Summer rafting with a new friend

I posted a few months ago about our trip to Arkansas/Missouri. While we were there, Erica met a new friend named Cole. By the way, she says she's gonna marry Cole now. Course, this is the third or fourth guy she's announced she'll marry. But I digress...Cole has a tube and they pulled it behind Grandpa's boat a few times while we were there. These are a few of the 70-80 pictures I took of them on the tube (they mostly look the same, so I don't know why I took so many).

What I particularly liked about this tube ride was how Cole was showing off. Several times he'd get on his knees and go with no hands. Check out the picture where Erica tried to be brave and let go of ONE hand...what a hoot! Grandpa drove fast and went in big circles trying to get them to fall off, but they never did. They rode for a LONG time and talked the whole time. I'd love to know what a couple of First Grader's talk about when nobody else is listening...or do I?

Our Poker Star

Jeff and I enjoy watching the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Neither of us are very good at playing, but we like watching it for some reason. Last year, Erica watched a few episodes with us. It wasn't long before she started asking how the game was played...and then if we could play. Now she asks us to play all the time! She still gets confused on her hands, but she plays pretty good for a 6-yr old.

These pictures are from Jan 2010 when a friend of Jeff's came over. Erica wanted to show off that she could play. It was fun to play with more than just three people...All supplies are from the My Scrapbook Nook July kit. I cut the cards from the Cricut...what a perfect journaling block!

Summer Soccer

Erica's favorite sport seems to be soccer...right now. She took the summer off from gymnastics and took soccer in it's place. I was happy with the summer soccer program as they focused on techniques, and the coaches were certified instead of parental volunteers. We went twice a week, but can you believe I only took my camera one day??? So here's the layout with just a few pictures. We also bought pictures, so I'll post those once I get them scrapped.

The field was full of dandelions. I took the main picture with the camera low to the ground. The coach was talking with the players about what part of the foot to use when kicking (although it kinda looks like they're just relaxing). I thought it perspective was cool with the dandelions. Oh, and Erica's nick-name was "The Scoring Machine." She was very aggressive, and with all the energy she has, she was able to run a lot at practice.


These papers are more Sassafras Lass Indie Girl. Sorry for the off-center picture, I couldn't get the layout to scan correctly.

First Day of School...finally

Not only am I finally posting the pictures, but it finally came...the first day of school. Erica woke up on Monday and almost cried. She wanted it to be the first day of school sooooo bad. I fully expected her to wake up with me on Wednesday, but she didn't. She did, however, wake up very easily and was not grumpy at all (some days the mama in her comes out first thing and she's a bear!).

Our tradition has been to drop Jeff off at work and then Erica and I go to the Muffin Man for breakfast. With my new job, I either had to take the day off, or we had to change our tradition cuz I couldn't take two hours off in the morning to take her to school. We decided to make it a family tradition this year and we went to Denny's. These are the only pictures we got, but it's better than nothing, I guess. She wouldn't let me take a picture of her with her black and purple back pack...I think she's starting to get a little teenager in her already.

She's in a combined 2-3 class. I think it will be good for her as she's advanced in math. But we'll need to work with her on her reading (again, that's the mama in her). I was happy to hear the teacher said they'd be doing a lot of reading.

And I was able to get the first day of school layout done...some journaling got cut off at the bottom, it says, "2nd Grade, Aug 18, 2010." Here's the finished layout. A special thank you to the grandparents for being patient with me!!!

Arctic Thunder pix

Well, I looked thru my stash and didn't find any other layouts I could post to keep the blog going...so I went ahead and scrapped a few more pages. And I have a few friends coming over tonight, so I hope to get a few more done. I know family is waiting for school pictures on Erica's first day (why break the slacker streak now, right...sorry!). I promise I'll get to uploading them soon. I might even get them scrapped tonight.

This is a 2-pg spread of our adventures at Arctic Thunder. I was really excited to go because the Blue Angels were on the schedule. My favorite is Fat Albert. If you have never seen Fat Albert in person, you need to. They load him up with JATO thingies (Jet Assisted Take Off). When he takes off he makes a REALLY loud noise and goes FAST at a very large angle. It's very impressive for a C-130. The thing that bummed me out this year was he didn't do the JATO thing. It was still cool to watch him take off at a high angle, but it wasn't quite the same. I'm not sure if he did it on Sunday, but he didn't on Saturday.

