All about the swap

If you ever want to squeal like a little girl who just got the pony they had always dreamed of just join a knitting swap with your closest friends....

I imagine all swaps are great but the bonus of doing swaps with your friends is that they know you and pick up on the things that matter most to you making the swap even more special.

The two knitting groups in UAE (the Abu Dhabi U-Knitted Amiras and the Dubai Knitters) got together for a second swap as the first one went so well that we could hardly wait to start another. Perhaps it's because it involves two of our favorite things shopping for yarn and other knitting goodies and receiving yarn and other knitting goodies. But to keep things interesting we added a theme to the "Swap Round 2": Books!!!! Add a book to the swap gift and even try and get gifts that might relate to said book! SO MUCH FUN!

Well we finally got together for the official Swapping of Swap Gifts and here's what my good friend Rama got for me.........

First I got yarn! That she dyed!!!!!

This one she named Strawberries N' Cream - how did she know I like pink? hmm? who told?


And this one is Lavender Fields - are those colors not AMAZING together?


Then there were these little beauties! My first thought: I can use these as knitting diaries!! (best of both worlds Knitting and Twilight!)


And THE book! Dracula The Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker More vampires!!!


Then I opened this! Another Book! Cupcakes recipe book... The photos are amazing in this book. It looks like you can pick up a cupcake out of the page and eat it! I have never been more inspired to make cupcakes...


But I didn't have to! She made me cupcakes!! Yummy lemony tasty cupcakes (YUM!) that were green and yellow cake with green and yellow icing for the DUCKS!!!!

The Ducks have been doing so well that there's a chance that we could go to THE BOWL (not going to say it til it happens)! I KNOW! So I was feeling a little left out seeing all the fun pics from the games back home that we were winning so much! and this was just the thing to get me in the spirit for kickin' some Arizona a-- er um tush!!!

Needless to say I REALLY enjoyed my swap and have been playing with my new goodies loads! I feel so spoiled! I got pink and purple and ducks and vampires and cake... seriously fantastic!

Whew... It's over

my first every event is now over! and it went well, if i do say so my self. everyone got to where they were suppose to be and no one was left behind! the agenda stayed relatively on schedule and people liked the food at the dinners. of course there were a few problems (which i anticipated) but the key was to fix them before anyone noticed they were real problems. i.e. last minute i found out we had a birthday in the group. thankfully i called the hotel and ta dah cake to be delivered with singing waiters at dinner. it was great. the sailing went off with out a hitch. it was so much fun but my team lost... what to do... we were still able to work on our team building skills and have a ton of fun at the same time. as soon as I get pics i'll figure out how to post them here.
but I gotta tell you this whole event planning thing is very exhausting... i came home yesterday and slept 12 hrs, woke up then took a nap. today has been nothing but pampering. i woke up late and then went shopping! i know! it doesn't get much better than that. now i'm back home lounging and drinking my starbucks. maybe for dinner i'll order pizza...