2011 - A Year in Review

All in all, 2011 was a pretty good year. No significant changes, but a nice slow and steady year. Both R and I started new jobs in the end of 2010, and did pretty well for our first proper year. The rest of the year was spent enjoying friends' babies, travelling, not winning Olympic tickets, and thinking about our plans for the future.

Some travel highlights include:

Los Angeles

R and I enjoyed another trip to Los Angeles for my cousin's wedding

 

While there we also had a chance to visit Disneyland! First time for R

France
In early September, we went to France to visit R's parents. His sister and her boyfriend were there too! Perfect sunny trip away, with lots of hikes and walks!

We also went out for a lovely dinner for R's 35th birthday while we were there!

Edinburgh

R and I had a chance to go up to Edinburgh this year, just before Christmas, to visit some old friends!

Zonko and me

 

A castle of some sort outside North Berwick

Cambridge
We also got the chance to go up to Cambridge a few times this year, to visit R's brother and sister-in-law, and our adorable nephew A.  I'm so happy we're able to see him getting so big! We spent Christmas-time in Cambridge, too.

R had a pretty exciting 2011! In October, he ran his first ever half-marathon, in the Royal Parks Foundation race.

He also had an amazing month (or two!) of Movember, and raised over £350! Of course, it took more than 3 weeks for it to reach maturation, so it seemed like such a waste to get rid of it at the end of November.  So R decided to keep it for December as well.  (Un)Fortunately, we have finally said goodbye to the 'tashe, and it was shaved off today! Here it is mid-December:

How was your 2011?

Rainbow Extraordinaire!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I decided to make a baby blanket for my niece/nephew to be.  As we didn't know the sex, I decided to go for something bright, colourful and gender neutral: RAINBOW!

And I thought to myself, "Well, it needs to be substantial enough, with lots of colours...." so I decided on six colours.  I've done stripey blankets before, so I decided on granny squares.  I found a neat pattern on Ravelry called Around the World Crochet Quilt, and therefore went forward with my 13x13 blanket.  13x13=169 squares.  That's a lotta squares.  A lot a lot.  I started this back in March, with the baby due in May.  I have to admit, I slacked a bit, especially when we went to LA.  But all in all, it didn't take too long to make all the squares.  I was still working on it when Aodhan was born (May 10), but I finished the squares soon after.  Don't they look pretty?

And I thought to myself, "Goody! The tough part is over!"  All that was left was to sew them together.  Easy peasy, right?

Oh. My. God. Wrong.  First, I needed to sew them into 13 strips.  It took me over an hour to do one strip.  So 13 hours later, I had 13 strips that still needed to be sewn together.  But that should be easy enough, right?  No stopping and starting at ends? 

Oh. My. God. Wrong.  To sew one strip to another took OVER an hour. Aye Caramba!  But I missed my first deadline anyway (seeing him at 2 weeks old), so I worked to my new deadline (seeing him at 2 months old).  Sew sew sew.  Sew sew sew.

I finally finished sewing it together and it looked bloody fantastic!!!!!!!!

I quickly added a thin red border around it (once again thinking, "Oh this part should be easy", and once again, being totally wrong), and voila!

Slightly blurry!

pre-sewn, foolishly thinking I was almost finished! Ha!

All in all, I'm very pleased with the results, but very finished to see the end of it!  Now on to something for meeeeeeeeeeee!

Latest edition to the family!

We also have a new edition to the family!  R's brother and his wife were expecting a baby on 5th May.  The baby had other ideas and decided to stay put for awhile longer, but finally made his appearance on 10th May!

Little AJ, such a sweetie!

I'm almost almost almost finished with the most fiendish blanket ever (169 squares), and will post it once I finally finish it!  We haven't met him yet, but we should be able to go this weekend and finally give him some cuddles.  So excited!