Ahhh, the Beach

Yep, it’s vacation week and we are at the beach. I didn’t think we were going to make it here as my Father-in-Law is in intensive care right now but Michael sent me home to take the boys on our planned for and paid for vacation because there is nothing we can do but wait and pray that he pulls through. So any spare prayer you have for my FIL Joe would be much appreciated!

So while we haven’t been to the actual beach yet since it was icky yesterday and it’s going to be again today we did go out to Nubble Light yesterday. Josh had a great time giving me a heart attack running around on the rocks…

Josh @ Nubble Light VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

But he finally did let me practice what I’ve been learning in Karen Russell’s Photography Workshop…

Nubble Light 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I snuck one of mom in there when she wasn’t looking too!

Michael stopped in on his way home from the hospital and had dinner with us and stayed for the fireworks which we thought were going to be cancelled due to rain but they ended up starting about 1/2 an hour late instead. They were amazing. I didn’t even attempt to get photos because it was very damp and drizzly out and I forgot my tripod. So I just enjoyed the amazing show.  And hopefully I’m off to enjoy the rest of my week!

Happy 4th of July!  Hope you have a great week!

I Knew This Day Was Coming…

And it’s not the end of the world or anything and yep, I’ve got bigger battles in my future but it’s still a big one in my book. My 15 yo son wants to get his ear pierced. I am sick to my stomach over it. I don’t want to tell him no but I also don’t want him to do it! I don’t like ear piercing on guys. No offense to those that have them, it’s just my personal preference for them not to be on my men, and since he’s my son, I’d rather him not have holes in his ears! But I keep hearing that “Pick your battles” phrase in my head and think is this one worth fighting over? Probably not. So if his father doesn’t care I’m gonna have to roll with it I think, and cringe while he does it. I did draw the line on his friends sister doing it however! He is having it done by a professional.

So my photography class is great, I’m learning to shoot out of ‘Auto’ mode. I’m not necessarily ‘getting’ it all but I hope one day I will have an ‘aha’ moment! It’s been fun though and I highly recommend Karen’s class if you are looking to learn about photography.

Here’s a shot of an eagle I took at Michael’s parent’s lake a couple of weeks ago. It was up in a dead tree in the middle of the lake and we had to take a very shaky canoe out to get this so I’m pretty happy with it, even tho it’s in Auto mode!

This shot was taken out of auto mode in aperture priority mode, which is supposed to help blur the background a bit…

Other than that, it’s been work, baseball, karate, and Cards for Soldiers for me. Oh and Jake started driving too! Talk about nerve wracking! And that’s all I’ve got for today. Happy Sunday. Have a great week!

Upgrading

I got my first DSLR when Canon made their first DSLR, back in 2003. It was 6.1 megapixels and I was so happy to get it. It has been a darn good camera all these years and although I have absolutely no issues with it except for the batteries don’t hold a charge for very long anymore I really wanted to upgrade because my Photographer’s Workshop taught by Karen Russell started this week! So what better time to ask for a new camera than for Mother’s Day?  And boy did I get a new camera…

It’s the Canon 7D, 18 megapixels and it does video too! This thing has so many bells and whistles I can’t imagine learning half of them but Karen says I’ll learn them all in the class so that’s pretty darn exciting! I haven’t taken many photos with it yet because I’m still trying to figure it out and am only about 20 pages into the manual but the few photos I have taken are amazingly crisp!

I went to my annual weekend crop last weekend and got 17 pages and 6 cards done. Not bad but boy have I slowed down! I remember getting 17 pages done in a night! I take hours on a page now and I used to crank them out in a half an hour but then again I didn’t used to sew on every page either. It was a lot of fun, two of my co-workers came and they had a good time too, one of them already signed up again for next year, the other one isn’t able to commit that far ahead but wants to go again too. They are trying to add a second one in the fall as well so I hope to be going twice a year soon.

Other than that, not much new hear, work is crazy busy, still working around the house, the garage is all done except for a few minor thing but at least it matches the house. I LOVE IT!

I hope all my ‘mom’ friends have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

I hope this is an April Fools Joke from Mother Nature

Winter storm watch in effect from late Thursday night through late Friday night,
The NWS in taunton has issued a winter storm watch, which is in effect from late Thursday night through late friday night.
Locations, northern Connecticut, western and central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
Hazard types, heavy snow.
Accumulations, 6 to 12 inches of snow.

Are you kidding me????

