CJ Challenge - July

Yep, I said July... you see my challenge is June and well, I didn't play yet. :) Why? Because I was too busy playing with the July challenge! Patty sent us 10 random envelopes and a pile of scrap paper and then asked us to make 3 birthday, 3 thank you, and 4 blank cards for her personal stash. It was fun using other peoples paper and coming up with different size cards from the typical 4 1/4 x 5 1/2! Unfortunately when I started to take pictures tonight, my camera died, then Melanie's camera died, so all I got was 2 pictures of cards I used my own paper on! Oh well, I suppose you get the idea!

We're taking off on Wednesday for ND to visit with Dan's family. It's Aunt Kazia and Uncle Bob's 60th wedding anniversary and all the family is getting together to help celebrate! They had 6 children, who knows how many grandchildren, even more great-grandchildren and countless nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, grand-nephews, ....well you get the picture right? There's going to be lots of us! Kazia is making her famous pancakes and polish sausage for breakfast and we will do nothing but eat, eat, eat all weekend! Unfortunately we'll spend more time in the car (1,000 miles each way) then we will in ND, but it's all for a good cause!

CJ Challenge - May

A few weeks ago I completed the "Day in my Life" pages for Patti's scrapbook challenge! I do like the way it turned out, however I thought my content was so blah that it was a huge struggle for me to complete it. She really threw some challenges my way... first off the fact that I had to scrap a day in my life... BORING! Then we had to scrap on a circle page - yikes! And we had to sew - does she not know I can't sew? And lastly we had to add a clock... whew, got that one in a picture! I used the sewing theme of a whip stitch on all my pages to keep them coherent. And I used the same papers throughout so that they matched. Then I just used flowers... a favorite of mine. I really hope that it works in her book and that she liked it. Enjoy!

Did I mention....

I have an honors student? Melanie received an achievement award during the final days of school for a GPA between 3.75 and 4.0. They didn't have their final grades yet, so we didn't know her final GPA. She received a school letter for her achievement. We are so very proud of her for doing so well her freshman year! She makes no big deal out of it and really doesn't seem to care - YET! Someday she will and I hope she can realize that sooner rather than when it's too late! My baby is growing up fast and I don't like it!

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend at a favorite spot - O'Haver Lake. It was a gorgeous weekend with sunshine, warm temps and lots and lots of wind! OK, the wind wasn't my favorite, but we survived anyway! We did what most campers do - relax! We just hung out and relaxed! It was quite enjoyable and we can't wait to try that again!

Dan took Moira's kids fishing - Melanie and I just hung back out of the way! The lake had been stocked earlier that week, so you can imagine the success they had! It didn't even take 5 minutes and they were reeling in trout! In all they caught over 12 fish and kept a total of 7 over 2 days. Now, they were happy to catch the fish, but touching them was quite another story! Moira did all the "dirty" work for her kids while they had all the fun! Dan then taught them how to clean and cook them as well. Of course, the girls just watched!

It was so great to enjoy a campfire once again! That has to be one of my favorite parts of the trip! I'm not big on s'mores - I love all the parts, just not mushed together! But just watching and listening to the fire crackle, feeling the warmth as the air cools and sharing stories are what makes being outdoors fun!

This weekend we're headed off to another favorite - RMNP! No relaxing this weekend; we're planning a good hike on Saturday! Just the 3 of us!

Writing to myself...

I think I've lost the few blog followers that I had because with all those posts last month, I had few comments. And I suppose that's fine since I've not been a very good blog reader/commentator myself lately. I wish I could figure out why my demeanor has changed, but I just can't put a finger on it. And as much as I'd like to see it different, I just can't get there. But I'm going to keep trying.

So what's new? Well, maybe I'll work backwards. This past weekend we painted Melanie's bedroom finally. She's been begging for a long time. She selected aqua and her Dad thinks it's awful! I like it for her and hope she's happy. She calls it one of her summer colors, along with yellow and salmon. The whole project was more than she expected. Taking down (and putting back up) a water bed is much more time consuming than we all remembered! Now we remember why we only do it every 8 years or so!! So she's now ready for summer! (Pictures coming soon!)

About 10 days ago I got a new cell phone - a droid! I wasn't exactly looking for one, but somehow I got hooked into the novelty and I am now enjoying it. It is still way more powerful than I probably need, but as long as I can read the screen, I'll be father into the next century than I was before when my phone only rang! Haven't mastered that touch screen texting quite yet, but I'll get there someday!

Been working on scrapping some old hiking pictures lately. I am really enjoying seeing the progress I'm making at finally finishing a complete book! Well, the book will never be finished as long as I keep climbing mountains, but caught up would be nice too! I hope I can keep on the roll this summer. Maybe if I will be able to feel better about myself. It's worth a shot!

Planned out about 5 camping trips for this summer and a family reunion visit to North Dakota in June. (I know, why oh why ND??) We'd like to take another trip to a beach destination this summer but haven't found the best deal yet. Oh that leads to my scuba diving aspiration. A few weeks ago we stopped at a scuba shop to find out if I could actually do it. I was worried about my vision and being able to see the gauges. Well, I think that was solved, the only hold back now is my heart condition. If I can get the cardiologist to clear me, I should be good to go! And if that happens (appointment in about 3 weeks) then we'll be taking lessons here shortly! I really hope there will be no problems. If I can't, I'll still be happy snorkeling, but you can't see ship wrecks from the surface!!

OK, so before I forget, Patti please forgive me for not shipping my pages to you yet. This weekend got away from me and I didn't finish. I hope you'll understand. I'm so sorry I haven't been as reliable lately. I'm working on it.

On a roll....

Not very fast, but at least it's moving forward! Here is another LO that I completed earlier this week on one of my 14er hikes! This was our summit of Mt. Democrat with my brother back in August, 2008. It was a rather cloudy and cold August day and we had zero views from the summit, but at least we could prove we made it! I thought using monochrome grays would be the best way to depict the mood of the day! And I printed my text in vellum and cut it out in the shape of a cloud... I liked that look! It was a fun hike, but very disappointing for my brother who came 1000 miles and got zippo views! I am pleased with how this came out.

This inspired me to keep working on my LO's. I have 2 more hikes to scrap to complete my book to date! I think it will be awesome to finally have one project completed! So to get started, I cleaned up my desk last night and tonight I'll dig up the remaining pictures that I'll need. For all I know I already have them here in a pile somewhere!

And I have about 10 days to scrap my “Day in My Life” pages for Patti’s album! I kept a log and snapped a few pictures on Monday as I progressed throughout the day. Now to figure out how to scrap it all. This will be somewhat of a new project for me! I hope she isn’t bored to death from my story!

Oh and another thing I managed last night as I was cleaning up – gather cards for the troops. I have a stack of 40 ready to go! Operation Write Home is a great organization and I can’t wait to reach my personal goal of sending them 100 cards this year! I’ll be back later this week with some pictures of my stash!

Challenge

Here is my take on a challenge from Taylor Expressions from last Friday. Inside it says "Sweet Birthday Wishes". I liked this sketch and found it fun to work with and a great way to use up scraps.

Scraps... I am terrified to throw anything away and still have 2 drawers full of them. Many of the papers don't even appeal to me anymore, but I just can't throw them away. I should just let them go but every time I try, I think about the dozens of cards I could make with them! Ugh, is there a 10 step program for this???