Eye Candy!

Yesterday was one extremely happy mail day for me!! I got my prize from Piggy Tales which included there new Drawbridge album and some other goodies from Maya Road. Check it out! (Thanks Trina!)










And much to my surprise, Piggy Tales decided to sent their DT each a set of their new line of paper, a few embellies and a Drawbridge board book. How cool is that!






It's no secret how much I absolutley LOVE this new green paper called the Itsy Bitsy Spider so I was elated when I opened my package. Luckily I was working on some projects that of course I can't share yet (oh! that's so hard!) so I had my big scrappy mess out anyway. Instantly, I began cutting into my paper and playing. It was so fun! Here are the three new projects (that I can share!) that I cranked out with this yummy paper.

















The other thing I got in the mail that I wasn't expecting was a nice package from Sisterhood of Scrap! It was a thank you for being their guest. I didn't get a photo of it but I just wanted to say thank you!

Canada/Portland 2008

Last night I finally got all my photos uploaded to my computer. I was so excited to post a few from our trip. Oh my!! I got sooooo overwhelmed. I probably easily have over 500 photos. How do you share just a few? So, I've decided I'm going to make a slide show again and I'll add that to this post a bit later. For now, I just wanted to share a few of my favorites.






















Kamloops, B.C. (Wildpark)
















One of our favorite owls at that park.















Four Generations (taken at my Grandma's house in Kelowna)





















Kelsey just bein' sweet.















A.J. helping build the foundation for Uncle Mitch's new house.
















Here is the house!















Pool time with cousin Jasmine at Grandpa and Grandma's in Canada!





















My cowgirl...finally getting ready to ride!















"Well...maybe I'll just ride with brother this time, and hang on to him!" LOL!













This is one of my favorites. The kids are sitting in front of Okanagan Lake. (You'll be seeing this in a layout very shortly I'm sure!)













A.J. Ashley and cousin Tanner practicing being store cashiers at the Portland children's Museum.

Blogging Again.

It does feel good to blog again. I have to give my friend Melanie from Piggy Tales the credit. She brought it to my attention that it was definitely time to update and it WAS! LOL! She also motivated me by tagging me. This is one amazingly talented gal that you can find in many, many magazines. Check our Melanie's blog and you'll see what I mean!

I wanted to share today the latest little album that I made before my big journey. I completed it for my Piggy Tales assignment and much to my surprise, won for the month! When I receive my goodies I will be sure to post them for you to see. The album I did was of Kelsey and her very good friend who moved away to California. I took these photos the day she was leaving. sniff sniff. Here are just a few pages of it. Our theme was supposed to be 'the Little Things'



















Hmmm....now for 6 Random Facts about myself. This is the part that's hard about being tagged! LOL!

1) I wear ladies size 5 or children's size 3 shoes. This summer, my 4 year old bought shoes to match mine. =)

2) I am Canadian and married an American which is why we live in Oregon.

3) I used to hate coffee (the shock I know!) but whenever I went out with Arte before we were married, I would always hold his coffee mug to get warm. The occassional sips to get warm on the inside got me hooked!

4) In 1996, Arte and I attended the Olympics in Atlanta to watch my best friend's husband compete.

5) While growing up, the ice rink was my second home. My two brothers playing hockey and me taking figure skating lessons.

6) I'm allergic to avacado!!!

Phew...okay. Time to tag some of you lucky ducks.

I tag:

Janice
Rita
Becky
Patti
Lucy
Melita

The Grand Journey

Wow.

Have you ever gone a few months without talking to one of your greatest friends and then hesitated to pick up the phone. Where do you start? So much to say!

That's how I feel about trying to type a blog entry right now.

I never would have thought when I left home over a month ago that I would not be returning until now. We just arrived back late Saturday night and I have totally put off updating my blog.

In a nut shell, we had out of town guests for the first week of July. Then, on a spontaneous whim, I ended up in Portland at a counseling seminar called the Genesis Process. This is the most amazing program to learn how to help anyone who struggles with addictions.

I came home to the coast for a day and ended up leaving quite suddenly with my kids, to go be with my friend in Canada. After about a week, I had a plane ticket and time scheduled in Texas at the Mentoring Mansion. This was also a fantastic week where a handful of my girlfriends from California who are also Pastor's wives came together and learned so much about the sanctity of the home. Amazing.

Before I left to drive the kiddos ALL the way back to the coast, my Mom and Dad up in Canada said 'why don't you just leave the kids here and you can pick them up when you come up for your vacation, we would love to have them here on the farm.' What an experience for them!!

So, after flying back from Texas, I spent a few days in Portland waiting for Arte to drive up and meet me there so we could head on up to Canada for our family vacation. After a week and a half, we drove back down and spend some time with Arte's brother and his family and there parents. It truly was such a special time.

