Montserrat

Good morning my lovelies,
Yesterday we packed up, rented a car, and drove up to the Montserrat monastery in the mountains. This particular monastery has been around for nearly 1,000 years (you have no idea how exited this makes me). Since the monks here have always encouraged pilgrims, there are several amenities here for visitors. Like a restaurant and hotel. We are staying at the hotel, Hostal Abat Cisneros, which has been amazing for several reasons. The first of which is the view of the monastery from our rooms:

 The second, and probably more important, is  you can go on a really long hike with out worrying about getting back in time to catch the last train to the parking lot. Given that my sweet loves a good hike and I love really old buildings/ ruins, this is the perfect place for us. Montserrat has at least 10 different hiking paths to everything from monuments to small churches built in the 1500's.
We went on a sort of rambling hike in the general direction of one of the farther churches. We only had a vague idea of where we were going. But, we did get to see many cool ruins, most of them were of hermitages. The number, size, and description of the hermitages made we wonder if I misunderstood what a hermit was. One of the hermitages was big enough for 20 hermits.

We wondered for a few hours, and experienced some amazing views:

I am quickly falling in love with this country. Especially since there is a bus from Barcelona to Montserrat.
On our way down the mountain we took the stone steps from Pla dels Ocells. There are many, many steps; after step #250 we stopped counting. There are many awesome views from these stairs. My favorite is this one:

My love decided to show our little one how to use the camera, his pictures are not too bad.
After we got back to the hotel (8:30pm), we had a good shower, a good dinner, and were in bed by 11. We learned that first mass is at 5:45, and vespers is at 7:45. When we finally did drag ourselves out of bed this is what we saw:

Rain. Well, it was actually a really good thunder storm. It was beyond amazing, watching the lightning flash across the sky and then listening to the thunder echo between the mountains. At one point the bells were ringing at the same time as the thunder and the thunder was louder.

We have now headed farther into the country side to the town of Torla, just out side of Ordesa National Park. The next couple of days will be full of hiking through the park. Wish us luck.

Thanks for checking in,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

jetlag and beach time

Greetings my friends,

The last few days we have been working on getting past some culture differences, as well as the time difference. The biggest change has been bed time, or lack of a set bed time. Back home the kids are to be in bed by 8 and 8:30 respectively. Here, it is common to see small children out playing after 11. My daughter thinks this is the most wonderful thing in the world. We have been just going with the flow, doing what the locals do, except my kids don't do naps and my daughter is a natural early riser. 

Tuesday night we got home around 9:30 and decided to make dinner in our apartment instead of going out because we were all tired. While I started cooking, my love gave them a shower and got them into pjs. Once in his pjs, our son decided to put him self to bed. We had to cox him awake to eat maybe, four bites of carrot. After that he literally demanded to be put back into his bed. He was out in record time. Wednesday started and ended super late, the kids were not awake until 10am and did not go to bed till after 11. Yesterday proved more difficult. Because our daughter, true to her nature, was wide awake by 7:30 (at home she is usually up by 6:30). In a effort not to wake her brother, she came into the main room and sat reading on the couch. Now, this would not be an issue except that the main room is also her father and my bedroom. So, just as I was opening my eyes, I was surprised by a small figure sitting on the couch looking at me. 

Fortunately for me, despite the rude awakening, yesterday was a day of relaxation. Once everyone was up and ready, we meandered the 1.7 km to the beach--getting breakfast (in this case brunch, as it was 11 by the time we ate) on the way. The sun was hot by the water was cool and clean. I swam a little and knit a lot.

I have changed the shawl up a bit. I have sort of combined it with the age of brass and steam kerchief. I am excited to see how it turns out. If I like it I will put it up on ravelry.

Thanks for checking in,

XO Lue Lue Ellabee

Art, boats, and something special!

I will tell you right now that I love museums. I love learning about history through physical abjects. Yesterday we took the sight seeing bus to Musue Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. 

There are pieces that date back nearly 2,000 years.

My favorite of the religious are (of which there is quite a lot, but I feel that is common in European art museums) were the murals from the inside of churches and cathedrals. They took the painted chunks of stone and re-created the walls that they were in so you could understand how it really looked. My favorite was from a church built in 1125.

 
I am always impressed by paintings that are more life-like than photographs. You can almost feel the satin of this girls dress and the soft fur of her muff.

My love tolled me that in one room there was a Salvidor Dali and a Picasso.

 

If you are wondering why I took a picture of the middle painting than you have made the same mistake I did, that is the Dali. I did not read the descriptions and just assumed the painting with the holes was by him.