I’m Repeating Myself

But it’s snowing again! It was too good to be true I guess. We got a few really nice days of warm weather, like 60 degree weather, and it was so nice to feel it. And we even had a week where one flake of snow did not fall, it was amazing! But then it snowed again on Friday, about 3 inches nothing major but then the rain came and added a nice layer of ice on top and boy was that nasty.

So now it’s snowing again and we woke up to Michael’s phone ringing at 6:15 calling him out to plow. The good part of this plowing thing is that it will help pay for our boat slip this summer. If the snow ever stops and we can get the boat in the water that is! We’ve got about 6” down already and it’s still coming down pretty heavily right now. They say it’s going to stop by 10am. But oh wait there’s more, we’re getting another storm just in time for tomorrow morning. Yay!

I got my birthday present a little early this year. After years of wanting to sign up I am finally registered for Karen Russell’s Photographer’s Workshop! I am so exited! It doesn’t start until May but I am just so excited to be taking it I don’t care when it is! I wish I had a more current camera but my old and trusty rebel will have to do.

I finally went out and got a new phone yesterday since I was eligible as of Valentine’s Day. I have been dying to get rid of my Blackberry storm since I got the thing two years ago! I got the Motorola Droid Global. I had my heart set on the iPhone but with $300 price tag I said no way seeing as I already got my bday present.  The Droid was $200 but with a $50 rebate card I had from Michael’s phone and a $50 gift card I had from Xmas it only cost me $100. Not too bad. Plus most of their apps are free, vs. having to pay for the iPhone apps! And of course I got a pink cover for it! I think it needs some bling tho.

Cards for Soldiers is keeping me very busy. If you are interested you can pop on over to my other blog here. I’m headed down to my scraproom to make some Easter cards today. Went to Michael’s to try to find some Easter papers yesterday with no luck so I’ll have to make due with what I can find in my scraps I guess since I am not leaving the house today!

I’ve made a promise to the boys and Michael that I’ll spend less time on the computer. I spending too much time on Facebook and playing way too much FarmVille and and not spending enough time with my family and that was a very bad thing. So if you don’t see me around FB that’s why, drop me an email if you want!

Speaking of family, my father-in-law was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. It’s cancer, the bad kind. So our family could really use some prayers right now if you could spare them. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

It’s Snowing AGAIN!!!

I can’t even tell you what  number storm this is but I think they said on the news that our average snowfall is about 42” for this time of the year and we’ve got about 67” so far. It’s still coming down although it’s now mixed with freezing rain right now. Yay!

Here’s a couple of photos I took awhile ago…

I am not sure my boys will see summer vacation or if I will see a paycheck since when the base closes I don’t get paid! LOL!

But whatever, I’m going to go make some cards for soldiers. Happy snowday!

A Scrappy Post

Spent some time in my scraproom the past few days. Got 50 St. Patrick’s Day cards made for the soldiers and 4 pages done. I forgot how long it takes to do a page now. I used to be able to do a page in 1/2 an hour, now it takes me more like 2 hours to finish one! At this point I should be done scrapping the last few years in about 2020 or so!  But here are the pages I did get done…

I’m off to see my cousin, her husband and their new baby today, then to a football party with friends but I hope to do some more scrapping tomorrow since I have the day off. With two snow days and a compressed work week this week I have had 7 days off in a row after tomorrow so it’s going to be hard to get back into the swing of things on Tuesday for sure!

Have a great Sunday! Thanks for reading and looking!

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2011! I hope it’s a fabulous year for all of you! I can’t really complain about 2010 so I’m not sad to see it go or anything but we’ve got some exciting things going on for 2011 so I’m welcoming it as well. We had a very quiet but wonderful Christmas and New Year here and I hope everyone out there had enjoyable holiday’s as well. I got very spoiled as always and while I only asked for a Cricut Expression which I got with several cartridges, and a travel case (in pink and brown no less) I also got an iPad with accessories, and a beautiful and BIG Pink Sapphire ring (this thing has to be like 5 karats). Which I have tried and tried to take a photo of but I can’t do it justice. Here is the best one I’ve got but I really think I need a dark background for it…

I just love this ring! I have to have it cut down so I’m wearing it on my middle finger right now and it’s still big but I just can’t take it off!

