Water, Water, Everywhere But Here

On Friday, we were notified by a County employee that our sewers were going to be relined this week. Monday (yesterday), to be specific. In order to perform this feat, our water would have to be turned off for 8 to 12 hours. If we were to flush a toilet, sewage could back up into our house. Plus, even if we didn't run any water at all, the house would still smell of the relining stuff. Yay! Well, yesterday also happened to be one of those random "teacher work days," so the kids would be home all day. So I planned to have the kids out of the house all day. We went to the bagel store for breakfast, then we went off to the mall, where we did a little shopping, had lunch, and saw a movie. ("Nim's Island." It was ok. Jodie Foster has serious old lady hands.) When we returned home at around 4:30, the guys were still working, so I pulled up and asked how much longer they'd be. "Oh, until around 7," they said. Great. So we went home, where it really did reek like nail polish remover, planning to go out to dinner. Five minutes later, the doorbell rang. It was one of the workmen. "Your half of the street isn't being done until tomorrow, you know." What? The woman specifically told me Monday! So, we had water all day, but today we don't. Quick change of dinner plans in light of circumstances. At least today I'm home alone, and I can handle waterlessness. BUT, and this is a big BUT, the work didn't finish last night until TEN O'CLOCK. That's a big hassle. The boys can live without their bath, but what about getting ready for bed? I can't really bring them down to the library in their jammies to get ready for bed. Also as a result*, there's been very little knitting:

You can see that I haven't made too much more progress, doily-wise. Of course, there are almost 300 stitches per round at this point. So, to distract you from the lack of knitting content on this here "knitting" blog, I'm going to give you some pretty pictures:

The last happy place I showcased was Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the spectacular Grand Teton Range. Continuing our mountain theme, we have this past summer's vacation to Yosemite. Above we have the pair of Jr.'s at the point looking out over the Yosemite valley. The mountain in the foreground is Half-Dome, named because, clearly, it looks like a dome sheared in half. Below is a picture of a family of deer we encountered on our hike through the giant redwood grove. There looked to be two female adults and two babies. We were ever so quiet when we saw them and they trotted about in front of us as if they had no fear.

Below is a shot of the granite steps going up the Mist Trail. I love mountains, and I love to hike, but I have a slight case of vertigo, and these steps were a killer. They go on and on and on and on, and in many places are extremely steep and narrow. I can't imagine climbing these when the falls are in full force and the mist makes the granite slippery.
Here's Sr. Jr. when we got up to the plateau for the first set of the falls:

Here we are on top of Sentinel Dome:

This is an actual mountain top. There's no more up from there. The views are spectacular. The aforementioned vertigo means that I get very nervous on top of things from which I can fall a long way. I didn't include a funny picture of me sitting down on a rock in the middle of the dome, clearly trying to stay away from any edges.

This picture was taken the first day we went up to see Half Dome. There were forest fires in different places in Yosemite, and the wind was blowing the smoke in our direction.

I have many, many more pictures, but we all now how boring those never-ending vacation stories can be.

This year we're breaking with tradition and renting a house in Hilton Head to do the beach thing. I'm not really a beach person, but I'll bring my knitting and some books to keep me occupied.

Hopefully by Thursday or Friday, I'll have some actual knitting progress to talk about.

* Also distracting me from my knitting is that time-sucking soap opera on Ravelry known as the "MCY thread." Who knew the knitting world could produce such shenanigans?