Scrappy Retreat

First off - no, my laptop isn't back in the land of the living :-( I'm able to post from my husbands gaming computer so I thought I would take a moment and share with you all the scrappy weekend in review. Toni, Amie and Nat all explained the weekend in great detail and given that I have next to no time I invite you to check out their blog's to catch up in the details.
I will take the time to say that I have never had a girls weekend this fun in all my history of girls weekends. I had such an amazing time getting to know the girls on such a deeper level (don't worry ladies, what happens in Prescott stays in Prescott). I love each one of you ladies so much! I can't wait for the next weekend, can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!

Amie is such a happy scrapper!

This is Susie. She is one of the sweetest ladies I ever met and I just lover her amazing spirit.

Stephanie scrapping away. Her and Nat drove up in the morning and returned back that same day. Now that's a die hard scrapper - 4 hours in the car for a day filled with us and lots of paper flying. We're so glad they are so die hard cause it wouldn't have been the same day without them.
Scrappy action in the making.

Beautiful front yard of Toni's parents house. Now you tell me that you can't see Jacob Black to come running through these amazing trees. I kept looking just to make sure :-)


I surprised the girls, hehehe.

Art shot.
Look at all those pages!!!!!!!!!!

The girls.

The cabin.
The usual view of my home-girl Amie, such a devoted blogger!

Look leaves do change color in the fall!!!!!!!!!! Ahh how I miss that.

This was a clever ploy to keep the grandchildren out of the open crawl space in the storage room down stairs, but they just think he's cool. So did we!



Such a great time! I'm so thankful for each one of you. Thank you for letting me know you.

It's offical

I'm done. Bella, Edward and Jacob are no longer waiting for me to join them and I miss the three of them deeply!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned

Ok, ok, ok. I've been a bad blogger. Life has just been filled with too many wonderful events in the past two weeks and the one really sucky event (the apparent suicide of my personal laptop) which has crippled my ability to blog from home. Therefore just posting this is putting my job and therefore my families lively hood in eminent peril as I am currently logged onto a government computer. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh. But I did want to let you all know what I have in store as far as posts go in the near future since we are going to Brent & Toni's tonight and while Toni and I get to talk and play Brent and DJ will be recovering my computer from the depths of Hades, it will be much like the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf and the Balrog come to blows, hence the included photo. (Go ahead and say it, I'm a geek, yes I knew the name of the creature, somewhere my husband is so proud of me)

So here's what's coming to a computer near you in the next few weeks:

-Scrappy Retreat photos and dish

-New recipes and how to about Jambalaya - yumm

-my final thoughts on Eclipse - I'm about 250 pages in and fully expect to be done by this weekend

-Grandma stuff

-Our first fertility appointment

-a family photo shoot and pricing info (only 75$ for a family shoot, not a promotional price this has been my price for over 5 years and by the way did you all know I have been doing family and wedding photography for 10 years now??????)

-my cards for this months swap

-and other random and entertaining antics from my daily life.

So hang in there with me I promise things will get better (for the 5 of you out there that read this little group of info, really I could just call you all huh?)

Coyotes Opener

I went to my first hockey game ever last night and hold onto your seats people I have a new addiction. My former boss before he moved to our Tempe office last week had set up a night where we were able to go to the 'Yotes opening game against the St.Louis Blues for only 20$ a seat. So a bunch of us met up in the heavenly cold arena, gratefully gathered up our opening night goodies (a jersey and a hat) and cozied up next to each other and cheered on our boys in red. I had so much stinking fun I wish we were season tickets holders. I have no idea about the rule of play but I obviously knew that the goal was the main focus of the game and that there would be fights. Wow are hockey fan intense! The energy at that arena was so much stronger then my original (and still reining) sports addiction, football (woo hoo nothing like the crunching and snarling of that adrenalin inducing barbaric testosterone fest, and I LOVE it). After years spent on the sidelines of high school and college football games photographing the games I became so addicted to the tension of the players and the infectious energy I have had a hard time replacing that feeling. And while I still really enjoy going to football games I just don't get that wicked high while sitting in the stands. But last night the energy of that stadium rocked! And even better we won!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't bring my camera because I didn't know how tight security was and I'm kicking myself now cause there could have been some great shots of everyone. I did take out the camera phone and snap a couple of photos. And to illustrate how small the world can be we just barely sit down and I comment to DJ how crazy it would be if we ran into our good friends the Pond's since there are season ticket holders and love going to the games. No sooner do I finish saying that I look to the right and see Rob Callie and their beautiful little 4 month old Maddie girl. Of all the seats in the arena we end up across a aisle, lol small world. Oh good times, good times. I totally need to learn the game so I can justify the next game as a lesson right?