I learned this summer to live on what I had. When I first packed, I thought I'd be gone for only a few days so I didn't bring much. Okay, the truth is, I also learned to borrow from my friends and family...hee hee (*thanks guys!*)

I also learned that even though a lot of this trip was unplanned and on a whim, it was all a part of God's ultimate plan. I saw His great hand in every single area and at every single spot. He is an Awesome God. This has been a life changing summer for me. Pivotal. I will never be the same.


























On to the current news!!!! Here are a few cards that I did for Triple the Sketch quite a while back. I gave a sneak peek of the first one a few posts back. You know me, I can't do a post without a photo! Can you even imagine all the photos of our trip???? I'll save that for another day.


*******I NEED YOUR HELP!!! (To win $500 GC!) I am entering a local contest where 9 stores are involved. There will be 9 winners and one Grand Prize winner. Do you remember voting for me last year??? Ya. It was kind of crazy. BUT, the prize is BETTER this year it's a gift certificate instead of a prize basket. The 9 winners will get a $250 gc and the GP is another $250. Worth asking for a bit of help I think!

If you are interested in helping me out... hee hee, you can register at Craftwarehouse's website here. You'll have to scroll down to #6 to read the directions of how to register. The voting doesn't begin until Aug. 18th. but you have to register a head of time. If you already registered last year, you should be good to go unless you don't remember your password! LOL! Thanks to all my faithful blog readers. I promise it will get more interesting and I'll be back to updating on a regular basis! LOL!

This is the layout I decided to enter:

Life flashes by...

Don't get me wrong. Scrapbooking is very important to me and the community of friends I've made means the world to me.

My world for this moment, has turned upside down. I've been gone from home unexpectedly for the last two weeks. I've been with my very best friend who is staring death in the face. It completely turns my priorities back where they belong. Life is too short and people and lives are too important.

All that to say, I'm in Canada and haven't had much access to a computer. Thus, no blogging or crafting. Now I'm at my Mum's house for a bit.

It's so hard to watch people you love suffer emotionally, mentally and physically. God is good...all the time. All the time... God is good. I know that I know that I know, His glory will reign through all of this even though I can't see it right now.

I'm beginning to realize why it didn't work out for me to go to CHA. Although, I'm sad to have missed it, I'm beginning to see God's plans for where He wants me right now.

I pray that all you blog readers have a fabulous weekend and somehow get to celebrate CHA (craft and hobby association.) There are lots of fun challenges and contests on the Fiskateer blog. Check it out!

Happy 4th of July!!!

These are not very festive layouts for the day but I wanted to share them.

I love this photo of Ashley and I because you can truly see the emotion coming through. I also have really enjoyed using this Notworthy paper. It's so much fun!




The second is the layout I did for Triple the Sketch. This is a photo that I took last summer one morning when the kids where still in their jammies but it was WELL into the morning. LOL! I think they might have even been eating popsicles!


We aren't doing much today. House full of sickies still. Hope your 4th is a wonderful celebration!!

The SNEAK Peeks have begun!!!!

Everyone is getting ready for CHA (except me...booo hoo. j/k!) But the fun part of that is that all the manufacturers are starting to reveal some of their products. I JUST saw the new lines from Piggy Tales and you are never going to believe this line called 'Itsy Bitsy Spider.' It is absolutely GORGEOUS!! Take a look!





You really should see the rest of it! Check out the complete paper line and 3 others here. Also, check out these cool new albums!! It's actually called a Drawbridge Book.

***I DID NOT CREATE THIS ALBUM. I TOOK THE IMAGE OFF PIGGY TALES WEBSITE***

My Boy...

He's home! Yay!! I can't believe that I missed him so much. It was great to hear about his camp experiences. I wanted to share a layout that I did about him growing up. It's getting harder and harder for me to see him getting so big! I think it's because he is getting so tall.






















I'm such a bad mom.

Seriously.

I feel terrible.

When he came home he said, 'Mom, everyone else got mail and you didn't send me anything. Some kids got mail every day!'

How is it that I can crank out cards but I can't get em' in the mail in time! Urgh! The frustrating thing is that I send it on Thursday and he came home on Monday. Why didn't he get it?

I feel sooooooo bad. Mostly because he was seriously holding back the tears while telling me.

I think I'll send him some mail from here....to here. Just to make up for it!

Ah...the pleasures of mothering.

As far as Fiskars goes, the new site is up! Yay! It looks great but I can't seem to get signed in! I'm so anxious too! Hopefully that'll get all sorted out.

My friend Karen is coming today (with her 3 little ones) so I'm just trying to focus on getting ready for four more people in our cozy house. Can't wait!