Happy [belated] Mother's Day!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!!!

It was very nice here!! The kids and I went to see my Mom on Saturday while Chris was working. Macy picked out the Mother's Day presents this year for the Grandmother's!

Yesterday, Chris and the kids took me to Daniel Boone Homestead. I have lived here my entire life and have never been there! So glad we decided to go there, it was such a nice day to walk around and play football, wiffleball, frisbee and bouncy ball! I'm sure we'll be going back more often!








After we were done there, we went for Chinese! I filled up on sushi! Man, was that yummy!! It hit the spot!!

After filling our stomachs, I was tired! The kids played outside with Chris for a bit while I crashed in the recliner!!

I watched more movies this weekend than I have in a long time! Saturday night Chris and I watched Juno. I really liked it! Then Sunday night we watched Evan Almighty. While I was crashed on the recliner, Macy and I watched Jumanji (I finally got to see the whole thing through!), some Yellow Dog movie and about 2/3 of Akeelah and the Bee. I haven't had relaxation like that in a long time! It was nice!

Ah, Friday night I did the first entertaining in the new kitchen! I hosted Bunko this month. We didn't quite get to playing bunko, but we did have lots of laughs and fun (and food) until about 12:30!

Have a great week!

Happy Anniversary to me!!

Today is our 9 year wedding anniversary!!! What a great nine years it has been!! We've been very lucky that it's been a smooth ride!!!

I think we may go do something while Jack is at school and perhaps tonight we'll pop the cork out of the apple raspberry wine we picked up in Jim Thorpe!!



This is a layout I did for the premiere issue of Scrapbook News and Review. Make sure you check them out, it's really reader focused!

Weekend Getaway

Our 9th wedding anniversary is coming up on Thursday! On our previous anniversaries, we would go away to Atlantic City but we decided to change it up a bit this year. We went to one of our favorite little Pennsylvania towns, Jim Thorpe. We've been going there several times a year both with and without the kids. This time, we stayed overnight for two nights at the Inn at Jim Thorpe. It was a fabulous time! We ate at our favorite restaurant, enjoyed the towns unique shops and did some hiking and biking. I had the best ever kahlua tiramisu too, at a restaurant called Moya! It's all about the food, ya know!

You can click on all of the pictures to see them bigger!

This is the inn (left) and our favorite restaurant in town, JT's.


It drizzled a smidge, or 50 drops as my friend, Andrea would say, on Saturday morning, but cleared up fast. We were able to climb to the Glen Onoko Falls and then ride our bikes through the Lehigh Gorge.


On our way out of the gorge, we stopped and walked across the newly restored railroad bridge over the Lehigh River. There were lots of whitewater rafters out that day! We didn't get any really good pictures of the two of us. I planned on ordering one of those Gorillapods, but forgot! So, we had to use nature as our tripod, which didn't work out that great!


Yesterday morning, we toured the Asa Packer mansion. We always wanted to do that and finally made the time! He is the founder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. It sounds like he and his wife were overall great people too, not taking their wealth to their heads! They were very generous to the people that worked for them, including their live in help. What a gorgeous home too! The woodwork was so ornate and it was in really great shape for being 140 plus years old. I even got some inspiration to use on some layouts! The Asa Packer mansion is on the left and the Harry Packer mansion, his son, is on the right. The Harry Packer mansion was the inspiration for Disney's Haunted Mansion. It is now a privately owned hotel.


But, we are back to reality today. It wasn't too hard to get back into it since it was an absolutely gorgeous day! Jack and I played outside and did yard work until we picked Macy up from school, then we all went out! It's going to be a repeat tomorrow! I just love playing in the dirt!!

Have a great week! Thanks for reading!

Ta dah!!!

Our new kitchen has been done for a whole week!! It is even more beautiful than I imagined! Chris and I still just stand there and look at it!! It really looks like it is right out of a magazine or kitchen showroom!! *smile*

We have so much cabinet room now!! There is even an empty one above the fridge and the others aren't jam packed like they used to be!

