Catch up!

I just can't stay on top of blogging these days!!

We've been having lots of fun here in our household!! We were trying to pack in lots of fun stuff before the new school year began, which was today!!!

We've done lots of bike rides! I'm so very proud of Miss Macy!! She did her first big "bike adventure" with us last week!! Jack graduated to the tandem bike (no more trailer - yay!) and she rode her bike along with me and Chris! She did the entire 8.5 miles!! It was only at the last 1/2 mile that she started to complain of being exhausted!! I'm so proud of her for going so far! We only did a short 4.5 mile trail this past weekend. She got tired out faster on that one, it had a lot more hilly areas!

Yesterday, we went to the Phila Zoo. We always have a nice time there! We even got to meet the Slowsky's! Here's a pic for all the Comcast commercial fans!!

Those commercials always crack me up!

Today, Macy started 1st grade!! She's been so excited for the last few weeks! She just loves school! I hope it stays that way! This year she'll have homework every night plus spelling tests weekly! They also get their very own desk instead of sitting 4 kids to a round table!! She made herself up some homework sheets last night! haha!!
Here she is this morning. It's good I got this picture, she was in such a hurry to get into school that I didn't have time to snap a picture of her going up the steps!


And, in scrapping news, I didn't make the cut for the Memory Makers Masters 2009 contest. It's all good though! I know they like me!! While we were down the shore, they requested another layout for their Jan/Feb issue!! One of these years the honor will be mine!
Here is my "I Believe" layout that I had to send in to them.


Work is going well. I am officially on my own now, done orientation! I had a total of 6 days of orientation! That comes out to one day for each year that I was gone! LOL It's all coming back to me now and I enjoy working the 2 days a week!

Have a great week!

Shore fun!

Last week we headed down the shore for some fun.

We really didn't do much! We got out on the beach once. We tried to go a second day, but we aren't early risers and by the time we got around, the beaches were closed because of overcrowding! So, we went to the pool instead!

We had a nice relaxing time. I got hooked on the Twilight series! The only time I read is when I go down the shore! Now I've got to try and find time to read the last 3 books of the series!! I started New Moon today.

From the previous post, you know our trips can't be dull. I'm afraid that it was because of me this time!! On Saturday night, Chris and I went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants down there. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but I ended up with what I think was a case of food poisoning! I was so sick! I slept almost straight for 36 hours on Sunday!! I still wasn't feeling very good for our trip home on Monday either!! Blech!! So, no beach that day, but it was also stormy that day. Chris took the kids for some bike rides in between storms.

Luckily, I took the camera to the beach the first day and got a few pictures. I've noticed myself taking less and less pictures on our trips. It's so much nicer to just enjoy the times! I'm sure the kids are happy to not have the camera stuck in their faces constantly! Plus, when you go the same places year after year, all the pics look the same anyway!





Here's a goofy photo strip of Chris and I in one of those photo booths. So fun!!


It was back to the grind for us this week. I went to work two days and Chris started back after having three weeks off!! We've got a couple little trips planned yet through the fall, but prime vacation is over! Macy starts school next Monday. She gets to find out her teacher and classmates this Monday and she's so excited!! Jack starts on Sept 8th, I think! We have a meeting with his teacher on the 28th. Lots of back to school shopping to do too, we haven't even started buying new clothes or new shoes yet!!

Here's a layout a did about 2 months ago. I don't think I've posted it before.


I'd share a few more layouts with you, but I haven't rescanned any of them since I got my new hard drive! Hopefully I'll have some to share soon!

Have a great week!

Never a dull moment . . .

That's what Chris and I always say about our camping adventures!!

We went camping to Keen Lake in Waymart, PA about a week and a half ago. Nice place, a little geared towards the seasonal campers, but it was beautiful there.

We got a great site way back in the far corner of the campground. It backed up to the woods and had a nice little creek running through it. The kids always enjoy that, playing in the water and woods! They found two 2 x 4's and made a little bridge over the creek and into the woods!

We went to craft night each night and rode our bikes. Daddy rowed us around the lake in a row boat. Macy and I went to ceramics one night while Daddy and Jack did boy things like exploring in the woods!

