After lunch, Coco managed to get himself into a stack of float rings.
​Well, that was just too tempting for some of the others.....

"In you go!""

 "Where is he?  I can't see him!"

But then Coco popped to the surface....

"That was fun!  Let's do it again!"

Well, everyone is nice and dry and back home again.  
And now the others are heading up north again, for another week of camping adventures.
​And hopefully lots more fun photos.

The kids had so much fun at Chris' pool, that they wanted to go again the very next day...

This time they decided to bring a barbecue...and stay for lunch...

We've been babysitting our son's house and cat while his family is on vacation. So yesterday several of the kids wanted to come along to check out their pool.

​Now, the way his pool is designed, the water level is quite low, so not very conducive to in-scale doll photos.  Not that I wanted to get my dolls wet anyways. So they just stayed on the side...

*Web Issues update:  My son has talked to the Weebly support people but they really have no idea why things are the way they are.  So it looks like we are on our own, and will very likely have to start a whole new website, and that will take some time.  Especially since there's eight years worth of work here to transfer over. So, while we continue to try figure things out, I will still post here, and keep everyone updated.

I don't much feel like taking doll photos or posting them until the colour issues have been fixed,
so I thought in the meantime I'd start a Tutorial for the BID swimwear. They are really quick and easy to make, so I'm hoping things here are back to normal before we run out of summer weather.
​ 
Although it is always 'summer' somewhere.

Well, today was the big day - the solar eclipse everyone has been waiting for. From where we live,  in southern Ontario, the moon would only cover 69% of the sun, but we thought we'd go down to Frenchmen's Bay for a wider view of the sky.      Coco came with us.

There were lots of people there, including some kite boarders, who had beached their
kites, because with the dimming sun, all the thermals they needed had disappeared.

Jan had made a simple pinhole 'camera' box, and we could clearly (and safely) see the
eclipse.  Coco had some special eclipse glasses, and made himself comfortable...

At the peak of the eclipse the light was somewhat dimmer, like it usually is in early evening.....

With my ongoing website issues, I've not been taking any new doll photos, so I've been taking advantage of all my 'free time' working on several projects.

There's a Tiny Talyssa supposed to be coming soon - well, actually she was supposed to arrive in April, and then in July - but I know anything from JpopDolls always takes at least eight months, so I've been counting on September or October.  Which means she would need something nice and warm for the cooler fall weather.

​I chose a lovely blue blend, but know that colour also looks amazing on Angela against her light brown skin, so decided to make a sweater set for her first. Then take my chances with the leftover yarn to make a set for Talyssa as well....

I usually make a matching pompom for the hat, but I wanted it in light blue, so decided to wait until after the second sweater set was knit, just in case I'd need all of the blue yarn. So now I'm working on the hat, and I'm done with the blue yarn, and there's a tiny bit left for pompoms. Fortunately  I have some needle punch yarn that's almost the exact same colour of light blue.

And from the cool of autumn, to the current heat of summer.  We are planning to go up north for another week, so my kids can continue their camping trip.  Which means coming up with all kinds of new and exciting things for them to do.  After all, they can't just do the same things a second time.

​So I have a new tent, and beach toys, and hopefully the Coleman stove and cooler will come in time.  And I'm making swimwear.  Swim trunks for the boys, and one piece swimsuits for the girls.  I'm using colourful T-shirt fabric, as that's what I have, and I really don't feel like buying tiny bits of real swimsuit fabric. Plus I imagine it's even worse to sew than the T-shirt fabric.  Anyway, the first bathing suit is done, and it looks pretty good....

Thought I'd post a few pictures of my Kaye Wiggs girls in their new corduroy dresses. Their dresses are made from toddler dresses, and are actually one piece, imitating the look of a jumper over a white blouse.  The dresses have been finished for a while, but things being what they were, and all the stress related to endless doctor visits, pretty much zapped me of any creativity.  

Yesterday I finally got some good news, so I thought today I'd finally be able to take some fun photos of the three girls.  But then all the Weebly problems hit the fan, and I've been dealing with those ever since.   My son is going to look at the problems and try to fix some of the things, but it's starting to look like I may have to go solo and start a whole new website. Which just seems too overwhelming right now, as there's 8 years of work here that will need to be transferred.  Sigh.

So, in the meantime here's my three girls in their new dresses.....

Beautiful Hope.....

...and adorable Layla....

I've accidentally discovered how to make the photos the right colour!  When I first posted the photos above, I was struck that the photo of Hope was the correct colour, and was showing up bigger than usual, while the photo of Layla was the same dull of all the vertical images lately, and was showing up smaller.

So I went and checked the file size, and it turns out that I accidentally made the web size image of Hope in a larger size than usual - 600 pixels wide instead of the usual 500. So I made a 'regular' smaller version of Hope, and it showed up dull too.  Then I made a bigger version of Layla, and it came out the right colour.  So maybe the problem has been that the images were not BIG enough!

​So maybe that's the solution!   I guess we really do learn from our "mistakes"!!
​
And I'm sure no one is going to complain about BIGGER pictures! 

So I've been trying to fix the wrong photos that have popped in everywhere, but am meeting with considerable resistance. I delete the wrong photos that have magically replaced some of the ones that should be there, then updated my site, and at first everything looks fine.  But then many just go back to the wrong photos. It's super frustrating!!

And talk about spacing problems!!  The 'spacer' button is missing from the 'tools' list, and they seem to have a mind of their own and pop in anywhere they feel like.

I had hoped the replaced photos would be something that was happening in just the most recent posts, but it goes back as far as I've checked - which at this point is the wedding shots in May - and those are messed up too.  

​WHAT IS GOING ON??????????

So I wrote to Weebly's HELP line about my vertical photos not being the proper colour, and they did get back to me with a possible solution.  Problem is, I'm quite technically challenged - which is why I use a site like Weebly in the first place - so don't dare try make the changes myself. Especially considering it's way too easy to just accidentally delete my entire website. And there's no 'Undo' buttons.

So I've asked my son to look at Weebly's response to see if he could deal with it. And while I was going back through the posts from August, to pull photos to show him the difference in the colour of the vertical photos, I discovered all kinds of photos had popped in from elsewhere on my site, replacing the ones that were supposed to be there. Like studio photos of my Kaye Wiggs girls in their 'Dark Fairy' outfits instead of big yellow duck photos, and all throughout the camping posts.  Instead of sunset photos, or boys going to the outhouse, there are Kaye Wiggs fairy photos. 

I don't know if Weebly messed stuff up when they went to check on my website, but now I have to go back and put the proper, missing photos back where they are supposed to be.  I just hope that my whole website isn't all screwed up.  I'm going to have to go backwards from the most recent posts, and look at everything, which will take a VERY LONG time. So if anyone is looking at something older and comes across photos that just shouldn't be there, please let me know, so i can fix it.

​Thanks,  Martha

The final evening of our camping trip up north started out without much hope of a good sunset. Clouds started moving in around dinner time, and the entire sky to the west became a solid bank of clouds. So thinking we were out of luck for a sunset when the sun disappeared behind them, we went in to play a game of Scrabble.

An hour or so later, we noticed a pink tinge to the sky, and looked out to the west. A sunset!! The entire sky to the west was bright red. Seems as the sun sank below the horizon, it lit up the undersides of the huge cloud mass, to create a spectacular sunset.....

So everyone quickly piled out of the RV, to sit on the dock and watch it.....

We had had to move campsites the day before, and the view wasn't quite as perfect here
through the trees, but it was still a fabulous way to end a camping trip....