We also celebrated Mom’s birthday in December, she turned 68…

and Sadie turned 2…

 

We got a blizzard with about 10 inches of snow right AFTER Christmas…

Oh and we got a second Christmas tree for the garage! (I didn’t take this photo a friend took it with his cell phone as he was leaving our house one night). The garage is almost done! I am loving that I can park in there and not have to clean snow off my car. Still getting used to going in and out though so I go very slow! Can’t wait to start the family room planning in the spring!

So today I have two friends (Denise B and Pam L) coming over that I haven’t seen in ages! I ran into them at a Tim Holtz class where I made this:

Denise and Pam are coming over to help me sort the ridiculous pile of cards for soldiers I have to send out this week. I must have a good 5000 cards in my basement! I ran into them as they were checking out at Absolutely Everything as they had taken Tim’s class prior to the one I was taking and so we decided to get together and I can’t wait to spend some time with them as it’s been TOO long! Should be a great day of catching up! And once all these cards are out in the mail next weekend I plan to break in my cricut making more cards and maybe scrapping too because I don’t have a lack of photos as you can see (and I didn’t even share a quarter of them)!

So I hope you all have a very enjoyable weekend and Happy New Year!

Happy Turkey Day!

Wishing all of my faithful blog readers a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hope you have lots of fun whatever you are doing today!

The other day Sadie was playing in the leave pile that Jake was raking, I tried to take some photos of her but my camera was not cooperating so this is the best one I got and of course her head is cut off! This would have been a great scrapping opportunity if my point and shoot hadn’t been a bugger! And of course now all the leaves are gone.

I also parked in the garage for the first time last night. No it’s not done but it was fun anyway! It’s getting there! Michael is working on the stairs that go into the house today.

Doors and windows are on the way as are the garage doors so in a few weeks there should be another new update!

Enjoy your day and don’t eat too much!

Holiday Meme with a twist

TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to:http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family? Health, happiness and all they want under the tree!

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition? Cinnamon rolls, coffee, opening stockings first and then presents together, everyone does one around the room until they are all done, then relaxing a bit before showering and heading off to where we are spending the rest of the day.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? An all inclusive family vacation in Mexico or a Canon 5D

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? Spending time with family and friends I don’t get to see enough during the year

5. What games did you play with your family growing up? Sorry, Yahtzee, Parcheeze

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? Opening one present on Christmas Eve.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip? Somewhere warm!

8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year? Turtle Beach PS3 Headset, PS3 Rock Band Wireless Guitar, Rock Band for PS3

To enter, link to your Mama’s Holiday Wish List post using the Mister Linky box below.

Hope you play along for a chance to win!

10 on Tuesday

1) I’ve got a day off today because Josh is sick again for the third time in 2 weeks. We are headed to the doctor in 20 minutes.

2) Garage is coming along. I’ll take a photo later when it stops raining.

3) It’s raining. Ick. But it could be worse, since it’s November 16th, it could be snow so that’s something I’m thankful for today.

4) I lasted exactly 4 days posting Thankful for things on my Facebook page in November! Not a good thing!

5) Our neighbors got a trampoline, I am not happy about this.

6) I hate trampolines.

7) I need a new dress for the work Christmas party on Dec 11th or I need to lose several pounds before then. I’m thinking buying a dress will be much easier!

8) I bought my first Christmas presents yesterday, only got two, I’ve got a long way to go!

9) Christmas is exactly 39 days away!

10) I have parent teacher conferences on Friday with all Jake’s High School Teachers, he wants me to skip it, I wonder why?

I Scrapped!

Actual layouts not cards! For the first time in awhile! And I got 5 pages done. It felt good. I still have a pile of photos staring at me but was a pretty productive afternoon. Here’s my handiwork:

Jake’s School photo. I had the cute owl buttons made by Tessa Ann Designs (check out her Etsy shop she is awesome!) And the other buttons in the upper left hand corner were from http://evalicious.bigcartel.com/.

The boys birthdays:

 

And the first day of school photos:

and here is a little card I made for my cousin’s baby’s Christening:

And now I have to go back to reality tomorrow after enjoying 4 days off of work so I better get off here and get to my ironing! Thanks for looking! Have a great night!

Garage Updates and Carrie Underwood!

