It's still here..

All right, I said I loved snow, but I'm not responsible for the continued snow fall in the northwest... It has snowed every day that I have been here..

Which is fine with me, but the locals are getting a little testy.

The air outside has been windy & frigid.. I mean really, really cold..

I have lived in my sweats since I have been here..

The weatherman assures us that it is going to get warmer by the middle of the week. Yesterday I even built a snowman..

It had to be small because it was too cold outside to build a bigger one..

Judy and I have been busy having fun. Yesterday we took her two grandaughters to see "Horton Hears a Who".. cute movie.. laugh out loud fun.
Those of you who are complaining about the price of gas in Arizona..

Up here in northern Idaho it is $3.46 a gallon YIKES..

Judy is working on her class for tomorrow and I'm researching themes and layout for my up-coming classes by looking through books and magazines

& Judys terrific layouts. Coming up with some great ideas..

Have a great day.

Love this quote by Julia Roberts from the movie Steel Magnolias

"I would rather have 30 minutes of "wonderful"

than a lifetime of nothing special".

We have SNOW ! ! ! !

I arrived safely in Spokane on Weds. afternoon, to a beautiful sunny day. Judy picked me up and we then went to my niece's home where we visited with Jamie and her family for the evening. Thursday morning I woke up to a winter wonderland, snow covered everything. About 2 inches and it was so beautiful.. I took pictures of it and was going to put them on my blog this morning, but when I opened my camera, guess what???? not memory card enclosed.. Shoot, I left it in my computer at my house.. Oh well, take my word for it "the snow was beautiful, every trees branches were covered and as we drove down the street it looked like a fairy land.. We ate breakfast at the Rockwood Bakery, a really cute neighborhood deli.. Great food and wonderful atmosphere. We then hit the retail world and shopped, then had lunch at Nordstroms. We decided to go to the movies (surprise huh?) We saw "The Other Boleyn Sister". It was really good. We then met Judy's daughter Jamie at her office and she took us to the bus station for our trip to Judy's town of Moscow, Idaho. Got all snuggled in at Judy's house and had a quiet evening.. Good sleeping here, it is really cold down in my bedroom and I sleep under a down comforter.. It is suppose to snow again tonight.. I'll send pictures tomorrow. We are off for a fun day this 2nd day of my vacation..

Hi Ho,Hi Ho, to Idaho I go.........

I'm almost packed and ready to head to Judy's tomorrow morning. We are excited to have another 2 weeks together. I have so much fun with my best friend.. I fly into Spokane and we spend the day shopping and having fun. Then Thurs. we hit Spokane flying.. shop & lunch.. then we will take the bus to Moscow. It is 1 1/2 hours south east of Spokane. They have been having rain, hail and even snow ... which I love but they all hate.. I'll keep you all updated on our activities up north..

We are spontaneous: as this quote states. . .

Live Nutty.

Just occasionally.

Just one in a while.

And see what happens.

It brightenes up the day.

Leo Buscaglia

Bragging Rites

As the proud grandma of 13 wonderful grandchildren..I need to take a minute and share some of the things some of my grandchildren have been involved in.
Kelly my second oldest grandson received his Eagle Scout Award last Sunday, at a special Court of Honor. He is a sophomore at Pinnacle High School and very involved in running.. cross country and regular track as well as marathons.

Taylor received honors with an essay she submitted in a Multi Regional essay contest.(all 50 states) She took 4th in the competition with her writing. She is a 7th grader and loves softball as well as writing..

Maddy was just honored by being chosen All-State Orchestra. We attended the festival of performance last night and it was wonderful. Maddy was chosen as 2nd chair in the elementary age All State Orchestra. She is in 6th grade and loves music of all kinds and is an avid reader.

Alli received her second infusion last week and it was very successful. They are starting to wean her off of the steroids she has been on for so long; so that in 2 months she will be completely off of them. She has 4 more infusions ( once a month she has one, it takes 8 hours), but all is looking good so far.

Morgan has been going to water PT and is progressing great. She is involved with a pain therapist also and making great strides. She was even walking yesterday without her crutches..great news. She is on track to graduate this May and looking forward to going to Prom.

Just a few notes on these fantastic grandkids I have..

