King's Hunt - Let's see: I was in 7th-heaven because on site were My Pet, My Minion, *and* My Pixie! Oh gracious, I had a staff!!!

No seriously, it was wonderful. I managed to pack for Amya and me in my Festiva, with room for her in the passenger seat. (I know! "How do she do it?!") Then Amya was invited with her work colleagues to dinner, so I wasn't picking her up on my way in, but after dinner hour. So I did grocery shopping, filled the passenger seat with food and drink, and got up to site just after 6 pm with lots of sunlight. Several guys were kind enough to figure out how to set up my tent for me (including fixing a broken pole I'd forgotten about), while a couple of us put up the dayshade for Coffee Bar and Eilidh's Kitchen just on the other side of the tree from Nathan's Kitchen. We broke bread for Sabbath right at candle-lighting time (yum), then I went back down the hill to pick up my Pixie, Amya.

Friday evening we sat around Raz's fire pit, drinking wine and eating challah, and singing and telling tales all night. The Crimson Spade crew arrived probably around 11:30 or midnight or so. Arye housed Elisheva and Diego in his gigantor tent, Raphael set up a quick small tent for himself, and everyone went to sleep.

Big tent-setup commenced at breakfast time. The Inn went up, the Poop Deck went up (Raz's new White Star day-shade, modeled after the shade on the poop deck of the Santa Maria), coffee and breakfast was had by all. Raphael was even spoiled rotten when I brought him breakfast-in-hammock, with three slices of challah french toast and a squeeze bottle of honey all to himself.

The sun *finally* came out for the afternoon's activities. I'm told there were 12 heavy weapons fighters in The Hunt, and the Rapier field seemed filled to the brimming. A very loud and racous game of Blood of Heroes was held (which I'm told was won by White Star). And one of the ladies of Isles held her Circle of Fence, so the Rapier Field was busy absolutely all day long.

I spent my afternoon first cleaning up from breakfast, then taking a luxurious shower, putting on fresh clothing, and rebraiding my long hair extensions, then wandering around visiting friends. It was Rhieinwen's birthday on Sunday, so she brought cake to the site and thanked us all for coming to her birthday party. *grin* I got to visit a bit with Illiana, although she was in the middle of a project on her spinning wheel, so I didn't get a chance to try out her Majacraft Gem model spinning wheel. I also got to visit briefly with Countess Una, and take in the sights of her wonderful warp-weighted loom. I snapped a few pictures while visiting with friends, but I never did take photos of the majority of people with whom I spent my weekend. The photos give an entirely different impression of my weekend than my memories. Ah well, I'll try better at the next event.

Saturday dinner was a successful combined "Food on a Stick" venture over at the Inn of the Crimson Spade, where we also experimented with Chicken-in-a-Biscuit-on-a-Stick and other combinations, including Diego's attempts at Camp-Fondue. Marcos would be proud of the melted cheesy goodness of the meal. We had a lovely Havdahlah, with one or two new friends joining the usual back-room participants, and then the evening's festivities.

Master Donal and Lady Inga set up a Mini-Taste of Caid at the Inn, and people came through all night tasting the various libations (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic samples). Pel brought out his Rose "lemonade" (both in syrup form and mixed with sparkling mineral water). The Inn debuted their personal home-brews: Three beers brewed just for the Inn. "Diego the Red," a "Maple Stout," and a "Pale Belgian Ale" all brewed on the Crimson Spade label (which has a very entertaining Warning Label from the Chirugeon General, worth reading! Apparently, brews can impair your ability to operate heavy machinery, like siege engines....) My favorite blend for the night was Wilhelm (from Darachshire)'s Pomegrante Mead with a bit of the Pomegrante sludge in the bottom of Master Donal's Pomegrante Mead with a bit of Pel's Rose syrup. Yum. It's given Master Donal some ideas for future brews, which is always a good thing.

We had a wonderful fire with song and story, at the Inn, where several folks joined us who haven't normally dropped by our circle. True participated for several songs and stories (and now knows where the line is for bawdy versus blue at our circle, because someone who was not accustomed to our fire requested a song that was too blue for us, and True didn't know that we didn't cross that line usually, and he sent his sincere apologies for going a little too far.) But otherwise we had *wonderful* harmonies, a fine mix of story and song, and several compliments from festive party goers who said "Wow, that was a wonderful fire!" Captain Lot was sorely missed, but Arye picked up the drum, and we all did our best at the memorized repetoire. Several people brought out bardic books for certain requests. One person actually said outloud, "They don't normally like books at this bardic circle," and tried to encourage people to just perform memorized material. But we were gracious to all, and did the bardic community proud.

By morning, lots more coffee, a breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, garlic and onion potatoes, and turkey kielbasa and chicken from my kitchen, and then all the packing. Several of us got too much sun while packing, and then we went to Todde and Mora's for games, leftover feast food, showers, and even hot tubbing before driving home. And we're all home safe.

Hey. Let's do it again this weekend! *giggle* (...for those of you not in the know, this weekend is Crown Tourney, with camping at the EXACT same site. So it really is "same time, same channel" for two weekends in a row.)

Since Then - I've managed to unpck the car, put away all the food, wash most of the dishes, and wash some of the kitchen boxes. The grape juice spilled in one of the boxes on the way home, but that's all cleaned up and ready to be re-packed with pots and pans again. No harm done. I can probably finish cleaning up in the kitchen tonight, and immediately start packing it back up again. Still haven't touched the suitcases and clothing, but I think I can laundry done during my lunch hour some time this week.

This morning, I took a half-hour before heading to work, to see if I could successfully spin the bamboo fiber on my Lady-Kaarna spinning wheel. I can, and I did, and I'm really happy with the results. So I'll be able to work on the production spinning (by which I mean "make lots of quantity in little time") to complete the project in a reasonable amount of time. I prefer spinning on a drop spindle, but it does take longer. So now the bamboo is set up in my bedroom, next to my desk, with the intention that I can spend a minimum of 30 minutes on it every day, and get all 24-ounces spun up in a reasonable time.

Now, To Celebrate! - And my most exciting news of the day!!!

Before Going To Work

Stopping To Document The Excitement

Arriving At Work

My car is now 400,000 miles old! *yippee* I was worried the odometer would flip during my drive home last night, and I didn't have my camera with me. But I brought my camera along (getting it from my suitcase from the trip home on Sunday), and took side-streets until the mileage flipped, paused for the photo, then got on the freeway for the rest of the drive to work.

Have I mentioned lately how much I *LOVE* my car?!? *squee*

Today's Photo Portion - (1) King's Hunt, this past weekend; (2) Benjamin's Bris, last month; and (3) Easter Egg Hunt Saturday with the nieces (bonus: Hummingbird pictures)

  

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Tracy