Whirlwind

Whoa where has the time gone? I haven't posted since June and it's already half-way into July! Last time I posted we were fighting off flu and the rain and trying to get ready for our trip to Lake George. We made it to Lake George and had what I like to call Florida weather. Beautiful sunshine everyday but with the knowledge that at some point a storm would come! Sometimes big, sometimes small but they came...everyday. It was ok though we still had a great time. There is something about Lake George that relaxes me, rain or shine.


We returned home from Lake George in time to clean the house (oh yay!) and have a fourth of July party. We live near a golf course and can walk over to the fireworks. It makes for a great party. Kelsey most enjoyed playing with sparklers at the end of the night.



This past weekend we attended a US Swim Meet in New Paltz, New York. What an amazing facility they have!! I've never seen and Olympic size swimming pool up close. Holy intimidating!! The thing is longer than my house. The US Meets are for older more advanced kids. The youngest age group is 10 and under so at 8 we didn't expect her to excel. Well she did and I couldn't be prouder! This photo is of her (she's in the orange cap) doing a 50M Breaststroke and YES half of those kids are boys!! What is it about a girl beating a boy in sports that still makes me scream WooooHoooo!!! She did such a great job that her coaches want to bring her to a last chance meet to try and qualify for...get this... Jr. Olympics!! I couldn't be prouder of her. We know that qualifying for Jr. Olympics is more than likely not attainable (not yet anyway) but the experience alone will be priceless and I'm so happy for her.



Sooo I have no pages or cards today, all this swimming has left me scrap less! I've got plenty of pictures though so I hope to get back on scrap track this week! Ohhh and in the middle of all this? I decided to rip my craft room apart. What was I thinking!!

Summer Break

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WootWoot Summer is finally here. Thursday was our last day of school. We are both off now for the next 8 weeks. Speaking of which does it seem we go longer each year? Seriously, we ended right at the end of June this year and we go back September 1st or 2nd! Ok so can you tell I need a break? Kelsey and I ended the school year with the flu. Fun stuff. She had it last week and me this week. Fortunately it was fast and furious and we each only missed a couple of days. Kids of course are so much more resilient. Fever of 103 one day, swimming in a meet the next. She won two of her three races and came in second in third. Was that confusing? Won two and second in the third? It's not even 7 am as I type, I'm confusing myself. I've only had a few sips of coffee and by now I usually have had two. We are leaving soon for vacation and I'm not wanting to drink too much. We are leaving soon for vacation and I'm not wanting to drink too much.




We have had so much rain my daughter has been going out and trying to swim in it. I'm sure the neighbors are saying geeeez get the kid a pool already!!


Anyway before I head out to Lake George for some much needed RR I thought I would post a few pics. Wish me good weather! Have a beautiful summer!

Pay It Forward

I found this on my new blogging buddy, Jeanette's blog. So I copied the direction from her blog, it looks like alot of fun!

Do you remember the movie "Pay It Forward" with Kevin Spacey? The story is repaying a kindness to you by passing a kindness on to someone else. I think that is a very nice idea. That is why I signed up to be part of this version of "Pay It Forward" on Jeanette's Blog

Now I am going to receive a very special, made just for me, gift from Jeanette. I want to pass along a very special, made just for YOU gift, to the first FIVE people leaving a comment on this post. Doesn't that sound like fun?
I'd really like to send a special gift to you. Please sign up to "Pay It Forward".

There a few rules tho (not hard ones).
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make but I hope you will.
2- What I create will be just for you. I’ll be lurking around your blog to see what you might like
3- this will run until the end of July.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be and neither do I so it'll be a big surprise to both of us!

The catch? Oh yeah. There's a catch.... You must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.
So the first five people who post, and are willing to pass it along, will get a handmade gift in the mail from me. Your gift will be sent to you in July.
Once you receive the gift, please be sure to post a pic on your blog.
Let the gifting begin.

Busy Stampin a Stack!