So not a lot of progress on the garage. Poor Michael is not having much time to work on it as his actual job is very busy and he’s had to work the last two Saturday’s. Add some nasty rainy weather to that and we aren’t getting too far! Here is the latest photo:

And I took my mom to see Carrie Underwood last night as an early birthday present. It was a total surprise for her because I didn’t tell her we were going until we got in the parking garage. Needless to say she was VERY excited. It was a fantastic show. If you are a fan, I highly recommend it as she’s definitely one of the best singers out there! Her voice is just as amazing in person as it is on the radio, even better, I’d say. I got a few shots with my point and shoot that was very low on batteries so no flash but since we were five rows from center stage they came out OK…

Sons of Silvia opened up, these boys were talented in the musical instrument department to say the least!

Billy Currington was next, he put on a fantastic show as well:

And then came Carrie:

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And now I’ve got to go get ready for a Christening for my cousin’s sweet little girl, then come home and write out 16 customs forms for the 16 boxes of Cards for Soldiers I’ll be sending out this week! It’s a short week at work for me as I have Thursday and Friday off and I can’t wait, I am hoping to get some real scrapping in as all I’ve been doing is making cards lately. I can’t wait to edit some of these concert photos and scrap them!

Have a great Sunday!

Updates

The garage is coming along! The foundation is dug and poured and it’s exciting to see some progress! Here is a photo of what it looked like when I got home from work the day it was poured…

Then it was time to backfill and compact, lots of fill brought in and then packing it down hard. And I thought we were waiting to have the floor poured but today I got home from baseball to see the first wall up. Talk about exciting! I wish I had been here to see the actual standing but we were all the way in Keene so I couldn’t just run home to see it…

On the way back from the baseball game I stopped to take some foliage photos. I was surprised that the colors weren’t better …

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I also went to an all day crop last Saturday. I made 40 Veteran’s Day cards for Soldiers and a 20 page 8x8 Baby album for a gift for a shower I had to go to on Sunday. It was a great charity crop and awesome to spend a day with friends scrapping. I’m looking forward to taking a Tim Holtz class with another friend at the end of this  month and I also plan on scrapping tomorrow and Monday since it’s a long weekend for me! Oh I forgot to share this page that I did a few weeks ago as well…

So that’s what has been going on with us.  I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Back to School, Another Anniversary, Building an Addition

So a lot has gone on in our house since my last update as you can see from my title! I guess I need to blog more often or I’m going to be writing books every time I update!

First off Michael and I celebrated 23 years of wedded bliss! Since we are doing the big addition project this year we kept it low key and spent the day on the boat with the boys and he brought me some roses. 

Secondly Jake and Josh went back to school, I am officially the mom of a kid in high school now! I wasn’t home for the big day since I leave at o’dark thirty (5am) but Jake was good enough to document the day for me with one photo of each of them. Not exactly what I had in mind but I’ll take it as it’s better than I would have got which is zip!

Here they are in all their happiness about going back to school…

School is in full swing, they are both doing well. Josh is playing soccer, doing karate and on the student council. Jake is playing baseball. So needless to say, I have no free time!

And last but not least, we have started the garage side of our addition. The foundation is in!

Hopefully the floor will be poured sometime this week and then the framing will begin. We hope to have it all done before the winter. Well I hope so I don’t have to clean snow off my car or trudge thru it ever again!

On the scrapping front, my friend Patty and I got together a few weeks ago to make Cards for Soldiers. We got about 50 done between the two of us on a Sunday afternoon. This past weekend I spent sorting all the cards I had received and packing them to ship them out, there were 2500! I have 8 boxes to go to the Post Office today! Pretty Awesome!  And I did a page last night for the first time in months! I honestly think the last time I actually made a page was back in May when I went away to a crop! It felt good! I didn’t finish until late so I haven’t scanned so I can’t share.

Oh and the last thing I wanted to share is a very talented blogging friend of mine Kimberly Geshwin is an awesome font maker and she is offering up a pretty cool deal. So if you have a fun and funky handwriting that you’d love to see made into a font, go and check this post out…http://gesweinfamily.com/?p=3259, it’s for a very good cause!

OK, that’s enough for now, I have to hop in the shower. Have a great week!