After the art museum we hopped back on the tour bus, road down the hill, and hopped off again at the Musseu Maritim. The building that houses the museum is an important historical landmark all on it's own. It is where ships were built for nearly 800 years! My favorite exhibit was the wooden submarine. I immediately started singing  "...we all live in a wooden submarine, a wooden submarine, a wooden submarine...". For those of you who are not Beatles fans, they have a song called "Yellow Submarine".  My second favorite, was the life size replica of a royal naval ship from the 1500's. There is a hole in the bottom so you can see into the galley.

 



On our walk back to our apartment, I got a special treat. I found a yarn shop! Well... I had looked it up online and realized it was in the direction we were already headed. It is called All You Knit is Love, and it is a good shop. I was looking for some souvenir yarn, and the owner helped me find this beautiful sock yarn:

Also, best knitting business cards ever!

Well, kiddos are asking for breakfast so we need to get ready and go out.

Thanks for checking in,

XO Lue Lue Ellabee

A double decker bus, cathedrals, and museu de la xocolata

Yesterday was a day of adventure. We started off wondering through as many back alleys as possible, looking for breakfast. After eating we wondered through Paca de Catalunya, which is a big tourist shopping area. It was nice, but we were in the mood for sight seeing. So we got tickets and hoped onto one of these double-decker buses:

These are the kind of sight seeing buses where, once you have bought tickets you may get on and off at any of a number of stops along the way. The bus goes past many interesting sights. My favorite, a side from castles, are cathedrals.

 
Barcelona has a particularly amazing cathedral, de Sangrada Familia. It is the dream of Antoni Gaudi, one of Barcelona's most influential architects. It takes up an entire city block, is really tall, and is only about halfway done despite having been steadily worked on for the last 130 years. We only walked around the outside. You can get tickets to go in, but when we got there the line was literally half way around the building (it looked like it translated into 3 hours of waiting in line). The outside is still amazing, I particularly liked the difference in appearance between the rear facade (maybe 20 years old) and the front facade (about 130 years old).

We saw many other landmarks, including a few other buildings designed by Gaudi (the only one I got an okay picture of was the dragon gate, one of his first designs) and Barcelona's football/sports arena (which I believe they said was the largest in Europe). I learned it is really hard to take a picture with a tablet while riding a bus (even if it is stopped).

We did get off and walk the 10 minutes up hill to Park Guell, a park designed and then dedicated to Guadi. We wandered around the free area for about an hour, enjoying the architecture and the amazing view of the city (non of which I got a picture of). Unfortunately, by the time we got in line for tickets to the section you pay for, they were announcing than no more people could go in until 4pm (16:00).

After the bus, we took a little rest back at our apartment before heading out again to Museu de la Xocolata. Why, yes this is a museum all about chocolate! This city just keeps getting better and better =D. Your ticket is a chocolate bar, there are huge chocolate sculptures, there are three short films on the history of chocolate, and the gift shop is (of course) a chocolate shop.  We enjoyed thick Spanish style hot chocolate, with a sponge cake type finger cookie for dipping. It was delicious!

 

I would say that despite the jet lag and not getting in to the inner part of Park Guell, it was a wildly successful day.
Today, we are on the buses again (we got a two day pass). This time we will be exploring the southern part of the city with it's parks and beaches.

Till next time,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

In flight entertainment, fun planes, and an amzaing city

Hola mis amigos,

After 14 hours flying and 4 hours in layovers, we have arrived safely in Barcelona. The flights were pretty good. The kids slept, read, or watched movies the whole time. And I knit and watched movies. I wanted something easy so I started the sunlight shawl. It is a good, constant, easy, and easily adjusted knit. I cast on during the first flight (which was about two hours). The first picture shows how far I got. I did a few more rows during out three hour layover, we also had lunch and ran the kids. The second picture is shortly after we landed in Barcelona (about 13 hours later).

I really thought I would be farther along, maybe even done, by the time we arrived. It is maybe 1/3 - 1/2 of the way done. The yarn is 440 yards of super wash marino sock, hand dyed by a local artist. I might be done before Prague.

Here is something fun:

If you look closely at the airplane you will notice it is decorated with a variety of colored stars, animals, and the company's name. A fellow passenger called it a "clown plane". It got even better when we boarded and looked out the window to see that frog smiling at us. Unfortunately (or fortunately) nothing else exciting happened on that flight, excepted my little one getting a full eight hours.

I have only been in Barcelona for about 9 hours, and I have already fallen in love with this city. It is beautiful, and unique, and any city that is pedestrian friendly has a special place in my heart. We are staying in a little apartment we found on airbnb. It is with in walking distance of a beautiful park, beach, zoo, and (my personal favorite) castle. Not to mention all the little shops and cafes. The building it is in is part of a huge court yard, with at least four different Tapas bars/ cafes and a small playground. Here are a couple of views from our balcony and a picture of our balcony from outside.

 
Well, I am about to pass out from lack of sleep (the others have been asleep for almost an hour).
I will try to take more pictures of our adventures tomorrow.
Good night,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

casting off and taking off

Good mornng my loves,

I know I have missed a couple days, but I have been so busy trying to finish things and get everyone packed and ready to go that I have had little time for anything else. I will tell you more about our trip in a moment. 

