It’s digital, Marnie!

Hey, Marnie – this is for you!  Probably not what you expected from me in terms of the photos used.  It’s way out of my comfort zone for digital scrapping but isn’t life about pushing limits??  Something about the graffiti grabbed me and I had to scrap it.  Sadly, I think only one or two elements on this page are Stampin’ Up products – but then, I don’t buy any digital stuff except SU – the rest I get for free from some amazing sites.

Enjoy!

Like what you see?  Let me know!

“gray hair is gods graffiti”
Bill Cosby

Playing with the camera – again

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a new camera and have spent some time playing with it.  My favourite subjects are my girls of course.  Although I haven’t yet made the digital scrapbook page I’ve been challenged to do, I thought I’d share some of the great shots that I took.  So modest, I now – but it’s amazing what a good camera can do for your ego!

Oh, yeah, and I’ve made a card or two!

The digital camera is a great invention because it allows us to reminisce. Instantly.
Demetri Martin

Fresh air and exercise

The May long weekend means the kick off to the camping season for us.  We joined several other families for a trip down to Deception Pass.  The girls spent most of the weekend on their bikes or scooters and I walked  with them around the loop more times than I can count.

They slept deeply.  Heather even fell off of her bed and stayed sound asleep as I put her back into her sleeping bag!  The weather wasn’t horrid, just not gorgeous - but it held off enough for the crew to gather around the 42 inch TV nestled under the trees for the Canucks games that came in via satellite.    Yes, we are rugged campers.  One family are practically survivalists as their trailer does NOT  have a microwave!

It took several shots to get one where all three of my monkeys were actually smiling AND looking at the camera.  They are pros at making goofy faces.

I’ve been challenged by my friend Marnie to get off my duff and create a digital page of the weekend – so keep your eyes open – one will be forthcoming.

I have had a holiday, and I’d like to take it up professionally.
Kylie Minogue

Here a chick, there a chick

So what did you do for the last long weekend of the summer?  We went away in our RV.  The site was gorgeous – well treed, overlooking a pond, electric hook up and water when needed – all for the low, low price of NOTHING!  

One of  my many sisters recently moved to the other side of the world, also known as Ryder Lake, just outside of Chilliwack.  As we hadn’t seen her place and felt it was too long a drive  just to drop in, we planned a trip.

 

Little did we know that the neighbours are just a few metres away and that they have livestock.  Two cows simply called Meat (they are not long for this world), 34 laying chickens and several dozen chicks.  The fluffy little ones arrived not long before we did.  The future is not bright for these chicks but such is the world and its food chain.  The girls were okay with the truth as we are not vegetarians and they have understood for a long time that they’ve been eating animals.  Regardless of your opinions on our food choices, you still might enjoy the digital scrapping I did of our weekend.

 

 

When we arrived home, Katie informed me that our house was boring!  Too bad we only have a dog, a cat and a fish tank to entertain them.  BTW, anyone have any eggs recipes?  We arrived home with 30 fresh eggs straight from the chickens’ butts.

 

 

Q. Why Did The Chicken Cross The Playground?
A. To Get To The Other Slide.

Row, row, row your boat

My husband is such a typical male.  He dreams of one day owning a boat – you know the kind – big, with a powerful motor.  So his mom and dad bought one for him last summer.  Not the one of his dreams as they are normal middle class people, not millionaires.  It fits in a box and lives and under the bench seat in our trailer.  There is a handy manual pump to blow it up and the plastic oars came complete with oar locks.  You can see a shot of it in my earlier post  Taking a break!.

Pete spent a lot of his summers as a kid on the water whether at his parents’ cabin or at summer camp.  He lifeguarded for a time in his teens and taught swimming so he still loves to get out on the water or get wet.  Two families with us brought a kayak each and Pete took the opportunity to take the girls out for a little ride.  Heather oddly enough melted down, even though she’s been kayaking before, and wouldn’t get in.  The other two loved it.

The highlight of all our beach trips were the salamanders.  Cleawox Lake was teeming with them.

