Shenanigans!!!

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is only a week away. Oh, how excited I am! The girls are flying, driving and taking the train to my house for a weekend my husband labeled - Sheep and Shenanigans! He came up with the name last year and we instantly adopted it as the new title of the weekend. In fact, we love it so much that this year, we had t-shirts made.

This weekend will be spent preparing for all the festivities that kick of Thursday of next week. I'll be cleaning, shopping, organizing, and checking my list of things to do about a million times.

This will be my ...holy crap.

This will be my FIFTH sheep and wool festival.

While the last three are on the blog the very first one was chronicled on my former not-exclusively fiber related blog (which has since been taken down but you can see photos here).

Let's take a look down memory lane...

In 2006, it was just me and the Queen and we were MS&W virgins. We had such an excellent time though we were somewhat overwhelmed with it all. I must be honest and share that I still have all the yarn I bought at the festival and only just this year did I finally find what I wanted to make. I'm not sorry I bought the yarn - I'm just sorry it took so long for me to figure out what to do with it.

In 2007, Funky Duck made the trip with the Queen. Another fabulous festival, fun weekend, and some additions to my stash that are still lingering today. Not all, but most. Still - not a bad thing. Maybe by next year I'll know what to do with it.

In 2008, two new additions - The Mistress from California and KMP from Louisiana. The Mistress was building upon skills she learned earlier in the year at Stitches East. But KMP came along just to hang out with the girls. She was not a knitter and had absolutely no desire to learn. NONE. We couldn't coax her. We tried but she resisted. But there was a creative fire brewing that none of us expected.

In 2009, one more addition - Bebe had arrived just a few months earlier. Turns out that KMP's pregnancy helped her find her inner crafty momma. The skills she's learned and the projects she's accomplished over the past two years are astonishing! It was another great weekend with Bebe to coo over in addition to yarn.

Now - it's 2010, and there is an addition for this year as well. Seamus arrived just a few weeks after last year's MS&W. While he has met and adores KMP and Bebe, I don't know if he knows what he's in for when the other girls are here. So it will be me, the Queen, Funky Duck, The Mistress, KMP, Bebe, Seamus and ... my wonderful husband.

Sean is so wonderful to put up with our shenanigans every year. Thank you, honey! I love you! (And I hope you love the new TV that is going up in the bedroom so you have a place to hide should when the shenanigans get out of control next week.)