Long Time No Blog

It’s been awhile eh? I guess when you have like one reader (thanks Jodene) it’s not a huge deal anyway! Lots going on here! We have been in the midst of a construction project. Painters and construction. 4 years ago my fabulous husband decided to do hardwood floors in the house. Something I’d been asking him to do for years. Well this was a huge task because it involved tearing down some walls for the stairs and such. He eventually finished all the floors but never the stairs because we ran into some issues and we’ve been walking on plywood stairs ever since. Fast forward to this year, I decide I’ve had enough of looking at unfinished stairs and before we start more projects I’m hiring someone to finish the darn stairs, the trim all the way upstairs in the hall and into my bedroom and the windows! We had windows and siding put in and I decided that because the new windows are white and all of our trim in the house was stained that didn’t look right so btw, we need to hire painters because all the trim needs to be painted white now! So for the last week the house has been in quite an uproar to say the least! It’s starting to look great as the stairs are almost done and I can’t wait to see the finished product! It will be nice to have it all complete.

And then we will start all over again! We are adding on two additions! A two car garage with attic space above it on one side of the house and a big family room on the other side of the house. The garage will be first so that Michael will have somewhere to work on the other side. I hope this project doesn’t take another 4 years! Once it’s done I’m looking forward to doing some entertaining in my house because I’ll have a room big enough to do so!

In other news, we have been enjoying our boat. Last weekend Michael and I went out on it again while the boys were away for the week at my in-laws. We docked in Newburyport and walked around and did some shopping. Had lots of fun picking out some nautical decor for the downstairs bath. I decided since we are boat owners now I wanted a nautical themed room. We also found a yummy bakery where I got a gourmet cupcake, peanut butter flavored goodness! YUM! Michael snapped this photo of me enjoying it

Then he did some fishing and caught a few cod and this big cusk:

And we saw I pink boat which I loved so had to take a photo:

   And then we went out to the Isle of Shoals and saw the scenery there plus a bunch of harbor seals:

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It was a very nice day and I didn’t even get a little nauseous! We had a great dinner at a place called Michael’s Harborside before we headed home that night. I could definitely get used to that kind of life. Maybe in a 100 foot yacht! ;)

The boys and I also had our annual week at the beach with my mom in July! It was a fantastic week of perfect weather. We met my uncle and cousin for lunch one day, had pedicures with my mom’s friend and her daughter one day, the boys had a friend up for several days. Couldn’t have asked for a better week. Here are some highlights from that week as well:

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So if you’ve stuck with me this far you are a true friend! This was a long one! I’ll try not to be so scarce so I don’t talk so much next time!

I’m headed down to my scrap room so I can get out of the painters way! Happy Weekend all!

We got a Boat!

Well I should say we got a bigger boat, because we’ve had a little 18 footer for about 8 years now. I’ve hated that little boat since we got it because I always thought it was too small for the ocean and it made me nervous. It was fine for bringing up to the lake to take the boys tubing and such but out on the ocean I always felt like we were going to die!

Anyway fast forward to last month when Michael sends me this text pic that says I found my father’s day present…

One thing led to another and we bought it. It’s a 24’ Rampage and it’s much nicer than our old free 18’ boat. It’s got a cuddy cabin that sleeps 2 and a toilet! So Michael picked it up on Wednesday and we went out on it for our first time yesterday to see some whales and do a little fishing.

We headed out to a place called Jeffrey’s Ledge off of Newburyport, MA and before we got there we saw this:

Unfortunately it is the only photo I got because it was rough out there and every time we were able to spot one they were down so fast I couldn’t get the shot. We saw about 5-6 throughout the day and it was very exciting. The best was the tail shot that I missed and wished I could have got but maybe next time!

Then we set up for some fishing. This was Josh’s first time with a big deep sea rod so he needed a lesson from dad first:

 

He immediately hooked on to something and had to reel it in all the way from 150 feet of water…

And was very excited to catch his first shark!

No photo of Josh holding his catch because sharks are not welcome on the boat! They are a boatload of trouble (pun intended)! ;)

Then it was off to do some more fishing on mouth of the river hoping to catch some dinner. The only thing we caught was the tail of a whale watching boat that we followed out to another place called Stellwagen Bank. This is where it was a real rough ride but we got to see a bunch more whales so it was worth it sort of (I’ll leave the gory details out). Unfortunately because of the roughness no photos, I couldn’t even stand up, never mind hold my camera!

We headed back in before it got too late and the boys decided to stop to fish for a bit. This is where my stomach decided it did not have much more tolerance for the rough seas and had enough! I’ll just say this was my first and hopefully last experience with sea sickness! LOL!  They did catch two fish before I said we needed to get back to dry land.  I’ve been out on boats many times before and haven’t had this lovely experience so I hope it’s a one time thing or I won’t be enjoying the boat as much as the rest of the family I guess!

So there you have the tales of our first experience on our new boat!