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Wow, if everyone knew what our weather is like this time of year in Arizona.. well let's put it this way.. We are out of room ..so don't move here..

Today I had a one on one class with my friend Cheryl. She wanted tutoring on several programs; like Lasting Impressions "Memory Mixer" & "Colored Impressions. How to pull fonts from Abstract Fonts, and how to download a picture from the Internet.. She also wants to start her own blog and wanted me to show her how to get it going.. She arrived at 10 and we set up our lap tops on the patio..what a beautiful day.. We worked on Memory Mixer for 2 hours..she was amazed at the wonderful things you can do on this program.. what fun she had. She then treated me to lunch at Paradise Bakery in Desert Ridge and then we returned home to work on the other areas. Colored Impressions is such a fun program to work in and create beautiful clip art for all your projects. She has those 2 programs down. We then worked on the other things she was asking about and I think she will be up really late tonight playing on her computer.. What a fun day.. The pictures above are ones I took this morning.. & now the doors & windows are open and a wonderful cool breeze is blowing in.. So peaceful and relaxing on the patio.. Wish you could all join me.. Just call and come over any time.. would love to have you visit.. We can have a session on something you wish to work on.

I'm really here....

This afternoon my sister Judy called and said " hey, up-date your blog, I'm tired of looking at those 3 pictures.. I told her I was waiting until I finished my card samples for my April card classes. Well here they are..whew.. I leave next week for 2 wonderful weeks in the great northwest at Judy's home, so I wanted to have my kits all ready to go before I leave. The classes are April 15th & 16th at Mad Scrappers. I have sent in my list of supplies, so Jessica can send in orders and have all the materials on hand, at the classes.

On Sunday evening, I attended the Eagle Court of Honor for my grandson Kelly. I am still waiting for the pictures, so I can post them on this site. He has grown into such a terrific young man. He and he friend Tanner both received their Eagle awards that evening. they have been friends since they were little, oh it was fun to see the wonderful movie presentation that Steve put together. Since he has his masters in production, we all expected great things and he didn't let us down. It started out like star wars with the words going off in the distance and he had incorporated great music with the pictures.. I now have 2 grandsons who are Eagle scouts and I'm so very proud of them both.

I only worked yesterday at W.S. and then have every day full until I head for Judy's..yeah.......

All About Me for March

Our "All About Me Club" meets again this Wednesday for our monthly get together. We will be working on 2 themes this month.. the word "challenge" ..how we view this word..what challenges we are going through right now or what challenges we have overcome. This page can be created using all pictures or some pictures, one picture or no pictures. The important thing is that we journal our feelings on the word and what it means to us.
The other 2 page layout is taken from a sketch of Becky Higgins called "Oh' the places we go", it features pictures of the places that we go..each day, each month or on a regular basis..

All of the pages we are working on help us to document our lives for future generations. I have so much fun at our monthly gatherings and really look forward to spending the evening with such great ladies.. We share our thoughts and solve the problems of the world..as only a group of women can do.

If you believe in yourself

Anything can happen

Friendship

This morning I arrived early at a special regional conference for church..I wanted to sit in the soft seats and if you arrive later you get the folding chairs.. As I sat there, I noticed an old friend had come in and was setting across the chapel. I motioned for her to come sit by me.. I met Francie & her husband Brent when we moved to Phoenix in 1973.. We were young mothers with busy husbands and did so many things together. Her children were teenagers and mine were grade school age. We had holidays together, picnics and many fun times. Then in 1978 they moved up north and we lost touch. I have run into her several times over the years and we always catch up on each others lives. Today as we sat and talked and remembered it was so fun to think back on the great times we had together. Now that I have moved farther north, we are in the same region for special church meetings and so we will probably run into each other more often. She is now the grandmother of 20 and I'm the grandmother of 13..wow the years did go by fast. What fun it was to sit and talk with her and Brent this morning.. Conference was great the all the speakers were wonderful..A great way to start the day. A long lost friend is a wonderful thing to find..

Autumn Friendship

It is great to have friends when one is young, but indeed it is still

more so when you are getting older. When we are young, friends

are, like everything else, a matter of course. In our later years we

know what it means to have and appreciate them.