 

 Being near the sand dunes presented us with a great chance to try something new to us.  I bought each of the girls a sand disk and they tried riding them into the water.  Sarah had a few good runs up on the higher dunes at the beach.  Our last day at Honeyman, we went back to Woahink Lake but to a different beach area and the girls played in the sand without a care as to how cold it was with the wind blowing off the lake.  And they finished off the visit to the lake by sitting on their sand disks and eating Cheesies – what a mess!

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

George Bernard Shaw

Lighthouse day

As mentioned previously, our girls absolutely love lighthouses.  We tried to get to Newport one afternoon to see the lighthouses nearby but when we stopped for a late lunch at Flashbacks but the service was soooo slow that it took 20 minutes to order and then 45 minutes to get our food.   As I had a super exciting date with the other moms to do laundry in Florence that evening, we had to turn back and plan for another day out.

On our way to Yaquina Bay we saw a rather disturbing sight – at least for those of us who RV.

What a mess!  And on the door of the house – a No Smoking sign.  So onward we went to again encounter an unnerving sight.

Yup, someone managed to destroy the guard rail and drive off the side of the hill.  It’s a heck of a long way down to the beach but we couldn’t tell how far off-road the vehicle went.  Regardless, it’s a pretty freaky thing to see when you’re terrified of heights!  The road to Newport reminds me of the Sea To Sky highway – loads of curves and way to steep for my comfort level.

Any who, onto the lighthouses.  At Yaquina Bay they had a video running about the history behind the site and Heather was totally freaked out by a ghost story they told and wouldn’t leave my side until we left the building.

After a quick, windy picnic we made our way to the lighthouse at Yaquina Head.  The interpretive centre was quite neat and the girls had fun playing old-fashioned games and colouring as well.  Instead of hiking up to the lighthouse itself, we took the chance that there would be parking available.  This next shot is the view from our parking spot.

This lighthouse is Oregon’s tallest but your have to be 42 inches tall to climb it.  So I stayed behind with Katie who refused to stand properly against the measuring stick so she wasn’t allowed up.

Fortunately the weather was gorgeous that day so the view went on forever!

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper;

I cannot quite make it out.

~Annie Dillard

Dog days of summer

Summer is winding down, just a few short days until the girls are back in school – fortunately they are all excited about it.  We had a great time in Oregon not only camping but doing some tax-free back-to-school shopping.  New shoes, shorts, dresses with matching socks and brand new glow-in-the-dark pink skeleton pajamas.  The girls were given a set of the jammies a couple of Christmases ago, but as they just keep growing (should I stop feeding them to keep them little?) and have all made holes in the knees due to excessive wear, I bought each of them a new set.

Pete bought himself more cool graphic tees but I only bought a pair of shorts and a shirt.  I can shop for hours for stuff for the girls but absolutely despise shopping for me!  So our first night, spent in the WalMart parking lot at Wood Village was cheaper for us than the other families we were with – just groceries for us.

Our trip was with 4 other families so there were 9 grown-ups and 11 kids altogether – oh, yeah 3 dogs too!

 

 

 

The dogs all get along quite well although it took Echo a few times to clue in that she really shouldn’t eat Molly’s food unless she wants to see directly down Molly’s throat!  Cute but not so bright.

All the kids had an absolute blast whether it was playing at the beaches or looking at lighthouses.  Our girls developed a love for lighthouses last summer when we visited the Umpqua River lighthouse.  Our family visited 3 more this year.  The other families came with us to the Heceta Head lighthouse just outside of Florence.  As we were staying at the Jessie M. Honeyman State Park, it was fairly close.  That same day we had all headed to the Sea Lion Caves where we expected to be gagging from the stench.  I guess that fact that it was overcast, cool, windy and that the sea lions were all outside made for a surprisingly fresh air experience!

 

 

I’ll try to post more vacation photos in the next few days but now I really should start thinking about get my photos printed and my scrapping started!

 

“ Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time”

Edwin P. Whipple

Taking a break!

We are off today to the Oregon dunes again.  Last year was a blast and hopefully this summer’s trip is just as great.  I’ll leave you with a few images from our previous trip.  Now to go load up the truck!!