First: I started casting off Thursday night, I did a picot cast off because I think they are pretty. It took me an hour to get half way:

It took me another hour to finish the other half. When I was done I understood why it was taking so long:

And that was before blocking (which took up my entire living room floor). After I blocked it, my lady was kind enough to model it for us. You can't really see it, but she is wearing the dress I made which I also finished yesterday. 

Ok, I am willing to admit that it did get a little bit away from me. It is beautiful though, and I am very pleased with it.

Now, the trip. Do you remember me mentioning that we had a wedding in Poland? Well, we are making a couple stops in Barcelona and Prague before making our way to Krakow. I have only been out of the states a handful of times, and most of those have been since I got married. So this trip is very exciting for me. We will be traveling for the next three weeks. Fortunately, we just switched cell phone carriers and I now have data (I have been resisting for the last couple years). So I will be able to keep you posted on our adventures!
Today we fly. I will check in when ever possible.
 Ta ta for now,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

a birthday, a trip, and making a mess

Hello all my lovely people,

I don't know about you, but I seem to have this weird thing where the more I have on my plate the more I add to it. For example: we are leaving for Europe in two days and I am in charge of the packing, there are the dress and shawl to finish, my usual every day mom stuff, and I would like to leave the house as clean as possible. Add to all of that the fact that we get back shortly before my boy's 4th birthday. We have picked a day, time, park, and his five closest friends. My love says, send out the evite and be done (and maybe call the park people and see if we can have a bounce house that day and time). Do I send the evite? No, I chose to do what I always do, make invitations. Now, I am not know for my paper crafts. I do not scrapbook, make stationary, or what ever else paper crafters do. But, I love actual party invitations, and my daughter loves helping me with them. This time, other than some instructions from me, she made them all by herself:

You see those balloons? That was her idea, she drew them on. I love how creative she is.

I also enjoy having some sort of theme for the parties, this one is construction vehicles. My love was asking about ordering a 3-D dump truck cake (there is no way I would have time/energy to make one and it wouldn't look very good if anyway). We are now deciding between that and this little beauty I picked up:

So that is the little extra thing I have going on the side. I am going to make my love get the birthday presents because he gets home a week before us. (The kids and I are taking a detour on the way back to visit with my family in the mid-west, I feel it is important they spend time with their cousins and I miss my parents and siblings.)

As part of our prep for the long flights we got the kids their own headphones. I then showed them how they can be used on our piano. I wish I had done this years ago. Kids love playing on pianos, especially if they can turn the volume all the way up. 

This works really well. She feels like she has privacy while she learns keys and her brother has nothing to complain about (he gets funny about live music). Now I just need to keep them from learning that they can turn the volume up on each other....

Speaking of mischief, my boy was really quiet for a good 15 minutes. In my experience, when children are quiet they are either being really really good or making an enormous mess. When we went searching for him, this is what we found: 

Don't worry, all that paint is dry and the paint cans are pounded closed. He has filled the rolling pan with soap and water that has covered the counter and started dripping on the floor. For situations like this I have two sayings : Everything is washable, including the cat. And, at least it was not sharpy on the wall. Maybe one day I will tell you both of those stories.

The shawl....is taking too long and I have lost my motivation. I just finished row 5 of the lace edging last night. Although it is a very simple 8 stitch repeat, I am constantly worrying that I have messed up some how and continuously look back over the stitches. 

I only have two more lace rows (not counting the purl ones) before I can bind off. But I also only have two more days. *Sigh* guess I had better get back to work.

Thanks for checking in,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

Decisions

Hello my loves,

This weekend was full of decisions. First, I decided to finish painting the bathroom walls and I will try to paint the ceiling this week (probably tomorrow or Thursday). It will be white. You may be asking why I mention it, aren't ceilings supposed to be white? Or at least a different color from the walls? In this particular bathroom the walls and ceiling were all the same light grayish blue (or blueish gray, whatever). I considered keeping with that and painting the ceiling the periwinkles of the walls, but since the color is kind of dark I thought it would make the bathroom feel allot  smaller. 

Second, Bride was visiting for the weekend and we got a decision on the version of dress my lady will wear for the wedding. 

Drum roll please..... This one for the ceremony:

  and this one:

as backup/reception.

Finally, I am opting not to do the scalloped edge of the shawl. Rather, after the lace edging (which is the next bit after the bit with the nupps) I will do a simple picot cast off. This will save me 9 rows of knitting or approximately 3 hours (that is with no distractions, I always have distractions). 

Now to get the kiddos on an earlier schedule, we leave for Spain Saturday morning.

Thanks for checking in. 

Ta ta for now,

XO Lue Lue Ellabee