Happy Blogiversary!

Hi Cindy!

Hard to believe it's been a year, and 148 previous posts, since we started our little conversation. It's been a lot of fun and good practice on writing, at least writing something other than memos for work. I've become more comfortable and accomplished with my knitting and have begun to design a few fledgling projects. I started spinning and, although I need much more practice, it is coming along nicely. In the next year I hope to have our Project flying along nicely and I may even muster the courage to start some colorwork, especially for some of the items for the Project. I recently taught one of my friends at work how to knit and she's threatening to teach me how to crochet. I'm not sure I'm up to that.

It's been long enough since I've posted that this is going to be a multi-themed post. Next topic, a picture of baby Jahmia. I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with Julie and Lytifa and she brought both girls along. Julie hadn't yet met Jahmia and we both got plenty of baby time.
She is just about 11 weeks old in the picture and is turning into quite the little chunk. She's a real sweety and her older sister is crazy for her.

Last week we went over to Hollywood again for a concert, REM this time. The National and Modest Mouse opened up. The whole show was really good and REM was awesome! No pictures of the show, they didn't allow the carry-ins like they did last year for the Decemberists show. We stayed just down the street again so we were able to walk to the show and not have to worry about parking. The next morning we walked around Hollywood a bit, looking for a diner to have breakfast at. We ended up a Mel's Drive-In on Highland, just south of Hollywood Blvd. It was pretty good.

Afterwards we drove up Mullholland Drive and then down Coldwater Canyon into Beverly Hills. The picture below is looking north into the San Fernando Valley. The MGM studio that burned on Sunday is probably somewhere over my left shoulder.
In Beverly Hills we turned back west and head out Sunset Blvd towards Pacific Palisades and then on down to the beach. We walked on the Will Rogers State Beach for a while and watched the waves crash. It was really relaxing but a bit cool. We weren't prepared for the beach either.
The little guy below kept heading for our feet. I think he was trying to hide from the gulls that were hanging out on the beach and looking for a bite to eat.

From there we headed a little south on Highway 1 and then up into Santa Monica. It is really pretty but the traffic was typical LA. We took Santa Monica Blvd east until we hit Wilshire, right near Rodeo Drive. The traffic was pretty heavy for a mile or two until we got out of Beverly Hills (again). Next stop, the La Brea Tar Pits. They are a series of tar seeps. The biggest one, shown below, was mined as a natural asphalt seep in the late 1800's. It has since filled up with skunky water. Every minute or so bubbles of gas, some times quite big, break through to the surface. The whole area smells like diesel. In the upper right corner of the picture you can see the Page Natural History Museum where they've collected and exhibit all the animal fossils that have oozed from the tar. We didn't actually go in the building. We walked around a little and then went into the LA County Museum of Art right next door. It is quite a big museum. We spent about 4 hours there and still didn't see it all. We're definitely headed back.

One final picture of a resin giant sloth on the north side of the property. I had to take the picture for Stu at work. He was "mauled" by a sloth a few years ago while helping to vaccinate it. He was relieved it wasn't this big. Okay, it's late and time for bed. More knitting content, hopefully tomorrow.

Take Care, A