 

Umpqua River Lighthouse

 

Beach at Honeyman

 

Miller boys jumping the dunes

 

A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest,

accompanied by a mother who sees that the others get it.

Marcelene Cox

When does school start again?

I’m not  in a rush to get the kids back to school.  Summer vacation for them is a break for me too.  When I’ve off on a weekday, I don’t set an alarm, rush around getting lunches ready, bribe the girls to get into their uniforms, or stress about getting them to school on time.  Waking up to the sound of the girls playing quietly down the hall, knowing that I’m not in a rush to get anywhere, is quite enjoyable.  Now I just need to win the lottery so that I can enjoy that feeling every day during the summer!

This summer seems to be moving along a little too quickly for me.  It’s already August and I’ve yet to post the cards I made as Thank You gifts for the girls’ teachers.  Teachers get so many trinkets, candies, and flowers as gifts that I figure I’ll make a batch of cards (with envelopes decorated to match) and they’ll either use them throughout the year or regift them.   One of Sarah’s teachers is a card maker herself and she was thrilled when she opened her gift.  She’s the type that won’t use them until after she’s CASEd them.

I take no credit for the original designs of most of these.  I CASEd what my fellow Stampin’ Up demonstrators created either for a shoebox swap or one of our meetings.  I mainly changed the stamp sets, embellishments and colours used.  I certainly have some talented ladies in my up, down & sidelines.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.

Richard Bach

Water, water everywhere!

Last weekend the family headed to the Vancouver Aquarium for a fabulous day out.  In spite of road works and delays caused by arguments with a cell phone company (don’t even ask), we finally arrived around 10:30.  There is something so gratifying about having a membership – yes, bypassing over 50 people standing in line thrills me to no end!  I suppose I should feel some guilt at the pleasure it gives me, but after working in Stanley Park for 6 years, serving endless lines of tourists, I love, love, love jumping the queue. 

Thanks to my in-laws, who purchased the annual pass as a joint birthday present for Pete and me, I joyously skip ahead with my brood in tow.   Actually, more than my brood.  We had one of Sarah’s buddies in tow as she was having a sleepover at our place that night.  I snapped a few photos that I hope look good on here too.

 

 

The girl in the picture above isn’t mine but she looks enough alike Sarah that for the past three years, the teachers have called them by each others name on several occasions.  I’m sure most people at the Aquarium thought they were twins.

I love that the picture came out with glowing red eyes – these caimans are such evil-looking beasts that the flash caught the personality perfectly.

It amazed me that Heather hopped under here right away.  On our last trip there, she wailed and acted completely freaked out about trying it out.  After 10 minutes of tears and encouragement she finally ducked under for all of two seconds.  This time we could barely make her wait her turn.

Summer just isn’t summer unless the kids get to run through the sprinkler at my parents’ place at least once.  Last Monday, my Mom & Dad were inundated by grandkids -  11 of the 12 were at their place, 10 of them for most of the day!  As it was a gorgeous day, Dad put out the sprinkler and for the next hour the little (and a couple of big) monkeys squealed, splashed and jumped around.

 

Going back in time to the day before, the girls and I spent quite a while hanging around the front yard in the early evening.  I bought the bubble wands about a month ago and put them away “for safe keeping” and promptly forgot where they were.  Finally, on Sunday, I remembered!!  So out to the yard we went and had some fun.  Heather decided we should be on bubble popping teams.  She and I teamed up as the bad guys and Sarah and Katie had to pop our bubbles to keep us from our evil plan of world domination (she’s only six).  After a while, they realized that the large bubble wands we have look like light sabres from Star Wars so the games changed.  Now Heather and  I needed to take over all of space!  Suddenly I became Darth Vader’s wife and Heather was my trusty sidekick as we fought against Princess Leah and Princess Poppy (she pops bubbles).  I declared that I would only play Vader’s wife if my name was Ella and Heather got the joke right away!  That’s when we decided she would be called Esco Later.  Yup, we’re pretty demented.

 

“You are unwise to lower your defenses!”

Darth Vader