Tonight!!!!!!!!!!!

Nuff said. Hahahahahahaha.........................................................

Mixed Emotions

My laptop died Monday night. Just up and decided that it was done working. Without notice everything cleared off my screen leaving only the desktop picture. I can't do anything without it since it has all the important stuff in my life on it; RS bulletins and attendance, Ward information, pictures, budget info, college papers I love; my stomach is hurting just thinking about it all. Even worse my desktops are purely gaming computers so there are no office programs, i.e. word, excel, etc. Oh this is gonna suck I tell you all this is going to really suck! So I'm posting from work (holy cow I'm gonna have some serious withdrawals at night now) and will continue to do so until I get my baby back from the shop.
In other news I started Eclipse, hello old friend feels so good to have you here with me, she hugs the book tightly as a sigh slips from her lips. I got to hang with my parents and grandparents yesterday when my grandmother was honored at her Alzheimer's group for her participation in the last year. She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's for 5 years now and she has been attending this group for two years. The groups leaders decided to recognize her for her willingness to serve the other members of the group tirelessly. Love that woman so much, smooches grandma :-) I'll post some photos of that lovely event soon. DJ and I are going to the Coyotes opener with several people from my office. Hockey pucks and federal agents gonna be an interesting night. And Friday I leave for our girly scrappy weekend full of fun. I got all the stuff to make my homemade hot chocolate and my world famous Carmel apple cider. Woo Hoo broke out my sweatshirt and boy am I ready to snuggle into it and some comfy flannel pants, pull my hair into a pony tail and throw on my fuzzy slippers. Goodness I'm so stinking excited I can hardly wipe the smile off my face. And even better Monday is a holiday!!!!!! All of that makes up for the icky computer antics. Happy Thursday ya'll!!!!!

Oh my..........

So it happened. I'm hopelessly and all consumingly (is that even a word?) addicted to the best love triangle I've read in years. Yes I stayed home from work today due to a complete lack of sleep and an overall icky feeling. I picked up New Moon, which I was about 100 pages in to, at 10 am and with only two breaks (one to talk to my parents about our new front yard, and one to talk to Amie about her suicidal camera) I read clear through until 6:30 pm. I finally had that reaction that my girls had warned me about. I had a song that ran through my head constantly, I missed DJ immensely, I cried and was sad when I finished the book.
Let me first say I loved this book where as I just really liked Twilight. I thought this book was griping and fast paced. I finally saw some real character development. I LOVED Jacob and still do. I had a real problem with Edward and still do. I can't wait to read Eclipse (who can lend it to me????????) and fear I will end up neglecting my house work again once I get my hands on the book.
I would love to just gush about it all over here but I know there are a few blog readers who haven't read it yet so I will restrain myself for the time being (M. S. Van Buskirk get yourself to a book store and get these now!!!!!!!!!). However this weekend I will be doing some talking about it all, the drive to Prescott so be a good jumping off place. I feel my wedding scrappy pages I'm going to do this weekend will have a Bella Edward feel to them. You'll have to check back to see the final products next week.
I saw this tonight and thought it was a beautiful depiction of B & E after they get in the car coming home from Italy.