Socks and Sand...

My sister has been visiting so my attention has been a bit scattered but things have been happening. Oh, yes, THINGS. You know that sock puppet I was talking about making a tutorial for? Well...it actually won and they asked if I'd like to make one of her producer too. I figured I might as well, I had a lonely sock all ready to go. So! That made my day and I'll be sharing any new news on it later too.

Have a look, if you haven't already: Ingrid Michaelsock Winners
(That's my name on the grand prize winning sock! That's both weird and awesome.)

How cool are all the puppets? You can tell there was a lot of work into the second place puppet (it looks like a muppet and there's embroidery on her shirt! That's some serious detail going on.) and the third place puppet definitely showed creative use of household materials. False eyelashes probably aren't in every household but they make the puppet look really friendly and pretty as a puppet can be. Also, hair elastics for her glasses? Brilliant. Got to love all the details on the rest of them too, you can tell everyone had a lot of fun making these. I got a kick out of the idea to begin with, it's the main reason I entered. 

As much as I like my puppet I don't know how I won. Maybe it's the mouth...it's rather unique.

I made an awkward video with the use of my brother's digital camera of both of the puppets but I think I'll refrain from sharing it until they've done what they're going to do with the puppets. I don't want to ruin the effect. Plus, I didn't know what I was doing so it's very awkward.

One of the other THINGS was that my dad, sister and I went to the coast. We may or may not have gone specifically to go to this little out of the way restaurant (it's set up like an old school diner on the inside) for fish and chips. My dad had gone there before with a cousin of mine after they'd gone fishing out in the ocean and was really taken with their fish and chips. It was really delicious and they had 3/4 size pirate mannequins on the outside of their restaurant which amuses me greatly. They kind of freaked me out at the same time, though. I got my sister to pose with them, she thought they were creepy too but you wouldn't think it by her exuberant pose:

Afterwards we went for a walk on the beach and Chloe had a blast, I think she had my dad carrying about 10 lbs of seashells and rocks by the end of it and her pants were soaked up to the knees from the surf.

My enjoyment of the whole thing had a lot to do with how much fun she was having, that kid really does love doing stuff. I got my dad to take a picture of us:

After the walk we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory were Chloe got to see how they make their cheese, I don't think she'd ever been there before. We also got ice cream and it was delicious. It might be gross to some but I think their white licorice ice cream is mighty tasty (it tastes like black licorice but I think I know why they don't make it black. That would be rather nasty.). They also have peppermint ice cream which was my favorite and always seemed hard to find anywhere else. It was a great little trip.