The campground was very hilly. Picture it sort of like the mountains you see in the cartoons. The ones with the mountain and the roads going up, sort of stacked on top of each other. Our campsite was to the left and to the top of the campground. So, that meant that we had lots of hills to climb. We rode our bikes to get everywhere, including the bathroom that was a bit of a hike away! Thank goodness I bought a little flushable porta potty for this trip. I just had a feeling we'd be farther from the bathrooms!

Anyway, our campsite was at the end of the road, right by one of these hills, that leads down to the next road. A hill that if, per chance, you didn't know how to turn your handlebars real fast, you'd go straight and over a cliff. Do you see what I'm getting at?? Yep, Jack did that! Or didn't do it, I guess you could say!! We arrived at the campsite and told him that he must get off his bike to walk it down the hills or up the hills. Does he listen? No, typical Jack! Within one hour of being there, we heard Jack's training wheels coming down the hill, yelling for him to stop and get off! We keep hearing those training wheels, then Jack starting to scream, we quickly run and hear big rustlings in the bushes that are on the cliff.

I hesitated for a moment, not sure if I wanted to go look! We started running over to the cliff, I heard him. Thank God, he's still alive, I thought!! I look over the cliff and there he is, bike helmet all crooked, his nose and left eye all scratched, walking up the cliff. His bike is tangled up in trees and brush. He's only worried about his bike, he wanted to get it! His brand new bike that he got just a few days before leaving now has a nice rip in the seat!

He quickly bounced back to life and was riding soon after! He never forgot to get off his bike to ride up a hill or down a hill after that! If you ask him, he will tell you what happened. This he remembers, unlike his little falling out of the camper in a huge thunderstorm incident on our first camper trip!

Yep, there is never a dull moment with the Chamberlain's!!

Here are a few pics! The first is of Jack's new bike, soon after we got it home!

I'm still here!!!

Just been busy and we've had a string of bad luck here!

About 2 weeks ago, my hard drive died due to Jack abuse, so off it went to Geek Squad!! Thank goodness for service plans! That is one service plan that I always buy!! I got my money's worth out of it this time!! Luckily, we have 2 laptops, so it was not a big deal.

This past Sunday we had a nasty thunderstorm with marble sized hail. There was a lightning strike and guess what it fried? Our cable modem, which is for our internet AND our phone!! We didn't realize what happened until hours later when I went and picked up the phone and didn't get a dial tone! There is a 6 hour battery backup, so it was at least 6 hours later that we figured that out!

We left the following morning for a camping trip for 4 days. The cable guy came the evening we got back and replaced our modem but Comcast was having some sort of trouble and couldn't get everything back online. We had to call them and remind them on Friday morning and it went up about a half hour later.

I did get my laptop back when we came home Thursday, so that was one good thing! LOL

Friday and Saturday morning I taught [for the very first time] at a CK Convention. I had the first class time slot of each day, 8:30am. Boy is that rough for a girl that doesn't get up until at least 9am! LOL It went really well! I taught a 12x12 acrylic wallhanging. Everyone seemed to have fun with it! My friend, Mimi, assisted me on Friday and then my friend, Colleen, and little Miss Macy helped me on Saturday! Mimi and I shopped until we dropped on Friday. After class on Saturday, I met up with my friend, Andrea, and her daughter and we took the girls shopping there. They loved it!! Macy and I stopped and did some outlet shopping on the way home as well. I think I'm shopped out for a bit! It was a really fun weekend though!! I love hanging out with my friends and teaching scrapbooking classes! Chris and Jack did the "boy thing" and went to Cabela's while us girls were doing our thing!

Chris has off for 3 weeks and all 4 of us have been enjoying our time together! Lots of bike rides and general fun! Now, today and tomorrow I'm working 3p-11p. I decided to get my work days in instead of doing the whole vacation thing for 3 weeks. I've got a lot of catching up to do in the workplace and this will help!!

The job is going okay. I've been on the floor for 2 days total. I'm having a little bit of a hard time, emotionally. It's hard because when I left there in March of 2003, I was at the top of the skill level there. I could handle just about any situation that was thrown with me. Now, it's not like that, I have to dig deep down and pull all that info out. I know I'll get there again soon, but it's hard to accept that I'm not at the top of my game anymore!

Gotta go get ready!! Have a great day!! Thanks for reading!