I've been a busy girl these last few weeks. Spring strings, field trips, field day, swim practice, swim party, swim everything whew! Oh and I work a full time job too. During all this craziness? I started a new hobby. Don't worry, I'm not giving up scrapping just broadening my horizons and trying my hand at stamping. Now mind you. Stamping is how I got involved with scrapping. I had a friend who was a Stampin Up demonstrator. I went to a couple few parties. I bought a good dozen stamp sets and then started scrapping and never touched those stamps again. If I were to be totally honest I would tell you that at least 5 of them were still new in the package uncut. Up until 2 days ago 7 were uncut. A couple of my scrapping friends well they swing both ways and stamp too. Anyway they invited me to a Stamp A Stack and now I'm addicted to stamping and card making. I've also fallen in love with Gorjuss Girl and Whiff of Joy stamps. The Gorjuss Girls have arrived and I can't wait to play with them. Swoon. It's kind of picture heavy but here's what I've been up to.
Here are my Stamp A Stack Cards



Here is my little fish and her coach at the swim party. I'm so proud of her, she made captain. By September she will move up from Bronze level to Silver. She's happy at the thought of moving up but sad about leaving her coach. They truly have bonded and we both love her.

Yup even my Mother got into the action. That's her there shaking her booty! She'll kill me if she sees this but hey if she's gonna still shake it at 60 I'm gonna have to photograph it!!

Spring Strings was quite the experience. My daughter has practiced her Viola ohhhh MAYBE 10 times the whole year and 5 of those times was the week before the concert. To my horror she informed me that she and another girl were 2 of the best players in her group. UHHH OH. You know I called the family and told them all to bring ear plugs. I cannot tell you how wrong I was!! I never saw anything as amazing as 60 third graders PLAYING strings. They were really good!! Unfortunately she doesn't think she wants to do it again next year. Here she is the night of the concert. I couldn't get any of her on stage it was just too dark.

We also had a couple of surprise visitors this month, or maybe last month. It's been so busy I'm losing track of time. May or June we were happy to see Baby James. They had a great time playing together and Kelsey even gave him his own private viola concert. My SIL said he was saying brabo(bravo)more, brabo Kelsey, brabo Kelsey more..and he said it over and over and over from our house in NY to there's in NJ. Ooops. Who knew he would like it that much.

Then Sean came to show us his new skillzzzz and his black eye. He's still working on the skillz. What is it about a kid with a black eye? Adorable right?

OK. End of super long post!

TSR Sketch Class

So I haven't gotten as many of these done as I like but fortunately I have until the end of the month. Insert smile here. For Sketch #9 I was lucky enough to part of the Guest Design Team. The sketch I had to work with was called Wrong Way Runway. It was a 2 page layout with a twist. You had to look at the sketch in the traditional side by side manner and then???? Flip it and create a 12 X 24 vertical layout.

For this one I used Sketch #3, One Size Fits All. The photo is of my daughter and my SIL, taken in Animal Kingdom but I didn't think Disney paper worked with the dark pic. You can check out the sketches here.

Scrapbooking & Crafting Friends

If you haven't been to Scrapbooking & Crafting Friends yet, check it out here.Jennifer has started an awesome, awesome site! Friendly people. A ton of different groups to choose from and a slew of challenges. Oh and guess who is on a couple of the DT's? Yup, that's me wearing that paper crown! The paper crown you ask? Well,I wasn't going to use the picture. Buttttt (and I know you shouldn't start a sentence with but) Butttt my daughter made the crown and took the pic. I also couldn't expain to her (without hurting her feelings) why I didn't want to use it. Pimples and all! lol Oh well at least I made a DT. WooHoo!!
For our first assignments Jennifer went with an anything goes Open House approach so here is my page. I used some yummy goodies out of my Noel Mignon Kit. The Collage Press paper, the old playing card and buttons are all from the kit.



I got some cards done this weekend as well. I used a Basic Grey card kit and I'm really lovin Lime Rickey. A line of BG that I thought I didn't need and now want!! Speaking of BG I started a Basic Grey Group over at SCF. It's for all of us BG Addicts. For now it's just a group to chat and post BG projects but eventually I would like to host some challenges with prizes of course!



Oh and one more little card because I just had to try out my new stamp set. Im really into birds right now.

Basic Grey-June Bug

OK, I MUST HAVE THIS!! EVERY DROP OF IT!! If anyone knows when or where I can find it?? Lemmmee know!!


Update-This cute stuff will be available in June. sniff sniff. Stamping feet because I want it now!!





Got some pre-order info here. Thanks Babs!
http://www.stopandscrap.com/basic-grey-june-bug.aspx