Edward Grieg

A day at my computer

After starting to read Stacy Julian's new book "photoFREEDOM", I was inspired to get my photos off my computer and load them on to CD's.. So I started re-organizing them and burning CD's.. I have spent the entire day in my office organizing and burning.. My daughter Kristan and my sister Judy both have set new goals to get their pictures in order.. I decided to join the crowd and get on the bandwagon and get organized. I went through my pictures a year or so ago and gave my children each a box with all the pictures of them in it. I still have family pictures and boxes of pictures of Kent and I to organize. But my computer is bogging down and getting really slow and I didn't want it to crash and still have all my digital and scanned pictures on it.. So I depleted my stack of blank CD's and burned away.. the three of us have ordered the We R Memory Keepers 12x12 - 3 ring classic leather albums with photo sleeves inserts to put our pictures in . With digital cameras we take so many more pictures than in the past and really do need to get it under control.. So I continue to organize..

I like this quote for today's activities:

be constructive

Clear your mind of can't

Samuel Johnson

If it's Thursday it's Tucson

This week has gone by so fast.. I was sitting here this morning and thinking..wow where did the week go? Monday I worked at W.S. and then in the afternoon started sorting thru my paperwork for my taxes.. to get organized and sent off to my most awesome brother-in-law Jim to do for me.. I try to have it very organized so he doesn't have questions . Tuesday morning my son Steve and I attended a session at the Mesa Arizona Temple and then that evening I went to see my grandaughter Taylor in a softball game.. Weds. morning and evening were my card classes at The Mad Scrappers .
Yesterday I traveled to Tucson with Kristan to visit 2 of her stores. The first stop was a new store "Pages in Progress", that opened late fall 2007. ( the pictures in the slide show are "Pages in Progress). It is the most amazing store !!! HUGE..with an enormous crop room (seats 50), a separate die cut room with tons of dies and several die cut machines. A room dedicated to paper and you know I was in "HEAVEN" in that room.. They have a make and take bar and a lounge area for tired scrapbookers or for dad's to watch the game while mom shops. The entire store and the staff were wonderful.. Great addition to the north side of Tucson.
We left the store around 4:00 on our way to Making Memories Unforgettable.. another of my favorite spots in Tucson.. I decided to treat Kristan to dinner at " Claim Jumpers" good food and great atmosphere .. It is right next to Making Memories Unforgettable.
We arrived at M.M.U. around 6 and were so happy to be a part of their special event for the evening. They were having a preview party for all their best customers. It featured all the new merchandise they ordered at CHA so that their clients could place pre-orders of some of the large items and also see all the great things they have coming in soon. Kristan and I had a make n' take from Scenic Route as well as demonstrating the new crushed velvet flocking from Doodle Bug. Kristan had a table set up with all the new items from the companies she represents. They had great food and the store was all decorated with red balloons and red Gerber Daisies.. It was such a fun evening and I love those girls in that store. We headed home about 9:15 and arrived at Kristan's door around 11:30.. Long - fun day, meeting new friends renewing old friendships and seeing new and wonderful things..
Today I get to take Morgan to her Aquatic P.T. then lunch at her request.. She is slowly getting stronger, really likes the P.T. in the pool. Her at home tutor is a high school teacher at a local High School and has her on track to graduate with her class, so things are looking up for her and her family.

Dylan

Last night I had the honor of attending an Eagle Scout Court of Honor for my grandson Dylan. He is my oldest grandson and such a joy in my life. He is my daughter Kristan's son. I hadn't been to an Eagle Scout Court of Honor before and it was very nice. There were 3 boys receiving their Eagle Awards, Dylan, Coy and Eric. Dylan and Coy have been friends since they were about 3 years old & they live close to each other and go to the same school and are involved in all the same activities. Dylan is 16 and a Junior at Shadow Mountain High School. At the awards ceremony they showed a slide presentation of each boy set to music and it was so fun to see all the pictures of Dylan growing up. There were several pictures of Dylan and his grandpa Kent. Kent was also an Eagle Scout. I will be attending another Eagle Scout Court of Honor in the next couple of weeks when Kelly my next oldest grandson receives his Eagle Scout award. Kelly and Dylan are best friends as well as cousins and so many of the pictures of Dylan included Kelly in the activities from thier earliest years together. Their grandpa would be so proud of both of them and all the hard work they put into earning this special award.