I left my hat...

In San Francisco...

Okay, seriously, NONE of us left our hats there--are you kidding? I just finished the Cave Troll's in the car on the way to the city! (Sadly, Mate's was only partly done by the end of the day, but since I started it after Cave Troll's was done, I figure I'm still damned good!)

We are broke-ish at the moment, and although we all WANTED family vacation, well, we're broke-ish, and I actually go back to the blight of the universe on Friday (Thursday) and, well... all we really had $$$ for was a day in San Francisco.

Of course, San Francisco is pretty damned special. The whole family loves the City by the Bay and now the little kids are in on the love. We went to on the tour boat (Mate had never been before), and shopped the Pier where the older kids each had a little bit of bling to buy their own treasures. The little kids got M&M toys, because a tchotchke is a tchotchke when you're under ten, and the little kids also got a ride on the top floor of the double decker carousel, which is all they really wanted anyway.

After that, we went to a public beach and let the short people run around like wooly-hatted-hottentots. And yes, yes they were. (Why is there no close-up of the Cave Troll and his new hat? The Cave Troll didn't stand still for no stinking picture, that's why! The beach is his FRIEND!)

And as for the hats? I made Big-T's out of some Big Sock Mexico (worsted) before his trip to Lassen--his other hat had developed a hole from being lurved to death. The pink ones on us girls all came from one skein of Socks-That-Rock heavyweight, color scheme Rockstar. Chicken got it on a trip to Stitches, and asked me to make her half-pipe hat for her. I did, and used the rest of the skein to make another adult sized hat and a Ladybug sized one--complete with crocheted-on flower. I enjoyed that so much as a travelling project that I thought I'd see if I wouldn't have just as much fun just getting a big skein of something with wool and churning out hats--they make good movie projects. The Cave Troll wanted a hat, so the next one on the needles went to him. I made everybody wear their hats today because, hello, it made us INCREDIBLY easy to spot--and, yes, we did get a nice compliment on our matching 'bonnets' as we came up the beach.

The best moment of the day? I think it was form the Cave Troll (but there were a lot of fine ones to choose from.) We found a public beach, and Cave Troll looked out of the car and said, "Hey, Mom, that's the OCEAN!"

"Yeah, sweetie, that IS the ocean!"

"Oh boy oh boy oh boy! That means we can PLAY!"

And so he did-- for nearly two hours before we retired to the car for some sandwiches and to regain feeling in our toes. (It was 58 degrees at the beach today-- I LURVE San Francisco in the summer!)

*whew* I'm cooked and done--and SO behind on everybody else's blogs! I've been SWEATING to finish Changing--I think those of you on the beta reader list for that puppy will find a big, fat manuscript in your in-boxes tomorrow evening. (Seriously--it's the longest story of the four, and it's some of the sparest prose I've indulged in for a long time! And it still managed to rip my heart out. Damn!)

And then I can start the second edit of Rampant.

Did I say *whew*? Maybe that was a bit too soon. (But I"m DEFINITELY reading your blogs tomorrow... today, I'm just a wee bit wiped:-)