It has been wonderful having appliances again, especially a dishwasher!!! The microwave is about a million times faster than the old crappy one we had!! The stove and microwave have so many buttons, it'll take us forever to figure it out! The fridge is high tech with all it's little features on it! We love it!! It is so worth it!!

The stove came with a ding in the drawer, so they had to order us another. They are coming to replace that on Tuesday.

The cabinet to the left is where the old stairwell was! The cabinetmaker did an amazing job building this for us! It is huge inside!


This is my favorite little nook. It's great having the extra little countertop to the left of the stove. The cabinetmaker also built that little skinny cabinet as well as the skinny one above. The bottom is perfect for cookie sheets and the top one is great for the coffee and wines, etc.


Here's the main counter. The light really comes in those windows so it's hard to get a good shot!


We couldn't stand the thought of putting our old kitchen table back in there, so we freecycled that and bought this pub table. We ordered a piece of glass for the top too, so there is no gauging with forks by two little people that will remain nameless! That should be done Monday!


So, all we have to do yet is paint the woodwork (blech!) and put up the new baseboard behind the table. We have it, but forgot to buy the nails to put it up! We'll get to that next week!

It's been mostly beautiful out here. We got a lot of play time in outside. Jack finally learned how to drive the gator in something other than circles! Now they fight over who is the driver!

No new layouts or projects to share, we've been too busy and it's been too nice to do any!

Have a great week!!

CKC-Valley Forge class

I'll be teaching for mlpa at the Valley Forge Creating Keepsakes Convention the first weekend in August! Registration begins this Wednesday! The class is called "Clearly Cool" and is a great clear scalloped wallhanging!
It'll be a really fun class!! Make sure you say hi to me and let me know you read about it on my blog!

Wednesday will be the day!! Our appliances are being delivered Wednesday morning! The counter top was installed on Friday and it's even more beautiful than I had imagined! The texture in it is so amazing! It's gorgeous!!!



As you can see, we have a sink! It is not a working sink at this moment, but it is so nice to have one there!! I love the undermount! Tomorrow morning at 8am, the whole crew will be here again. The plumber will hook up the plumbing and garbage disposal, all the molding will go in and the backsplash will go up!

The end is so close in sight! I can't believe the time has come!! It's been 3 VERY LONG weeks without a kitchen! I never want to remodel another kitchen in my life! I miss my sink and really dislike washing dishes in the kids bathtub!

I bought all of the necessary kitchen accessories on Friday. I just need to find a good valance or tier for the windows. I'll probably look for that tomorrow or Tuesday! We also need to get some stainless outlet covers too!

I'm sure I'll be updating tomorrow with some almost finished pics!

Have a great week!

Ahhh, spring!!!

This week has been gorgeous and it's only getting better!! Today it is supposed to be 76!

All of us have been spending a ton of time outside this week!! Tuesday, Chris and I were out shopping and came across a consignment store while going to Rite Aid. There were some little kid bikes outside, so we thought we'd check it out. Jack doesn't have a 2 wheeler, just his Radio Flyer big wheel, so we thought we'd see if they had any little boy bikes! There was one for 10 bucks!! What a steal, we bought it! He. Loves. It! The three of us rode our bikes down to the lake and playground yesterday. Macy was a little sad to hear that we did this while she was at school, but we made up for it!! He really took to the bike well. I remember it taking Macy several months to figure out how the pedals worked! Not Jack! *giggle* He's a daredevil, taking the turns at full force!! He's had a couple of falls, but gets right back up!


Macy and Daddy playing football.


Our magnolia tree is just about to full bloom now! It smells so wonderful and is so pretty!! I wish it would look like that all year round (they are messy!). I also found some Bleeding Hearts peeking and the Spirea is in bloom! Looking forward to May 15th when I can plant more flowers and then mulch! Ahh, I love the smell of fresh mulch!


