records were broken...

Okay, I know weather records were broken, but we broke a few of our own at the cottage this past weekend.

Earliest date for swimming - April 2. (beating out April 10 from a few years back)
Most kids in the water at once for the first swim of the year - 7. Beat last year's 5 kids on the May 24 weekend.
(although not shown here, there was head dunking!) They were crazy - there was ice on the lake on Wednesday, and this was Friday - the water temp was less than 10 degrees above freezing! No parents went in, I can guarantee that...

Finest Easter weekend spent at the cottage that we can remember. We arrived on Thursday night, and were able to unpack the truck in shirtsleeves. No need for a fire to take the chill out of the air inside the cottage, rather, we had to open windows to relieve the stuffiness. Friday morning, the kids started arriving at the door. We have a great group of kids on our bay - anywhere from 5 to 10 kids are all within walking/boating /shouting distance of one another, and they gather in a great horde that moves from cottage to cottage, leaving a trail of crumbs, and food wrappers left behind. I fed them lunch one day, and other moms handled the other days. Snacks happened at odd times, wherever they were.

We also had our annual Easter egg hunt - sending the horde out with a compass, and specific instructions as to direction and number of paces to take, as well as some landmarks to help them. 90 minutes later, they arrived back with all the chocolate and other stuff that we hid. Some new parents to this tradition were a bit surprised at the extent we go to, but they don't know my husband. He may have just turned 51, but he's really about 12 years old, and loves doing stuff like this for the kids. (okay, so do I...)

There was food galore, including a turkey on Saturday, which translated into soup last night. My in-laws love soup, as does my son's daycare provider, so I always have willing recipients.

There was a ton of knitting done on my Rowan sweater (I'm still refusing to call it Slinky Ribs). I will finish the body soon, but when I tried picking up the stitches for the sleeve opening, I had a small crisis. My sleeve opening is larger than the number of stitches required for the size I'm making. So I put the body stitches on a thread and tried it on - whew. The armhole is the perfect size, so I will just adjust the number of stitches they call for to make it work. the sleeve caps are knitted down, using short rows, so I want to ensure the picked up stitches are perfect - there's no seam to hide the imperfections!



This is definitely a yarn that will benefit from a good soaking and light blocking. It's quite rustic, and so the stitches appear uneven and rough. I love how a good soak evens everything up. The yarn is a more lime-y green than it appears here - it's a tough colour to get right - even with natural, indirect light, it looks washed out.