True to Air Force Air Shows, there were lots of planes and other military vehicles. Elmendorf is right next to the Army's Ft Richardson. So Erica had the chance to go into a few really neat Army vehicles with big guns. She had no clue what she was going in, but she got a kick out of it. They also did a really neat Joint Forces demonstration with pyrotechnics that looked like guns and bombs were going off. Erica thought that was the neatest thing.

So here's the layout...it uses Pink Paislee's Starlight collection. They layout is my own, not a lift this time (shocker, I know). I kinda wish I hadn't used so many pix so the die cut circle would show up more, but oh, well...

Moe fishing pictures...sort of

I just realized I never posted this layout. I did this last month when I did the Best Buds layout (for the August/July kits). I'm gonna look and see what others I haven't posted...that will keep me from being a slacker at least for the next week...hee, hee.

Erica's class harvested eggs in the Fall last year. The eggs hatched (do fish eggs hatch? I guess...) in a tank in the school and grew into fry. Their last field trip of the year was to release the salmon. I was lucky enough to be able to join them. Each student was able to release several fry. What a hoot. After they released them, we had a nature scavenger hunt and then a picnic before we returned to the school.

The papers are Sassafras Lass...I just love those blues and greens!

Fishin is the Mission

Is that title hilarious or what? I got a call from Erica while I was at work on Friday. She was talking so fast I couldn't understand her...it took me three times asking her to slow down before I realized what she was saying. Here's the background (and the journaling on the page):

I went on a business trip to Houston, TX the first week in Aug. Jeff's parents were in town. They went fishing a few times while I was gone. I got an email from Jeff on Monday saying Erica caught her first salmon. I was soooo proud. I asked if he got pictures and he said no. WHAT?!? How dare he!!! I chastised him a bit and he said he'd try better the next time. The next day I got another email that Erica caught two more salmon...this time she apparently hooked them both herself. Again I asked about pictures. Jeff said between a fish, a rod, sticky mud, and a 6-yr old, he couldn't manage a camera. UGH!!! I asked Erica if she'd draw a picture for me (you know how us scrappers are...we gotta have *something* right?). She said she only had the fish for a short time and daddy threw it back. Bummer...I knew we'd have to go again when I got home. We tried on Wed, but it was a big tide differential. Jeff thought we'd have time after work, but almost as soon as we got there, we were pushed off cuz the water came in so fast. Friday, would hopefully be better. And it was...except for the rain. When you look at the pictures, you probably won't be able to tell, but they were only one of maybe SIX people at the creek. Erica didn't care, she was excited to fish. She's really good flipping the hook, too. Unfortunately all they caught was one yucky Chum Salmon...but it was a successful day. Well, except for the flat tire we got on the way home. UGH! I almost took pictures of that (ha, the scrapper in me), but decided not to...a couple will make or break their relationship while changing a flat tire. I'm happy to say Jeff and I are still together!!!

And here's the Fishin is the Mission page. The layout is lifted from a magazine (I forget which one, but it wasn't Scrapbook Trends). The papers and embellies are Pink Paislee again.

Fixed the blog...man am I slacking

OK, so how many of my last posts were about me slacking? UGH!!! It has been THREE WEEKS since I last posted. Anyone in Alaska gets this: Summers are so short we have to take full advantage of them. But, I can't say that's the case cuz our summer has been awful this year (not sure we're really having a summer). My excuse (lame as it is) is that I ended my last job, started a new one, had visitors, went to Houston TX for training, and generally am a scheduling wreck (shhh...don't tell my new work that cuz I schedule for a living).

I am finally trying to get my life back into a routine. I even had a chance to fix my blog and do a little scrapping tonight. Did you notice the weird "image has been deleted or moved" thing in the middle of my blog? I have no clue how long it's been there, but I fixed it tonight. I almost selected a new blog design, but I like this one too much, so you're stuck with it.

Well, last month's kit was actually supposed to be the August kit. I ordered Pink Paislee for the July kit and some stickers were back ordered, so I swapped Aug and Jul. This layout is for the July-August kit. The layout is a sketch from Becky Fleck's Page Maps...I love her sketches!!! I think I posted a few of these pictures from the July 4th fun at the Park Strip, but here's the finished layout.