measured something wrong, but no, he agreed with my measurements.

Needless to say, when something is too small, it's tough to salvage. So, I went back to the cutting mat, this time feeling like I had at least mastered the use of my cutting wheel, and got all the pieces I needed on the first try. I decided to go for 1/2" seam allowances this time. I sewed somewhere between 1/4"and 1/2" seam allowances, and finally came up with a cover that fit!

This is it's new home in my book shelf!

Looks great on my newly organized bookshelf, I think!

windshield

Someone who was going to the lake for the weekend, didn't tie down their firewood properly, so it hit our windshield Thankfully Michael was ok. Our car got a new windshield and the dent fixed on the hood and the hood repainted.

When we got the car back, I had to keep touching the windshield to make sure it was still there, since it was so clear. Apparently we had gotten quite used to the hazy view of a sandblasted windshield (Michael drives down gravel roads to get to work).

SM Staff BBQ

Every quarter SM staff have a family friendly event. In August we had our annual summer BBQ. (although we're not sure that you can call it a summer BBQ due to the fall-like weather we had.

The grill master.

Playing in the grass.

People and food.

my new tool!

This is Esther writing. I was hoping to turn this blog into a joint project, but clearly that isn't going to happen. right now with Michael being in class, it's even more unrealistic. So, I'm completing the posts Michael had on the go.

This is what Michael got himself for Christmas 'in July'. It's called a ShopSmith and it does a number of things:, bandsaw, lathe, table saw, belt sander and one more thing that I of course can't remember. Michael has been developing a bit of a hobby working with wood, so he was very excited to find this tool on kijiji for a very incredible price. More to come on what he's been making...

cheese, chocolate & summer living

Michael and I like cheese. We also like a bargain.

So, when cheese goes on sale (our threshold is $1/100g), we stock up. Cheese usually has a date of at least 6 months, sometimes even longer, so we've never had a problem with it going bad before we can eat it. Although sometimes I wonder if we eat too much cheese.

Summer is a great time to eat ice cream (then again, I think anytime is a great time to eat ice cream). There's a local ice cream shop called BDI, that has spoiled me with the most delicious hot fudge (I can't even eat Dairy Queen's now). Problem is, it's not particularly economical to go there every time I want a little ice cream. So, I thought to myself, I wonder if I could make hot fudge sauce at home? I started with a google search. Found a recipe that sounded good to me on the Eagle Brand website. I decided to go all out and use some of my swiss chocolate instead of cheap chocolate chips.

It was super easy, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate, a little butter & water melted together on the stovetop, add some vanilla, and voila, hot fudge! I'd say it's pretty darn close to the stuff from BDI. I also doctored mine up and added a bit of cinnamon, because in my books chocolate and cinnamon go together like peanut butter & jelly.

Michael and I recently spent an evening at a friend's place. They had turned their gazebo into an outdoor living room, which we thought was just great. So, we decided to cozy ours up a bit too. Michael started by hanging some lights.

He also found this chain downstairs leftover from hanging our chandeliers, so he put that up so we can hang lanterns from it.

Then we dragged our ikea chairs in, so we had a comfy place to sit.

After all this was set up, we decided to test it out by having an outdoor movie night.

It was lovely!

And, last but not least, here's an update of the garden growing:

a mennonite double date

Michael and I had some coupons that we wanted to take advantage of before they expire, so we invited Karl & Bea to join us.

We got free pizza from Pizza Hut, which we enjoyed in the parking lot of the bubble, since that was our next stop.

Then we enjoyed a round of mini golf (also free).

Not bad, eh? I'm pretty sure we'd make the Mennonites proud, we didn't spend a penny in the 2 hours that we were out.