An Afternoon at the Park

I wanted to get a few shots of the great grand children (my mom's great grandchildren) so I asked my niece and my daughter to meet me at the park for pictures. It is impossible to get one where they are all looking the same way.

Cherish the Moment

I made this layout this morning still using my November kit from Urban Anthology. This is a picture the kids took while Gino was home on leave as a present for my birthday. Those kids know exactly what I like ~ pictures!

Halloween 2008

Candice Carpenter had classes at the Scrapbook Oasis in September which I missed as I was on a cruise, but I purchased the kits. And here they are , with a couple of slight modifications. I swear, I have the most adorable grandkids on the face of the earth.

blankee

Isn’t my granddaughter adorable? I made this layout using a sketch from http://inspiredblueprints.ning.com/ and the November Urban Anthology kit. I used Basic Grey Urban Prairie patchwork quilt and petticoat pattern papers and the Basic Grey Granola wild oats pattern papers; Basic Grey glazed brands; Star Dust, Eucalyptus, Waterfall Stickles; Prima flowers; swirl and cherish these moments glitter diecuts from Crate Paper's Prudence Collection and Chit Chat Thickers puffy letter stickers outlined with a turquoise Souffle pen. All but the Stickles were from the November kit!

Happy Thanksgiving

I am blessed in my life to have a wonderful family. Today we gathered at my mom's for turkey dinner. While we were missing a few people (i.e. my son who is currently stationed overseas and my children from my husbands side of the family) the rest of the family was there. My niece even drove in from Las Vegas with her 4 young children. My mom is a terrific cook and this meal was not a disappointment. This picture only shows the hot food, there were salads and relish trays out near the tables.

I made a pumpkin cheesecake for desert (we also had apple carmamel and pumpkin pie) it was yummy.

Marine Corp Ball

Earlier this month I wrote that it was the Marine Corp's birthday. Well it was also the time of year that they have the Marine Corp Ball. Gino sent the following pictures so of course I had to make a layout. As many of you know, my son is currently serving as an Embassy Guard in Uzbekistan.

I chose to go very simple in my layout design as the pictures are very powerful. I used actual paper designed by http://www.stampinstation.com/ called Marines Dress Uniform left and Marines Dress Uniform right. Perfect for these pictures.

God Bless all our service men for all their sacrifice for our country.

Golden Harvest

A couple weeks back, I was fortunate to attend a class at the Scrapbook Oasis taught by Christine Middlecamp. This is the lovely album we made.

Around & around

This cutie pie is Rylee and these series of pitures were taken at Disney's California while waiting to see the Crush the Talking Turtle show. Patrick had bought her this really cute priness twirly thing.

I used the Urban Anthology September, Whoo's That Cutie kit, and this weeks sketch challenge. You can check it out here ~ http://urban-anthology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1257.0,

New Bowling Shirts

This is my bowling team on Wednesday nights. Scott and Cinda are my team mates (and of course, my Patrick).Scotty bought us all bowling shirts with our names on them! Aren't we cute? We even look like real bowlers! And to top it off, we even won 4 games last night. (You actually bowl 3 games, then the 4th "game" is taken by total pins). You see some of the staples of our every week activies in the foreground. Scotty usually brings a cooking magazine to share really cool recipes (notice the page it is currently turned to for my Patrick's benefit - see the large bling?). He also brought in brownies with nuts (Cinda and I love chocolate). There is my ice tea cup and then there is something there that is not usually there. A shot glass ~ Pat bought me a Russian Qualude. It was ok. Then during the past couple of weeks, I have been teasing that I wanted a shot of Tequila. 2 or 3 of them even. So he comes back with a double shot of Patron Silver, the salt and the lime. It took me 3 drinks to get the whole thing down. This was with one frame left in the night. I felt a little tipsy by the time we left for the night but I did sleep all night long.

Thank you Scotty for the new shirts, maybe we will start bowling like a professional team now. Last night was a great start! And thank you to my Patrick for helping me sleep ;).

Southern California Wildfires

If you have heard the news lately, Southern California was burning with 3 wild fires. The 1st one started on Thursday and by Saturday morning 2 other major fires had started. One of them not to far from me. Not close enough that I was worried about my house by any stretch, but it surly impacted our air quality. Saturday was extreamly windy and hot, we were in the 90's. I meet up with some friends for lunch at Downtown Disney and this was the view. There was so much ash falling all around.

To give you a different view, this is the smoke spreading into the blue skys we usually have.

One of the fires burned through a mobile home estate and 500 of the 600 units were destroyed. It just broke your heart to watch the news.

God bless the people effected by these fires.

Happy Veteran's Day

Thank you to all who have served and all who currently serve.

Happy Birthday

To the United States Marines - Sempre Fi - and thank you for your service.
(my handsome son is on the far left - this picture was taken at the Marine Corp ball in Uzbekistan 2008)

A Swingin' Good Time

This is a layout I created using the November Kit, Calgon Take Me Away at Urban Anthology http://urban-anthology.com/ . Pictures were of my granddaughter and my son's girlfriend taken at Disney's California Adventure this past Saturday.

Photo Expo West

I attended the Photo Expo West Expo this weekend. What an experience that was. The event was held in Del Mar, which is about an hour from home. What a lovely drive down south it was. The expo was something else and really let me know there is so much to learn. I sat in a couple of seminars which blew my mind. I listened to Hanson Fong speak. I really enjoyed that seminar. He spoke on how to pose people. I also sat in on portion of Eddie Tapp's seminar on post processing in Photoshop. These men have such a passion for photography. I was also able to talk to the people at the Sony booth about my camera. I need to continue to practice, practice, practice. There will always be soo much to learn. My niece has asked me to photography her wedding. I am really nervous about that as it is such a special day. I guess that means alot of practice between now and the end of the year. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for me? Any books or dvds on photography that you would suggest?

Don't Be Scared Christina

Arianna is with you!! Well they made it though the ride, but when we went to look at the pictures, this is what we saw. I don't know, but usually, when they don't show your picture, it is because there is something unacceptable there that Disney dosen't want the world to see. It is a family park you know. (Like when someone flashes the camera) I'm not saying that is what happened here, but . . . we didn't get to see their picture at the end of the ride. I am sure that there must have been some other kind of snafuu.


While the big kids rode California Screamin' , the two little kids rode King Triton's Carousel
Marty and Lisa joined us for the day as well.
One of Marty's favorite rides is Grizzly River Run . Arianna really likes this ride as well but neither Jillian Patrick or myself care to get wet. Marty, Arianna and Christina rode it while we watched them.

Amazingly, they didn't get all that wet.

Then we were off to the Rain Forest Cafe for a late lunch/early dinner.
After dinner we went back to Disneyland to ride a few more rides. What a fun day and we get to do it all over again next weekend with Darleen, Rylee and Ryan as they were unable to join us on Saturday.

Thankful

November is a time of the year when we express our thanks. There is a layout challenge over at Urban Anthology (http://urban-anthology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1209.0) to make a layout for something you are thankful for. This is my submission.

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