The countertop is slated to be installed tomorrow! Yay!! I put the first coat of paint on the walls last night, it is looking mighty nice!! If I can pull myself in from outside today, I'll put the last coat on!

I'll leave with a layout. I haven't scrapped much lately due to bronchitis, sinus infection, sheer exhaustion and prepping for my class this Sunday and prep for my next technique class! I managed to squeeze this one in a few weeks ago. It's the kids on their Gator!


Have a great day! I hope it's as beautiful where you are!

Back from the maiden voyage!!

We returned yesterday from the maiden voyage of our pop up camper! Here is a little summary. There is some scary/funny stuff in the middle, grab a drink!

When we arrived on Friday, it started to rain, but it wasn't too bad, just drizzle mostly. We got it all set up easily. We actually went with a couple, Chris works with her and they have a 5th wheel camper, so we knew that if we had any problems, they had our back! Chris forgot the water hose, which they had a spare, so all was well!

The place was gorgeous!! It's a fairly big lake, when we called for reservations, we asked for lakeside but they were already gone. We ended up in a little loop that backed up to state forest lands and we had a nice creek behind us with this cute mallard duck couple that visited every day! We got across the creek on the rocks and explored the forest and climbed on all the rocks there. Gorgeous!

The first night definately tested out our new used camper! It poured and when I say poured, I mean poured, like buckets with thunder and lightening!! I didn't sleep that well the first night, worrying about if it would leak and I had this paranoia that Chris and I would be too heavy for the one bed and it would collapse in the middle of the night! That did not happen, thankfully, but I still worry! LOL

I put the kids on their bed the opposite way, I laid them sideways so they wouldn't roll out. About 4:30am, Chris hears Jack scream and cry! He gets out of the bed and goes to check, Jack is not in the bed!!!!! He comes and tells me and I was just speechless, ran over to look and he was not there. We could hear him though, but he was nowhere in the camper!! We looked at the door, it was still locked! Chris went outside and Jack was laying on the ground in his sleeping bag in a daze! His sleeping bag was soaked along with his head and his jammie pants. He carries him in and I wrap him up and get his pants changed, then collapse the table and set up that bed for him to use. He had no idea what happened and still doesn't recall it, thankfully!

When Jack sleeps, he always pushes himself up into the corner of his bed and against the wall, I really don't know how he does it, it can't be comfortable. When we checked it out on Saturday morning, what we saw happened is that he must've wedged himself up into the corner like he always does and continued to do it so much that he worked loose the heavy duty velcro that wraps around the mattress and the outside of the camper, then that opened up a gap and he fell out!

We can laugh about it and it will be told for generations, I'm sure! It was just scary at the time when Chris said he wasn't in his bed! Luckily, we both aren't the panic type!

So, that was that! Saturday was gorgeous 76 degrees! The lake was so blue! We flew kites and rode our bikes around the entire lake with our friends. Had a nice feast for supper and did the s'mores thing again. It really was great. We didn't even get to swim in the indoor pool, because it was just too nice to be indoors! The place had 5 playgrounds although we only found 2! The only negative was that there seemed to be a lot of trash laying around, which I can't stand litterers! Made me really sad, I just don't understand how people can be so inconsiderate!

We had to pack it in in the rain Sunday morning but when we got home it was dry here so we popped it back up and let it dry off.

We had fun, the kids had a blast and it's really nice camping with friends! We made dinner jointly, had some drinks and just had a great time!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, Crocs are not totally heat proof! We got our campfire so hot Saturday night that the outer left front of my mammoth crocs must've melted a bit. You can't really tell, but I can feel it when I move my feet around!

Here are some pics of Otter Lake! www.otterlake.com



This was the back of our campsite:









On the homefront, the kitchen should hopefully be done next week at this time! We are hoping to be able to take delivery of our new appliances next week! I cannot wait!! I miss the sink the most! I've been washing dishes in the bathtub and it's not fun!!