Friday, July 16, 2010

Vacation...

I'm lucky to have worked the same job long enough to have earned five weeks of vacation a year. I tend to forget what a luxury this is until I take a couple of weeks off together. I'm just at the tail end of a two week break and it has been great! My boys took of for a couple of days of water park mayhem leaving me at home to get caught up around the house and, with the help of a friend, get two rooms painted! Then we met up with my side of the family in Leavenworth (WA) for a nice and hot weekend before the three of us headed over to Lake Chelan (WA) for a few more days of fun in the sun!
In Chelan, we met up with some new friends. The wives took the day of from mommy duty and hopped in a limo for a tour of the wineries in the area. This was totally decadent and fun. I've never been to a winery before so I learned a lot and would recommend this to anyone interested at all in wine.
The next day we all spent on the lake. We are lucky that these friends had boats and jet-skis so we really enjoyed the water.
I'm home now feeling a little tired, a little sunburned, but relaxed and so thankful for some wonderful family time!
Some photos from the trip:

1) The boys heading out 2) My mom and her sisters with my cousin and I 3) My son Alex introducing his cousin to bubbles  4) Alex rapping in the pool in Leavenworth 5) Alex at the skate park in Lake Chelan 6) A photo-op during our wine tasting adventure* 7) The ladies of the limo 8) Willow taking Mark out on a jet-ski** 9) Gaye, Barb and me on the 'tube' 10) Alex with the girls on the tube
*I spotted this wine barrel when we were pulling into the third or fourth winery. I said something like "Oh, I have to come get a photo of that!" and two of the ladies I was with asked if I was a scrapbooker! So funny.
**Mark took me on a jet-ski ride in Puerto Vallarta in 2001. It felt like he was trying to rearrange my organs; he was jumping waves, driving super fast. I tried to convince Willow to give him an equally crazy ride, but I'm not sure it happened.

Friday, July 2, 2010

That Time of the Month...

No, not that time of the month! The time of the month to share an awesome monthly project!

I've been using Cathy Zielske's "The Monthly 8.5 x 11 Album Set" from Designer Digitals for the past three months and it is really cool. It's designed in Cathy's signature clean style and makes getting some memories preserved really easy. Here is my creation for May:


This is actually four 8.5 x 11 pages and you can see them (along with some other layouts) by clicking on my Flickr Photostream on the left. I'm printing these to go into an album along with a divided page protector with some memorabilia, notes and additional photos. I am so happy with these! I don't really believe in the notion of being "caught up" with my scrapbooking and only really worry that our most important stories are being told. But, if I was determined to be "caught up" this would be all I needed to feel complete. It's simple, classic and perfect.