Weekends are for...

Running around like a chicken with its head cut off, apparently.

Because that's what we did this weekend. Which means that not a lot of knitting got done, although I am almost done with the back of Ondule; but pictures of the back of a sweater on the needles just look like pictures of the back of a sweater on the needles, and 10 inches of progress doesn't necessarily make for interesting photography -- at least, not in my hands.

However, some of the rest of the weekend certainly was good for pictures. Saturday was soccer and Older Daughter's school's open house. She played in the orchestra there (but all of my pictures are either videos, or have someone else's kid in them), and volunteered at her teacher's science booth showing off the solar cookers they made for a project recently, before we headed out to her soccer game where her team won. I should mention that this winning thing makes a really pleasant change from last fall, when her team played the entire first half of the season with no subs whatsoever, and often even one player down. What constantly amazed me about the whole experience was that the coaches of opposing teams didn't also play one girl down (remember, this is a rec league; if it was competitive, I'd expect no different, but we're -- supposedly -- all in this for the fun of it, right?), even when they were, oh, say, 8-0. Maybe it's just me, but that does seem weird. Older Daughter's coach this spring is exactly the kind of coach I wish we'd been playing against last fall; when we were one man up on Saturday, he took a kid off the field so we'd match the other team, because why not? It's rec soccer, and none of our parental egos are bound up in whether our kid's team beat the other kids' team's butt, right? (heh) The best bit is that when we're really ahead, the coach plays the kids in positions that aren't their usual spots, which gives them a chance to try out something new, and the other team a chance to maybe score a goal. They're all going to be much better players for the experience, I think, with a stronger understanding of how a team works together to cover the field. (I should mention that this is a co-ed team, which is also quite a learning experience for both the boys and the girls, who are remarkably evenly matched on the field.)

On Sunday, we headed for the local Renaissance Faire to meet some friends. The girls got dressed up and had a blast. They even got picked to go on stage during the two performances of A Fool and his Family. Older Daughter was picked for the first performance (Jack and the Beanstalk); she was The Cow.
(The cow hat is a dead giveaway.)

Younger Daughter got to be the Wicked Stepmother in Cinderella.
You can see she's working pretty hard at Wickedness there.

To Younger Daughter's great joy, there was a man there with a (subspecies of, but don't ask me which) peregrine falcon, her all-time, very favorite in the whole world bird.
And they got to pet the Friesian horses; I can't tell you how absolutely stunning these horses are. Their manes are soft and silky and long, and the stallion (the one in this picture) stood 17 and a half hands high.
And they were even received by Queen Elizabeth I herself.
Older Daughter worried quite a bit about whether or not they should bring their newly-acquired (small wooden) swords with them. She eventually decided that it would be inappropriate to enter into the royal presence armed. It was just as well. The both said that the queen seemed "strict".
Heh.

Next time, I promise some pictures of Ondule, whether I feel like there's anything new to show for it or not. With luck, though, I'll finish the back tonight or tomorrow, and then I can block it so we can all see just how gorgeous this yarn really is.